Toni Morrison - God Help the Child

Bride shot up. Just the mention of a flat chest yanked her back to her problem. Had her ankle not prohibited it, she would have run, rocketed away from the scary suspicion that she was changing back into a little black girl.

One night and a day later Bride had calmed down a little. Since no one had noticed or commented on the changes in her body, how flat the T-shirt hung on her chest, the unpierced earlobes. Only she knew about unshaved but absent armpit and pubic hair. So all of this might be a hallucination, like the vivid dreams she was having when she managed to fall asleep. Or were they? Twice at night she woke to find Rain standing over her or squatting nearby — not threatening, just looking. But when she spoke to the girl, she seemed to disappear.

Helpless, idle. It became clear to Bride why boredom was so fought against. Without distraction or physical activity, the mind shuffled pointless, scattered recollections around and around. Focused worry would have been an improvement over disconnected, rags of thought. Minus the limited coherence of a dream, her mind moved from the condition of her fingernails to the time she walked into a lamppost, from judging a celebrity’s gown to the state of her own teeth. She was stuck in a place so primitive it didn’t even have a radio while watching a couple going about their daily chores — gardening, cleaning, cooking, weaving, mowing grass, chopping wood, canning. There was no one to talk to, at least not about anything she was interested in. Her determined refusal to think about Booker invariably collapsed. What if she couldn’t find him? What if he’s not with Mr. or Ms. Olive? Nothing would be right if the hunt she was on failed. And if it succeeded what would she do or say? Except for Sylvia, Inc., and Brooklyn, she felt she had been scorned and rejected by everybody all her life. Booker was the one person she was able to confront — which was the same as confronting herself, standing up for herself. Wasn’t she worth something? Anything?

She missed Brooklyn whom she thought of as her only true friend: loyal, funny, generous. Who else would drive miles to find her after that bloody horror at a cheap motel then take such good care of her? It wasn’t fair, she thought, to leave her in the dark as to where she was. Of course she couldn’t tell her friend the reason for her flight. Brooklyn would have tried to dissuade her, or worse, taunt and laugh at her. Persuade her how ill-advised and reckless the idea was. Nevertheless, the right thing to do was to contact her.

Since she couldn’t call, Bride decided to drop her a note. When asked, Evelyn said she didn’t have any stationery but she offered Bride a sheet of the tablet paper used to teach Rain to write. Evelyn promised she would get Steve to mail it.

Bride was expert at company memos but not personal letters. What should she say?

I’m okay, so far…?

Sorry to leave without telling…?

I have to do this on my own because…?

When she put down the pencil she examined her fingernails.

Usually the sound of Evelyn’s weaving at the loom soothed her, but this day the click, knock, click, knock of the shuttle and pedal was extremely irritating. Whatever road her thoughts traveled, the possibility of shame waited at the end. Suppose Booker wasn’t living in a town called Whiskey. And if he was, what then? What if he was with another woman? What did she have to say to him anyhow, besides “I hate you for what you did” or “Please come back to me”? Maybe she could find a way to hurt him, really hurt him. Muddled as her thoughts were, they coalesced around one necessity — an unrelenting need to confront him, regardless of the outcome. Annoyed and irritated by the “what-ifs” and the sound of Evelyn’s loom, she decided to hobble outside. She opened the door and called, “Rain, Rain.”

The girl was lying in the grass watching a trail of ants going about their civilized business.

“What?” Rain looked up.

“Want to go for a walk?”

“What for?” By the tone of her voice it was clear the ants were far more interesting than Bride’s company.

“I don’t know,” said Bride.

That answer seemed to please. She jumped up smiling and brushing her shorts. “Okay, if you wanna.”

The quiet between them was easy at first as each appeared to be deep in her own thoughts. Bride limping, Rain skipping or dawdling along the verge of bushes and grass. Half a mile down the road Rain’s husky voice broke the silence.

“They stole me.”

“Who? You mean Steve and Evelyn?” Bride stopped and watched Rain scratch the back of her calf. “They said they found you, sitting in the rain.”

“Yep.”

“So why did you say ‘stole’?”

“Because I didn’t ask them to take me and they didn’t ask if I wanted to go.”

“Then why did you?”

“I was wet, freezing too. Evelyn gave me a blanket and a box of raisins to eat.”

“Are you sorry they took you?” I guess not, thought Bride — otherwise you would have run away.

“Oh, no. Never. This is the best place. Besides there’s no place else to go.” Rain yawned and rubbed her nose.

“You mean you don’t have a home?”

“I used to but my mother lives there.”

“So you ran away.”

“No I didn’t. She threw me out. Said ‘Get the fuck out.’ So I did.”

“Why? Why would she do that?” Why would anybody do that to a child? Bride wondered. Even Sweetness, who for years couldn’t bear to look at or touch her, never threw her out.

“Because I bit him.”

“Bit who?”

“Some guy. A regular. One of the ones she let do it to me. Oh, look. Blueberries!” Rain was searching through roadside bushes.

“Wait a minute,” Bride said. “Do what to you?”

“He stuck his pee thing in my mouth and I bit it. So she apologized to him, gave back his twenty-dollar bill and made me stand outside.” The berries were bitter, not the wild sweet stuff she expected. “She wouldn’t let me back in. I kept pounding on the door. She opened it once to throw me my sweater.” Rain spit the last bit of blueberry into the dirt.

As Bride imagined the scene her stomach fluttered. How could anybody do that to a child, any child, and one’s own? “If you saw your mother again what would you say to her?”

Rain grinned. “Nothing. I’d chop her head off.”

“Oh, Rain. You don’t mean that.”

“Yes I do. I used to think about it a lot. How it would look — her eyes, her mouth, the blood shooting out of her neck. Made me feel good just thinking about it.”

A smooth ridge of rock jutted parallel to the road. Bride took Rain’s hand and led her gently to the stone. They both sat down. Neither saw the doe and her fawn standing among the trees on the other side of the road. The doe watching the pair of humans was as still as the tree she stood next to. The fawn nestled her flank.

“Tell me,” said Bride. “Tell me.”

At the sound of Bride’s voice, mother and child fled.

“Come on, Rain.” Bride put her hand on Rain’s knee. “Tell me.”

And she did, her emerald eyes sometimes sparkling wide other times narrowed to dark olive slits as she described the savvy, the perfect memory, the courage needed for street life. You had to find out where the public toilets were, she said; how to avoid children’s services, police, how to escape drunks, dope heads. But knowing where sleep was safe was the most important thing. It took time and she had to learn what kinds of people would give you money and what for, and remember the back doors of which food pantries or restaurants had kind and generous servers. The biggest problem was finding food and storing it for later. She deliberately made no friends of any kind — young or old, stable or wandering nuts. Anybody could turn you in or hurt you. Corner hookers were the nicest and the ones who warned her about dangers in their trade — guys who didn’t pay, cops who did before arresting them, men who hurt them for fun. Rain said she didn’t need reminding because once when some really old guy hurt her so bad she bled, her mother slapped him and screamed, “Get out!” then she douched her with a yellow powder. Men scared her, Rain confessed, and made her feel sick. She had been waiting on some steps at the Salvation Army truck stop when it began to rain. A lady on the truck might give her a coat or shoes this time like other times when she had slipped her food. That’s when Evelyn and Steve came along, and when he touched her she thought of the men who came to her mother’s house, so she had to run off, miss the food lady and hide.