My Monticello(8)

Rifle through drawers, overturn crates, leave everything gaping and churned. After days of fruitless searching, admit to yourself that you want to believe. Read in bed by ochre lamplight of glaciers liquefying and waves of refugees breaching Europe. When your husband asks what’s the matter with you, let your old wounds gleam. Look at him and plead, Take me away, though you don’t know where there is to go, exactly. Your husband answers you in French, so quickly you can’t catch the words. When you ask him to repeat himself, he reaches over and past you. With one sharp click, he pitches the room to black.

After you and your husband separate for good, fill out each application. Without central hiring and background checks, your legal name is required here again. All this time you promised yourself you’d change it, and now it feels too late. As you hurry out of the new Super Walmart, don’t dwell on the line of accented girls working three registers in a row. Did they come from Ethiopia? From Egypt? How did they end up belonging better than you in your nowhere, hill-tucked town? Balance heavy bags of groceries in the crooks of your arms and pinch yourself to keep from crying. Your nearly grown children sleepwalk beside you, the girl a sophomore, the boy a senior slated to leave soon for college out of state. Their eyes remain pinned to the cell phones they hold, of which you don’t approve. These devices were given to them by their father, to keep in touch now that he’s moved back to Europe.

Keep moving and look straight ahead when you hear someone call after you: “Virginia! Virginia!” The voice draws nearer even as you quicken your pace. “Ginny! I can’t believe you’re here!” Feel red heat spread across your chest. Here is a girl you used to know, her face flushed and pretty still, though swollen with age. Let your body twist, let your arms fly up, even as your grocery bags fall to your feet with a clatter. Lunge in and holler, as loud as you can, “Virginia’s not my fucking name!” Roar into the glassy face of the grandchild this woman holds and tries to shield. Take in an endless, jagged breath, then tug the arms of your own wayward offspring. Slam the car doors shut and swerve away to a stench of burning oil. Take in the tableau in the rearview mirror: gaping mouths, your daughter’s eyes welling, and all those lost groceries, which you can hardly afford to replace.

Know that they are real, and you will soon find them: your father’s letters. You’ll unearth them in an antique chest, varnished in mold, that his own people gave to him. Each letter will speak of dull and dogged yearning, each one will be hand-addressed to you. Virginia, you’ll confess to the foggy washroom mirror, your reflection thicker, age spots blooming on the backs of your hands. You’ll look hard and wonder how the time passed so swiftly, how your mark on the world remains so shallow.

Tell yourself you can start again—there is still time! This time, you’ll trek a high pass in Asia. You’ll sail to Antarctica to witness the great ice cap’s weeping. This time, you’ll fly to Africa to follow the last wild elephants’ run—you’ve read they have a secret language, sonographic as whale song. You’ll sing them a dirge and kiss the dust. Lay a humble ear to the ground and listen.





SOMETHING SWEET ON OUR TONGUES




We got dropped off too early. Our Mamas leaned long across bucket seats, scraped sleep from our cheeks, their nails like a ragged kiss. As they pulled away, we faced our school, pressed our foreheads to the glass of the double doors, still locked. We punted backpacks while we waited, pitched rocks at the marquee by the road. KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, it read. JOHN HENRY JAMES ELEMENTARY.

We poured out of school buses too, our voices turned up like a TV left to blare. The drivers’ threats grazed the scruffs of our necks: They didn’t even know our names. We paraded down the wide main hall, limbs loose, toes pinching more than they had the day before. Our Mamas told us, You’re growing like a weed, boy. You’ve got to learn to do better. I don’t know what to do with you anymore.

Ten years old and already the top of our school, we knew how to talk to anybody. We hiked our hoods up, refusing to speak. We elbowed into the breakfast line, wondering aloud: Why Richard Lordly carry all them books? How many different endings can there be? Why Aaliyah and Khaliah forever walking and talking together, like they joined at the hip or something? How come Fat Rod’ney gotta be so fat? For real, no lie—his plate must be piled high every night.

We said Rod’ney like it’s supposed to be said, two separated syllables. The first like something fresh gone bad. Rot pressed up next to knee.

Melvin Moses Green burst into line, triangling a muscled arm around Fat Rod’ney’s head. He slapped the back of Rod’ney’s neck where a strip of bare skin showed. Fat Rod’ney just kept stumbling forward, shoving a tray of jiggling fruit cocktail and milk, eyes teary at the sting but still cheesing. Rod’ney acted as if they were tight, like they were only messing with each other.

Melvin Moses Green was in our class too, but we only called him Moses. In Gym, on the playground, he drew our eyes, a bright brown boy a head taller than us. We couldn’t help but see how strong he was: his thighs hard as footballs, his biceps bulging. Moses was the youngest in a long line of brothers who did not come out the house once their Daddy went in in the evenings. In the upper boys’ bathroom, Moses called us soldiers, commanding us to lift our shirts. Elbows in, eyes squeezed tight, we braced for the blows that Moses delivered to our ribs, our stomachs. We turned to let him strike our kidneys so hard it drew soft grunts from our lips. He struck us coolly, paying careful attention, like he was trying to show us something. Water leaked from our eyes and caught in our lashes. Afterward, we let our breath out and grinned.