“Next month?” I don’t mean to sound so shocked, but who only talks to their mom once a month?
“Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you tell your child you don’t want to be a mom anymore and drop her off at her grandparents’ house.”
Sam can tell I’m thinking awful things.
She says, “It’s better for me here. My mom really can’t handle being a mother.” She tucks her feet under herself.
Instead of studying, we talk about our fathers: hers lives in Eugene and is married, with a son. We talk about Sam’s older brother, how he’s in the army and how she misses him and prays for him every night. We talk about how I don’t have any siblings but have always wanted one.
Sam’s cat is at the door, begging to come in. She opens the door. “Come in, Misty. Come on.” Sam picks Misty up, running her fingers through her body of black fur. “So, tell me, how do you survive at St. Francis?” Misty fidgets in Sam’s arms, so Sam lets her down. “Everyone is so—I don’t know, not stuck-up. People are actually mostly nice there, but there’s this, this . . . I don’t know. I mean, my other school barely had any electives. St. Francis has a cooking class, a computer game design class, and a club for ballroom dancing. It’s kind of, I don’t know, weird. I’m not used to—”
“Having so many options?” I ask.
“Yeah. I was telling my brother how I could have taken Chinese or German but that I decided to stick with Spanish, and he couldn’t believe it.” Sam plays with her hair, gathering it all to one side and stroking it, then twisting it up in a sloppy bun. It falls out immediately, and she does it again. She tells me how her brother had it so much worse than she did because he had to be the parent. “When I tell him about school—or even how our grandpa and grandma took me in, he sounds—I don’t know. Happy for me but also, sad. Maybe jealous.”
Misty purrs and stretches her body. She looks at me but doesn’t come close, stares for a long time, yawns, and then walks away. Sam keeps talking, yawning, too. “My brother was just so-so in school. I don’t even think my mom knew about St. Francis, but even if she did, he probably wouldn’t have gotten in,” she tells me. “Not that he’s not smart.” Sam can’t stop messing with her hair. “It’s so funny, because sometimes you wouldn’t even think we came from the same family. I don’t know how it is that my life is so different from his.” Sam stops talking, stops playing with her hair. “Sometimes I feel bad, you know?” Sam sighs. “Sorry, I’m rambling. I’m not making any sense.”
“Yes, you are. I get it. I mean, not exactly, but I know what it’s like to feel kind of guilty for being the one to get what others don’t have access to.” I am thinking about Lee Lee when I say this. “When I first started going to St. Francis, my friends would ask me to tell them what St. Francis was like. I told them about all the sports teams we have. They couldn’t believe we have a swim and lacrosse team, golf, volleyball, and soccer teams, track and field. They looked like they were in awe. But sometimes there was sadness in their eyes,” I tell Sam. “There’s also this pride they have, so I kind of feel like I can’t let them down. And sometimes it’s just all too much. So, yeah, I get feeling bad.”
Sam leans forward. “But then again I feel bad for feeling bad, if that makes any sense,” she says. “It’s kind of not fair for us to feel guilty for getting what we deserve. We work hard.”
It takes a minute for Sam’s words to sink in.
I have never thought about my deserving the good things that have happened in my life. Maybe because I know so many people who work hard but still don’t get the things they deserve, sometimes not even the things they need.
Sam picks the flash cards up and skims through them. “It’s weird, huh?”
“What?”
“Being stuck in the middle. Like, sometimes I hold back at school, you know? Like I don’t ever join in on those what-are-you-doing-this-weekend? conversations, because I know nothing I will say can compare to the weekend excursions those girls at St. Francis go on,” Sam says. “But I also don’t talk much about what I do at school with my family or with my friends who don’t go to St. Francis.”
Misty goes to the door and scratches it. Sam gets up and opens the door to let her out. “God, Jade. I don’t know how you’ve done this for two years,” she says.
“I don’t either, but now that I have you, maybe these next two years won’t be so bad.”
13
hija
daughter
Woman to Woman has one monthly meeting where we all gather together, and in between those meetings we have one-on-one outings with our mentors. Last Friday, Maxine was supposed to take me out for dinner, but at the last minute she canceled. “Something came up,” she said. And I couldn’t help but wonder if that something was Jon. But today she’s making it up, I guess. We’re going out to celebrate my birthday.
Mom slugs her way into the kitchen, yawning her sleep away. “Morning,” she says.
“Good morning.” I hand Mom her favorite mug, the one Dad gave her a long time ago, one of those Valentine’s Day mugs full of chocolates. No corny hearts on it, but it is red. All this time, she still has it. No one drinks from it but her. “I made coffee,” I say.
“Thanks.” Mom pours her morning wake-me-up. “You’re dressed early for a Sunday,” she says. “I didn’t see anything on the calendar.”
“Oh, it’s a last-minute thing. Maxine called and asked if I wanted to do brunch with her to celebrate my birthday.”
“Do brunch? You mean go to brunch?” Mom laughs. “How does one do brunch?” Mom pours milk into her mug, then opens a packet of sweetener and sprinkles it in. She stirs. “That woman has you talking like her already, huh?”
“Mom—”
“I haven’t even met this girl, and she’s taking you out?” Mom sips her coffee and then puts two slices of bread into the toaster.
“It’s for my birthday,” I say.
“Your birthday isn’t until next weekend.”