Bastard Out of Carolina - Dorothy Allison [53]
“Mama, take me home,” I whispered. Mama’s hand slipped around my waist. Her fingers felt icy through the thin cotton material of my blouse—icy but comforting.
“Let go of my girl,” she told the doctor. His mouth twisted, and he gave my chin a little shake. I let my eyes move over his face. He didn’t know us, didn’t know my mama or me. “You can tell us,” he said in his stranger’s voice.
I held on to Mama and wouldn’t say anything at all. The doctor slapped the bed beside me hard, then turned and slammed the door open with his fists. I looked at the nurse. Mrs. Myer was watching me carefully, her hand over her mouth, her eyes old and wise.
“I’m sorry,” she said to Mama finally, dropping her hand. “He’s young and he’s not been here long.”
We waited, Mama holding me, Mrs. Myer taking long, slow breaths and glancing back at the door. A black woman with a clipboard full of papers came in and passed them over.
“You’ll need to sign this,” Mrs. Myer told Mama. She didn’t look at me again.
I knew exactly what she thought, but I didn’t know about Mama. Her face was strange and hard, her hand where it held me was still cold, but now it was shaking too. For the few moments they left us alone, she looked into my face like it was a map of hell.
“Bone,” she whispered.
I waited.
“Sweetheart.”
Someone walked past in the hall. I put my head over against Mama’s breast, listening to her heart, not wanting to hear anything else.
“Baby.”
“Mama,” I begged. “Mama, take me home.”
“We’re gonna go to Aunt Alma’s house,” she told me while lifting me into the backseat. The look she gave Daddy Glen when he tried to help her seemed to freeze his heart. His hands stretched before him, he kept reaching out but not touching her. In the front seat, Reese sat with her thumb in her mouth, her face blank and still. Propped up in the back with pillows, I leaned my cheek against the plastic seat cover and tried not to move too much. My shoulder felt hot and enormous, like a balloon full of paip waiting to blow through me. Daddy Glen followed Mama around the front of the car, plucking at her shoulders hesitantly, but she kept shaking him off. “Don’t!” she shouted once. The car shook when she slammed the door, and I gritted my teeth. Daddy Glen leaned in the window, pleading, tears showing on his face in the lights of the emergency room entrance.
“Anney, oh, Anney, just talk to me. Don’t do this. Anney, please; Anney!”
Mama started the car off slowly, letting him hang on to the side until she pulled out into the street. I didn’t see the look she gave him then, but I heard his cry, hoarse and meaningless, as she gunned the engine, her foot holding down on the brake, the Pontiac jerking but holding. He let go of the door but didn’t step back. His face was still close and then it was gone.
Mama’s chin was sharp, shining now against other car lights, now against the lights from the dash. I watched the tears on her face when she looked back at me. I closed my eyes, opened them. Everything seemed spongy and strange, but I couldn’t care anymore. The cool air rushing in the window was damp and sweet. If there really was a God or even magic, that air would blow through me and out again. It would go back down that road to the hospital, sweep up the dirt, and throw it in Daddy Glen’s eyes. It would make him see who he was, what he had done. That doctor would come out on his way home, see him there, and know who he was. The wind would tell him, the moon, or maybe even God. That doctor would know, and he would start his car, knowing. He would slam that car into gear and roar across that lot. The grille would stop just inches from Daddy Glen’s terrified face.
“You son of a bitch,” that doctor would scream. “You ever touch that child again and I’ll grind you into meat and blood!”
Daddy Glen would weep tears of blood. Jesus, maybe,