In the Wilderness - Kim Barnes [87]
My mother continued to rise before the rest of us, preparing our breakfast, packing our lunches, cleaning and ironing until she left for her shift at the grocery store. The cycle continued when she arrived home, when she fixed our meals and tended to the needs of her family.
Just as I had watched Sister Lang and Sarah, I now watched my mother, her seemingly perfect submissiveness, her quiet determination to keep peace and harmony between us. But I also wondered what secrets my mother hid, what stories she carried as deeply as I carried my own. She never complained about her life, never spoke of her own desires or emotions—she seemed to have no passion or need, no past or present of her own. I came to believe what she projected. I believed she needed nothing but her home, her family and her god, and something in me loathed her for it.
Eating the biscuits and gravy, roast and potatoes, fried chicken, eating from the cleanest dishes, sitting in the room filled with the food smells of my mother’s cooking, I turned my back to her and ate what she gave. What I realize now is that what I wanted from her was not food or even harmony but a story, a narrative to give meaning to her life and mine. I needed my mother to tell me how to find happiness in submission, how to content myself with giving and serving and silence. If I could only find the secret—and surely she possessed such a secret—perhaps I too could be satisfied and happy.
I think back to my eighth-grade year, to that time just after I had run away from home. I had returned to school a hero, except to one girl, Lisa, who looked so much like me that the police had picked her up, thinking her the truant. In fact, she was skipping school but might have gone undetected had it not been for the bulletin put out on my account. It was my fault the cops had taken her in, my fault her father had whipped her.
She’d waited for me after school, and by the time I reached the corner where she and her friends gathered, I knew her intent. “She wants to beat you up,” they whispered excitedly. “She wants to whip your ass.”
I had no intention of having it out with Lisa, providing the leering crowd with a “cat fight.” I crossed the street and kept on walking, only to have her follow me, throwing rocks at my back. Finally, I stopped and turned.
“I don’t want to fight, Lisa.”
“Chicken! Bitch!” The sides had been drawn, and I found myself being pushed toward her by the group at my back. Her supporters formed a wedge, and then we were a foot apart, circled by a loud and eager audience.
I was already in enough trouble. I didn’t need to be hauled into the principal’s office for this. I opened my mouth to say so, and she hit me. I staggered back. Arms caught me and stood me straight. I touched my lip and found blood.
There was something about seeing my hand glistening red that acted like a firing pin, sending me at the girl. I knocked her to the ground, pummeling her gut, twisting her hair in one hand to get at her face. By the time they pulled me off her, she was bleeding and retching onto the sidewalk. I wanted to kill her, and for years afterward the one confession I could always count on was my continuing desire to do so. I felt wild, unleashed, unable to control what had risen in me and exploded into fury. I jerked away from my friends, leaving them stunned and shuffling—half-ashamed at what they had seen—and walked home alone.
I hadn’t tried to hide my swollen lip and bloodstained face from my mother, who stood at the sink, scraping carrots.
“What in the world! What happened to you?”
I shook my head and sat down at the table. While she dabbed at my mouth, I explained, for once feeling no need to lie. What had I done to provoke this? Hadn’t I tried to avoid the fight?