I go to the kitchen and find the pills. Sleeping pills I stored up for all those nights when Samson threatened to come. Their whiteness as pure as the underside of a sea gull’s belly, pills to give me wings, to make me fly. I shake the capsules, one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty into the wooden mortar.
Unbidden, the memory of the last Kandyan noble woman comes. She who with her torn ears gushing down onto her sari blouse crushed her children’s heads in a mortar like this one. With a pestle that she had to raise and slam down onto their skulls. Their dulled eyes watched her, their broken mouths did not protest. What had fractured in her, then? Did some crack in her soul reach down through the ages, through the bloodlines of those born in that place, and touch me here now?
I go into her old bedroom and get her sippy cup, come back to the kitchen and fill it with apple juice. I reach for my own water bottle, unscrew the lid, pour in juice. I upturn the mortar into the golden liquid. Two chalices. One for the queen, one for the child. Then I go to the bathroom, wash my face. My eyes in the mirror are clear, are focused. I change into jeans and a sweater; I brush my hair. Purpose is important. It’s the only way I will save her.
There are a thousand demons in the room. I can feel their wings brush my skin, their shadows settling in my hair. They are shrieking in my ear, wrapping themselves in my skin. I put the chalices with their golden liquid in my bag, wrap myself in my big black coat, and walk out into a dawn just lit in gold.
*
I knock until the old couple, sleep-faced and in their pajamas, open the door. Daniel’s mom say, “Oh, hi. We didn’t expect you so early. Daniel came in late last night. Shall I wake him?”
I say, “Oh no. I just wanted to get Bodhi. We’re making breakfast at my place. Pancakes.” I’m smiling hard so they don’t see the great gashed tear in me.
The old man says, “But it’s just dawn. Poor child. She’s fast asleep. Maybe it’s better if you get her in a few hours.”
“No, I promised. She’ll be sad if I’m not there when she wakes up.” I push gently past him. I walk through the house and into the room, bend over to kiss her, and she wakes, wraps her arms and legs around me, and says, “Mama?”
“We have to go, okay?”
She nods, reaches down to grasp her Pooh blanket.
The old lady, standing in the door, breaks in. “Are you sure everything is fine?”
“Yes. Everything is completely all right. We just have to go.”
Her heavy little body is in my arms. She is barefoot and in her pink fleece pajamas. I push past their worried faces, out the door, down the stairs into the honeyed light. I walk to the car and strap her tight into the car seat, cover her in the blanket, the yellow bear smiling at me. I tuck the corners in around her knees. Her eyes rake my face, taking in everything, and she knows she’s safe now. I am taking her away from people who could hurt her. Because you never know who could hurt a little girl. Sometimes it’s the ones you trust most. She pulls on a corner of the blanket, feels it between her finger pads, sucks it into her mouth. I say, “We’re going for a ride, okay?” I kiss her temple, inhale her sweet scent. I get into the front seat, start the car, and drive fast across the Bay Bridge; it’s too early for traffic. I’m heading toward the city.
Somewhere in the maze of the city she asks, “Daddy?”
It might have been different if she hadn’t said this word. We might have driven home, the long way perhaps, the scenic way past the Bay. We might have turned around and gone back home. I might have carried her back into the house, put her in her bed. We might have made our way through the world.
But the thing is, she said this word. And it opened a rip in me, some hidden wound that was already hemorrhaging blood. It killed me, this word. It spoke of trust and betrayal. She was asking for her daddy. I was picturing another father and what had been done to me. Her daddy would take her from me. He would call in the evening and say he was filing. He would steal himself out of my life; he would steal her away, forever out of my reach. And she would be a little girl in the world with no one to protect her. Just as I had once been.
I reach into my bag and then back, say, “Here, baby, apple juice.” My shaking fingers hand her the sippy cup. She grasps it with both hands like a squirrel. She doesn’t ask about her daddy again. Maybe she is used to disappointment already. Maybe she’s too small yet to know that love can kill.
I am calm. The pace of the world is slowed, the traffic is easy. A certain grace fills the air. I unscrew my water bottle, raise it to my lips, and then set it down untouched in the cup holder. I will do this awake. Aware. The morning bursts through the sky with ribbons of pink, catching the world on fire. Sunlight slants across the window, strokes my face like a lover’s hand. On the other side of the sky, a bitten moon lingers. I roll the window down as we stop at a light; the birds have started their symphony.
She says, “Mama,” and tries to hand me the sippy cup.
“What? How’s that, my love? It’s just your juice.”