Landed Wings

chapter 12: REMEMBER



MOCHA

I feel like washing the sweetness I just had to spew from my mouth. I can’t sleep. Ash is different than I thought she’d be - I’m not immune to her. Tonight, my mother also creeps into my thoughts, unwanted yet unwilling to leave…

Mocha’s mother runs towards him in the park, joy highlighting her face. Before Mocha knew better, he thought his mommy was an angel, an angel with a soft-hard voice, and angel who sometimes threw things at their walls, who sometimes screamed in frustration, who sometimes cried quietly in her room, but Mocha could still hear. Yet, his mommy-angel always was nice to him, she never got mad, she blew on his stomach to make him laugh, gave him ice cream when he was ill, and always whispered that it was their little secret. Even at three, Mocha knows there is no one else to keep the secret from. Mocha never knew about Daddies, never knew you were supposed to have one. His mommy never mentioned one. And even if he had known, he loved his mommy so much he wouldn’t think there’d be any left over to share with a Daddy. Mocha is very smart for his age. Very very smart his mommy said. That’s why he had to stay inside all the time, his mommy said. Because if he didn’t, the people outside would come to steal his smartness. And they would take him away from mommy. Well, this scared him so much, he never even thought about going outside. But he did look. He looked all the time. Outside was dusty and brown and young Mocha decided he liked Inside better anyway. But one day, mommy didn’t come back from Outside. Mocha put himself to bed. He brushed his teeth, his little feet stepping up the ladder mommy had brought him. He used the same ladder to take the sweetbread down from the top of the cabinet. Mommy had caught him one time, and Mocha stood very still, thinking maybe she might not see him. Mommy saw him, but she said “Mocha, I don’t know where you are Mocha, but I’m turning a blind eye.” Mocha didn’t know what that meant. He just knew that he still got the sweetbread and didn’t get in trouble. He never got in trouble. Little Mocha put the sweetbread into the toaster with pudgy little hands and sat on the counter. When they popped, he clumsily ripped a piece of paper towel off of the roll and got the sweetbread so he wouldn’t get burned by them. Then mommy came over and took a bite out of the still-hot sweetbread and winked at him. Mocha grinned and bit off the same place mommy had. He didn’t mind. She was Mommy. The day mommy didn’t come back, little Mocha went into her bed, which he hadn’t slept in for a while because he was a big boy now, four years old, and put his head on her pillow. It smelled like mommy, and if he closed his eyes, he imagined mommy’s warm hand trailing the blanket up his back as she tucked him into bed, her warm lips kissing his forehead softly. With happy thoughts of his mommy in his head, Mocha closed his eyes and fell asleep. When sweet little Mocha woke up the next day, mommy was still gone. Mocha was four now. He had to protect Mommy. He took a little deep breath, stepped up to the door and undid the locks with a special device mommy had bought him to use since he was so short. It was only for emergencies. But mommy was gone, so it was an emergency. He stepped outside and felt what he thought was air hit his face. It smelled funny, and soon little Mocha was collapsed on the porch floor of the empty house. He was scooped up into someone’s rough and hairy arms, but he didn’t feel it. The next thing he felt was the cold linoleum floor against his bare feet. He wondered why he had no shoes on, mommy always said to keep your shoes on during the day so your feet wouldn’t get cold. He shivered, and rubbed his eyes with those chubby hands, looking through a window in front of him. But it didn’t show outside…it showed Mommy lying chained to a wall, blood running down her temple onto the same linoleum floor beneath Mocha’s feet…

No…

I rub my hands on my head, as if I could scrape the memories away. I leap up and grab the pillow I tried to mold around my head not long ago. The pillow is absorbing the brunt of my frustration, and when I am done, it is nothing but an empty sack, with cotton fluff spilling limply out the side. I walk over to the other side of my bed and pick up the phone there. I dial a number I know better than the lines in my palm. Ginger picks up on the fifth ring. I guess she can’t sleep either.

GINGER

The pillow beneath my head is heavy. Heavy with memories I can’t bury. Memories that have to find a home. Memories that have imprinted themselves on my pillow in the shape of my tossing head, so that now it is impossible for me to lay down without remembering them. The blanket is halfway down my body. It’s too hot today. I have so much to do. So much to plan, to organize, to fix. And now that Cocoa’s daughter is here, there is just more for me to do. I’m not complaining. I knew what I was getting into. I just wish sometimes…but no point in wishing for what I can’t change. Wishing is for those looking for a way to hide complaints behind a seemingly innocent curtain. The phone beside my bed rings and I have a one second thought of Who could possibly before I start to count rings. Discipline is important. I only pick up on the fifth ring. It’s Mocha.

“Ginger?”

“What is it? Why are you calling me this late at night?”

There is no sound on the other end except for quiet

breathing. Perhaps I am a bit more impatient than I should be. But he’s known me long enough. He should know what to expect from me.

“I just…I had another memory tonight. And I can’t sleep.

Sorry if I woke you.”

At the end, he sounds a little bitter. He knows he didn’t wake me.

“You called me so I can, what? Make it better? Tell you

everything will be alright in the morning? It won’t be – or would you prefer I lie? ”

“How can you say that? What’s happened to you?”

He doesn’t understand that the time for coddling was over a long time ago. Brusqueness is the only way to accomplish anything.

“I can’t always comfort you Mocha. And you have to stop

expecting me to, because I won’t do it. Your demons are your demons. They were never mine, and never will be. I thought I taught you that. People are depending on you, lives are at stake. If you always need someone else to defeat them, how could you ever be strong enough to be alone?”

Again, there is silence. I am not regretful. It needed to be said.

“I understand.”

I nod in satisfaction at the tone of his voice. I can hear his

resolve. The vulnerable boy is gone, and the Mocha I rely on to get things done is back.

“Goodnight – Ginger.”

He hangs up and I stare at the phone. The bitterness had come back, in full force. I put the phone back on its hook and give another memory to my pillow.