Tempest Rising - Diane Mckinney-whetstone [25]
“What’s she trying to say, Til? Look how wild her eyes are getting. She’s trying to talk, Til.”
“She’s not hurting, is she?” Blue asked, leaning in to look on her face. “Dear God, please don’t let her be in pain.”
“She’s not hurting,” Ness said with confidence. “And, Sister, I do believe you know what she wants.”
Til did. She unbuttoned her coat and eased it from her arms. She arranged it over Clarise so that the collar was against her cheek. “Hold on, Clarise,” she said again as Blue put his chesterfield around Til’s shoulders, and Clarise thought she was seeing something she’d never seen before. A single tear pressed from the corner of Til’s eye and glinted in perfect form against her cheek.
4
The aunts and uncles did hire a lawyer, who strongly reiterated the sheriff’s caution about trying to intercede in the placement of the girls. He looked right at Til when he said it, repeated himself three or four times when Til wouldn’t meet his gaze. Then his words went straight to Til’s heart when he said she could jeopardize the possibility of ever having a relationship with those girls, God forbid. If Clarise were not to recover fully, he said, the restraining order could stay in effect, and those girls could remain in foster care until they were adopted permanently or turned eighteen, whichever happened first. Ness grabbed Til’s hand when he said it; the uncles sucked their breaths sharply and swallowed their screams. And Til dismissed her plan of maybe hiring a detective to find those girls so that she could meet them after school, or at the movies, or the library, spend an hour or two a week with them, make sure they were being treated well, adjusting emotionally; nobody would have to know, she’d reasoned; the girls would certainly never tell. But this lawyer’s cautionary words made a small hole in her heart, and she let her plan sift through the hole for now and busied herself instead helping Clarise to come back.
They all did over the next month. Kept themselves from violating the judge’s ruling and tracking down the girls by immersing themselves in Clarise’s recovery. They did everything but lift Clarise up and rock her as if she were a newborn. They met the start of visiting hours at her bedside, combed her hair, massaged her scalp. Told her how strong she was. They hummed her favorite songs, rubbed olive oil between her fingers that always seemed dry. Told her how strong she was. They brought her yarns and knitting needles and put them in the top of her closet as an incentive, repeated stories that made her laugh when she was a child. Told her how strong she was. They squeezed each second out of those visiting hours until they were practically thrown out and Til would say, “Wait, wait, one last thing I got to do.” Then she’d cover Clarise with her fox-foot–collared coat.
And Clarise was responding. The tube that had dripped that immobilizing fluid into her arms had been removed, so she was sitting up for longer periods during the day, talking in short phrases, but at least she was talking. And asking, all the time asking, about her girls. Smiled weakly when the aunts and uncles lied to her, told her the girls were doing fine, that they sent their love, underage, though, so they couldn’t visit. “Ah, but, Clarise, they truly send their love.”
And the girls had sent their love over that month, through their constant thinking about their mother, longing for her, praying for her recovery and that they would soon be returned to her and their real home. And even if not that, at least that they could go and live with their aunts