My mother, that sweet woman who used to take such pride in her appearance―who would painstakingly iron our clothes so we wouldn’t look messy, is sitting in the middle of Mr. Toleman’s yard naked, her legs tucked beneath her as she prays.
If Mr. Toleman wasn’t the man he is, he could have hurt her. He could have taken advantage of her. Jesus, anyone could have harmed her.
My eyes sting, but I refuse to break down. “Where are her clothes?” I ask, well aware of the horrible tremble to my voice.
“She buried them in the snow. I tried to keep her covered with these blankets,” he says, pointing to the pile strewn across the ground. But she keeps ripping them off.” He pauses, as if afraid to say what he says next. “Sol, from what I can figure, your mama thinks she’s at a funeral.”
A gust of wind sweeps along the row of connecting yards. It’s fucking January and my mother is kneeling naked against the frozen earth. Her lips are blue―blue. If it weren’t for Mr. Toleman trying to keep her warm, she’d already have hypothermia.
“Please call an ambulance,” I say, hurrying to gather the blankets.
No sooner do I cover her than she yanks the blankets from her body. I’m vaguely aware of Mr. Toleman limping into is kitchen and Se?ora Estefan huddling into her gray wool coat beside me. Right now my attention is on my mother as I wrestle with how best to reach her.
“Mami? Mami, can you hear me?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer, not that I really expected her to, not given her fragile state. I take a few breaths, trying to keep calm. Mr. Toleman and Se?ora Estefan are old school. They don’t like to cause a fuss, and prefer to keep family matters quiet. They mean well and, I don’t know, maybe called me first thinking I could control or somehow fix her. They don’t understand that what she needs is medical treatment, and a daughter who can get her act together enough to help her.
My mother is on anti-psychotic meds that my father and I force her to take. I’m serious, we literally have to open her mouth and pour them down her throat. She hates them because they dull her senses, putting her in a fog and making her feel “dopey.”
If she’s acting this way, she’s had some kind of breakdown, the meds aren’t working, or she’s figured out a way to get them out of her system. I’m leaning toward the latter, but that won’t help her now. Again, I wrap the blankets around her shoulders, and again she pulls them off.
I kneel in front of her. “Mami?” I say. “Mami, it’s me. Sol.”
Her lips move fast, muttering the Lord’s Prayer, her eyes rammed tight enough to deepen every wrinkle along her beautiful face.
“Mami?” I say again. “Mami, please open your eyes. I need to see your pretty eyes, okay?”
Like I did with Zorina, the young woman at the counseling center who played the invisible cello, I gently touch my mother’s shoulder. “Mami?”
Tears drip down her face, “You weren’t supposed to die, Laurita,” she tells me in Spanish. “You weren’t supposed to leave me.”
I bow my head, briefly. She thinks I’m her sister, the one who killed herself. “It’s me, Sol. Your daughter. Please open your eyes.”
I’m sure she won’t when she resumes he prayer, but then something shifts in her tight expression. Very slowly she opens her eyes. “Oi!” she says when she sees me.
Terror quickly replaces her sadness, and I realize we’re both in trouble. I speak fast, doing my best to keep my voice soft. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“You’re dead,” she tells me.
Se?ora Estefan hitches her breath. Good for her, I can’t even breathe. “Mami,” I say. “Laurita died a long time ago. I’m Sol, you’re little girl.”
Her stare grows cold. “You’re a liar. I don’t have a child.”
Her words shouldn’t hurt me. After all, they’re coming from a woman who’s very sick. I know this, but that doesn’t stop my pain. “Mami, I’m Sol. You’re daughter.”
As I watch, my mother’s expression crumbles. “You’re dead,” she says again.
She lifts her fists, bringing them down like hammers against my shoulders. The movement is so fast, I barely catch it. Agony shoots across my chest as I go down with my mother on top of me. Her fingers grip the lapels of my red coat, using them to shake me hard. “Why did you leave me, Laurita? Why did you leave me?” she screams.
I clutch her arms, digging my nails into her skin. “Mami, stop. Mami, listen to me―you have to listen to me.”
I’m not sure if she hears me, not above Se?ora Estefan’s screams, not over Mr. Toleman’s frantic yells, and not with the encroaching sirens blasting down the row of homes.
My mother isn’t well. My mother is very sick. But I have to make her better.
.
CHAPTER 4
Finn