On Christmas night, I found peace in my mother’s rendition of a Jody Watley song. Only inches from the speakers, Mama sat cross-legged on the living room floor in a puffy red down coat and green winter cap. Swimming in sound, she sang along to feisty lyrics about a no-good man. I rested upright, cocooned in wool blankets on the dingy cream couch behind her. Our two-bedroom apartment on Florence Avenue was without heat and electricity, but Mama masterminded a way to get power by snaking an extension cord through a loose floorboard in the living room that led to the landlord’s workspace below. Her boombox sat on the floor and was connected to that extension cord. The width of her stereo measured the length of my ten-year-old outstretched arms. As Mama sang into the fragile mesh of the speakers, nodding her head to the beat, I was relieved. It was the first time in weeks I’d seen her driven, motivated, determined, with a plan.
The last time was two months back, the day before Halloween. Mama’s friend, Ida, drove us to the police station to post bail for Ronnie, my little sister’s father. He had stolen a TV and VCR from his aunt and needed $500 to make bail. Mama’s paycheck wouldn’t fully cover it, but she had a few hundred in food stamps that would make up for the rest.
I twisted my lips to hold back the cuss words I was thinking as I sat across from Mama at the kitchen table counting our grocery money.
She glanced at me. “There’s food in the fridge,” she said. “It’s not like we’ll starve.”
Then she swapped our food stamps for cash and headed to the station with me and Tyesha in Ida’s back seat. My sister’s head rested in my lap as I tried to make out what Mama and her best friend were saying. They spoke in whispers below The Clark Sisters cassette tape that continually sound-tracked Ida’s Toyota. The singers praised Jesus for bringing the sunshine, but I could tell Ida was grim.
When Mama exited the car, Ida shook her head and then looked at me in the rearview mirror. Her large brown eyes dominated the narrow piece of glass after the track stopped.
“Damn shame yo’ mama love a dope fiend. Don’t you grow up to be no fool.” Ida closed her eyes, and tears spilled out. “I’m sorry, Tierra.”
The sound of a church organ filled the dense space, thawing my anger into something warm, soft, and messy.
I was sorry too, but mostly for Mama. It seemed like she wasn’t making sense of things. If she would’ve reflected on just that year alone, maybe she wouldn’t have sacrificed our food stamps: On New Year’s Day, Ronnie ran off with nearly $20 in change we saved in a pickle jar. Right after Valentine’s Day, Ronnie stole a glass chess set that Mama won as a raffle prize. Near Easter, Ronnie found the rent money hidden in a dirty sock under my mattress. During summer break, Ronnie accused someone of sneaking into our backyard and stealing my powder blue bicycle (he didn’t think it was worth filing a police report). And right around Labor Day, Ronnie left again with our Black & Decker iron with the automatic shut-off.
“Who would buy an iron from a man on the street?” I asked Mama.
“Someone who don’t wanna pay full price,” she said.
“Oh,” I replied, and thought about the mother who was using our iron to stiffen the collars of her husband’s work shirts.
The biggest job Ronnie had was remaining clean. Before he got locked up for stealing his aunt’s TV and VCR, he had been sober for three weeks. We put up cardstock cut-outs of black cats and white ghosts, watched reruns of Svengoolie, and snacked on candy corn and peanuts throughout October. After hours, Whitney Houston and Luther Vandross tracks blared from Mama’s bedroom. The seductive sounds emanated from the stereo that Mama padlocked with a metal chain to the radiator in their room, just in case. The volume was always at its max, and I relied on the tremors from the steady bass to rock me to sleep.
But on October 29th, Mama woke up late and realized the $50 bill she kept in Book S of our World Book Encyclopedia set was gone, along with Ronnie.
“He must’ve found it when Tyesha asked him that question about the sun,” I remembered aloud.
Mama responded, “What a great fuckin’ time for him to get curious!” Then she left out like she had a goal in mind.
She came back later that night and sat on the couch, her right leg shaking, pupils darting back and forth. Ronnie’s mother told Mama he was in jail. Without offering her a dime, Ms. Taylor asked, “So what you gon’ do?” At least that’s what Mama told Ida. And to that, Ida said, “Leave his sorry ass in there.”
“How can a mother leave her own son in jail?” Mama exclaimed.
But after Mama posted bail for Ronnie with our grocery money, he got up on Halloween morning and left. Mama forgot to take us trick-or-treating that evening. Instead she sat on the front porch, shooing away every child with their hands out.
With Ronnie, Mama was always loving or waiting. They met when I was five, and one of my earliest memories is Mama standing behind our front door deciding which way to behave. Ronnie had returned from one of his dope binges in the middle of the night. Our neighbors across the street were celebrating someone’s birthday in their front yard. One of Mama’s favorite songs, “Love and Happiness,” played as Ronnie beat on the front door. His knocks nearly matched the beat of the drum.
“Jean! Jean! Betty Jean, please open the door. I’m sorry, Betty Jean. Just let me come in so we can talk!”
Music from across the street smoked through the ragged screens of our lifted windows and the uncaulked baseboards of our front room walls. Al Green’s lyrical preaching became punctuated by what seemed like a female gospel choir.
When Mama looked behind her, she saw me, ambled my way, placed her hand on the crown of my head, and smiled with tears in her eyes. “Everything’s okay.”
The old soul song continued to play. Al Green moaned in the background. The knocking stopped for a while, and I wanted to believe her. Then I looked up and met Ronnie’s gaze through the open blinds. Mama turned me around, massaged my shoulders, and directed me back to my room. There, I got on my knees and prayed for Ronnie to disappear, prayers punctuated with rhythmic drum beats, thunderous knocking, and a hope for a new song that would harden Mama’s heart.
The next morning, I awoke to Mama singing “Love and Happiness” in the kitchen. Ronnie sat smiling behind a stack of pancakes. Sweat beaded from his sandy-colored skin, and his gray eyes weren’t glaring anymore. Instead, they were glazed over as he watched Mama’s behind sashay back and forth preparing breakfast.
A year later, Tyesha was born, and Ronnie didn’t beat on the door anymore because he had the key.
By Tyesha’s first birthday, I could predict Ronnie’s conduct. He could abstain for about a month. After that, he’d need a break from being the man we wanted him to be. When sober, Ronnie passed for a father. He’d have a meal waiting after I got home from school, either sweet, soupy oatmeal or chunky, cheesy grits.
Before placing the bowl on the table, he’d apologize, “I’m sorry, Tierra. Only thing my mama taught me how to fix is breakfast.”
As my younger sister got older, we’d eat together while Ronnie quizzed us on Black History facts: “Who invented the street light?” “Who performed the first successful open-heart surgery?” Then Mama would come home from her shift at the canning factory, and Ronnie would lie with her in bed. There was always some melody that seeped out through the clearance of their bedroom door, filling the other spaces of our apartment with either devotion or desperation. Then, inevitably, Ronnie would leave, either with some object from our home or empty-handed with my mother’s faith. But he always returned, sometimes to Mama’s fury, most of the time to Mama’s mercy.
Even my heart would soften when Ronnie got down on his knees on our front porch sweating and screaming, “I love y’all, Betty Jean! Tyesha! Tierra! I’m sorry. I just need help. Please.” I knew what it was like to need help, so I felt for Ronnie. But I wanted Mama’s attention too. I just couldn’t sense whose needs Mama should take more seriously. So I made the decision for her by walking away from the front door, resigned to the fact that Ronnie and Mama’s bedroom would be filled with love songs again, and at least the familiar bass could lull me to sleep.
But after Ronnie ran off that Halloween, he still hadn’t returned, and when he left, the music from Mama’s bedroom left with him. Our apartment went silent when the power company disconnected the energy. Then, Peoples Gas shut off the heat shortly after. Although it was a warmer Chicago autumn than others, the temperature drastically dropped mid-November. Feeling our way around a cold house, we worked on adjusting to a new normal, learning where and when we could use candles and the most ideal spots for working by sunlight.
Unlike when Ronnie was around, Mama was more aware of what went on in the house. Music no longer saturated our space, so she tensed and complained when doors shut too hard or toilet seats were haphazardly handled. And her hyper vigilance kept me on edge, so when a neighbor was careless enough to blast music that penetrated our home, I relaxed as the smooth sounds medicated my dis-ease.
After a month of no Ronnie, Mama lay wrapped in quilts on the couch, staring at the ceiling. At that time, the microwave was plugged into the extension cord that went into the landlord’s workspace, and we boiled water in glass bowls and cups in order to wash up and brush our teeth. Sometimes a tear would slide down the side of Mama’s face. She’d wipe it up quick when she caught me looking, then order me to get her Bible or her Cosmopolitan magazine. I’d hurriedly oblige, praying she’d find something in it to latch on to, something to buoy her in the space that Ronnie left behind. I knew at those times she thought about him and where he was and why he hadn’t come home this time. I knew because I eavesdropped on her conversation with Ida one day. Reading by the streetlight streaming in through the front room window, I glanced at Mama from time to time as she held the handset and coiled the cord around her finger.
Her speech shot rapidly into the receiver. “Well, if he ain’t dead or in jail, where else could he be?”
She listened to Ida’s response while holding her breath. Then let out, “Shit, him leave me? Doubt it. That motherfucka’ wish someone else would put up with his shit.”
She said it so knowingly I would have been convinced, but afterward she leaned back on the couch with her mouth open, the same way I did when watching animals mate on TV.
December began, and Mama’s tears dried. Her long face was replaced with a scowl. The lines in her forehead grew deeper, and she was short with Tyesha and me. She had lost weight, but walked heavily while preparing our bowls of cereal in the morning and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches at night. She slapped greasy beige cream so hard on white bread that it tore, and when Tyesha and I argued, she’d exclaim, “Come on now, y’all. Stop talking. Shit. I got a headache.”
At times, her eyes would stare off into a corner of a room, and after a while she’d shake her head and sigh, “That motherfucka.”
At night, I’d sing softly with the covers over my head, so as not to wake Tyesha. I’d drown out thoughts of Mama’s shudders, tears, and cussing with songs I heard from cars passing by. I got good at memorizing the lyrics to Brandy’s “I Wanna Be Down.” The singing abated the darkness of what was happening to Mama.
But Tyesha brought a question to light one night at the kitchen table.
We were dressed in hats and gloves and coats. The exterior lighting from other people’s places broke the black in the room and reflected off the soup-filled stock pot Ida dropped off moments before. Mama’s and Tyesha’s faces were indiscernible, but I could make out eyes and voices.
Tyesha asked, “Mama, when Daddy comin’ home?”
I imagined my mother balling up her lips, like she did right before she excavated a cuss word. With her eyes closed, she sucked in and blew out a breath. Then, she opened her eyes and they met Tyesha’s. “I don’t know. All I know is I’m a couple paychecks away from getting us heat.”
“You gon’ let Daddy in when he come back?” Tyesha’s voice was filled with just as much curiosity as before.
I held my breath, waiting for Mama’s reply.
There was a buffer of silence. Then, through the darkness, I noticed Mama’s teeth. She started laughing, and then her hands covered her mouth to stifle the sound. I began chuckling, too, to prolong the joy in the room. Then Tyesha got in on it, laughing through smiling eyes, and yelled emphatically for no reason.
After a while, my mother bowed her head, got serious. “I’ve been thinking so hard about the first question, I haven’t had a chance to figure out that one.”
On Christmas day, nearly two months after Ronnie left, Mama cooked a full-course meal. She’d used Ida’s kitchen that morning to make fried okra, baked chicken, mashed potatoes, Jiffy Mix cornbread, and banana pudding. With our coats zipped up to our necks, Tyesha and I sat at the kitchen table watching my mother carefully unpack Tupperware from grocery bags. Mama served us, spooning food onto the styrofoam plates and bowls in front of us. She kept a smile on her face all throughout dinner. The first bite into the hot golden bread brought back Tyesha’s giddiness. She’d lost her Christmas spirit since Mama told us a week before not to expect anything.
But after dessert, Mama brought out a brown paper bag from the pantry and pulled out two portable CD players. Tyesha’s was lime green with scuff marks on the case, and mine was burgundy with foam missing from one of the earbuds.
Mama said, “I got them from a thrift store up north. I tested them out. They work.”
I politely said, “Thank you.”
I examined the portable player to see if it had an AM/FM option. If it did, I couldn’t find it. I waited for Mama to decide what to do next.
Tyesha looked at her CD player as if it were a plate with no food and then asked, “How you work it?”
“Oh, right.” Mama bared a wide grin and pulled slender gifts wrapped in red and green paper from the same brown bag. She sat a gift near each of our cornbread bowls. My sister tore at the present, sending yellow crumbs all over the table.
“Hey, this Barney!” Tyesha screamed. She took the CD of Barney’s Favorites, held it to her chest, and started singing “If All the Raindrops.” Then she jumped out of her chair, stood at attention, and lifted her head to sing and catch the imaginary raindrops in her mouth.
Through Tyesha’s singing, I unwrapped my CD. I slowly undid the wrapping paper to heighten my own suspense. Was it Brandy? Notorious B.I.G? With the decorative wrap completely loose but hiding the stiff plastic container, I unveiled the gift. On the CD cover was a white woman with cropped brown hair. I tried hard to keep the corners of my mouth upturned, as I read the artist and song title like questions. “Helen Reddy? I Am Woman?”
“Yeah,” Mama exclaimed. “I always hear you singing this with Tyesha.”
“Oh,” I remembered. Tyesha and I held pretend concerts because the energetic singing and dancing made us sweat. Striking fists in the air, we belted out the song that played on the oldies station Mama listened to before our lights got shut off. I didn’t know the singer’s name was Helen Reddy. I just knew Mama walked with her head up every time she sang it. I tried channeling the voices of children I’d seen on television who opened gifts on Christmas day while sitting in well-lit, warm houses. “This is great, Mom. Thank you.”
I placed the CD in my portable player and the headset on my ears. When the twang, cradled in a mild melody, resonated, I nodded my head. “Yep, this is the song.”
That night, Tyesha paraded around the kitchen listening to Barney, and I sat with Mama at the kitchen table talking and laughing, high off the lyrics of Helen Reddy. As time passed, community lighting made its way through our kitchen window, slicing into the Christmas wrappings, the disposable dishes, and the plastic containers from our leftover meal. I also saw my mother’s smile subside. I suggested she listen to music as well, but she immediately refused my headphones.
“No, switch out the microwave with your stereo. We don’t have to lock it up anymore.” Mama responded with something that got stuck in her throat. Then, she covered her face with her hands and her shoulders shook. She coughed out tears instead of words.
Tyesha stood in place. I ran over to grab some part of my mother and ended up fisting a quilted pad from her puffy red coat. I melted against one of her knees and reached up to find one of her hands, my mind frantic, wondering how to make things right. The clock on the wall tick-tocked between the sniffling and silence. Mama cleared her throat and wiped her face. She looked down, locked her watery eyes with mine, and said, “Okay.”
The key for the padlock was hidden in my bedroom drawer underneath t-shirts and panties. The swish of my knee-length polyester coat sang as I ran, grabbed the key, and met my mother in her bedroom. The room was pitch black, but I could feel Mama’s presence. I stumbled upon her sitting on the floor near the stereo. She grabbed my hand and sat me down next to her. I placed the key in her palm, and then she felt around for the padlock’s insert. I heard a click and then chains rattling. My mom clasped my shoulder to steady herself up while carrying the boombox. Finally, as my vision adjusted to the darkness of the room, I watched my mother walk away.
I stayed on my knees, anticipating what she’d play first—Al Green’s “Love and Happiness”? Whitney Houston’s “All The Man That I Need”? I was surprised when I heard a wind instrument over a jazzy bass, then a fast-paced beat. The music called on a different spirit than the one that had been in our home for a while, and I nodded my head to the rhythm with interest until I remembered the old song. My shoulders relaxed as I awaited the chorus of Jody Watley’s psalm. Then it covered me as my mother belted out the refrain of “Looking for a New Love,” and somehow, on my knees in the coldest room in our home, I felt warm enough to unzip my coat.
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