May. God. Bless - The Birds (ch. 3)

WHITE WAS MY MOTHER’S PREFERRED HABIT; chanton silk, cotton, pearls, fur, gowns, cashmere, linen, lace, her sheets and towels, jasmine in the kitchen, calle lilies in the bathrooms, orchids by her bed. She lived against the flawless background of smooth white lines. A glaring first-lady image.

She was more beautiful wrapped in the large dove-white bathrobe, than in a serious suit or the deceiving sweet of a peach dress. Many solitary hours spent in the bathtub soaking, not responding to any calls, were followed by the donning of her heavy robe and silent reading from a novel or bible with equal favor; her partnering mood always inward and sheer. She was this way only when Bishop was not around. Not short visiting absence, but the times when he was weeks out of town; on the road.

There were no souls to ease in the hallow of her room, no questions to answer, no hands to hold. No obligations to smile and give predictions as to the nearness of God’s peace. I had the memory of loving my mother there. Like Fawn loved her mother in the quiet of her grandmothers spare bedroom. I loved her at other times as well but I didn’t understand those moments like I understood the ones before, when I was small. The times that I sat quietly curled up next to her, happy to exist as the filler in the curve above her hip.

I sat on the bed at her feet. As if a feather had fallen she continued to read. Moments pestered, lingered by, offering me second and third thoughts. “Mom,” I said interrupting.

“Yes May?” She spoke into the valley of her book.

“Can I ask you a question?”

She turned the page. “Yes May.”

“You promise not to get mad?”

“Yes May.”

Say yes May again, just one more time, I thought to myself. “Is Bishop my daddy?” The rise and fall of her chest stopped. Her eyes shifted bedlam over the page, too fast and in the wrong direction to pass for reading. Her silence confirmed that the voracious animals had finally eaten her carefully arranged seed path. I lost my mother that night in the dense woods that keep secrets damp, the erratic beat of my heart confirming that I would never find her again. Standing, I felt the weight of a recently informed widow. I carried my grievous knowledge with me to my room determined to walk as steadily as possible under the tremendous weight of knowing.



LIFE LOOKED FOR ME, AFTER THAT, LIKE IT ALWAYS HAD on top but underneath, where before there had been cheerful oblivion, there was now a constant sickening churn, a mixture of fitful confusion and sad knowing living beneath the house of my belly. This spoiled feeling stayed with me through third, fourth and fifth grade, while I spent every day of every year trying to figure out what my mother’s silence really meant. I knew immediately that it meant that there was a reason that I did not even slightly resemble my sisters, why some of the people that we knew used only the corner of their eye when looking at me. In the fourth grade I knew that this was the reason that Bishop stayed at church for so many hours and why it would never happen that I would catch him kissing my mother or holding her close to him, ever. I knew that her silence was the reasons for Nana Rose’s disdain, why there were never Christmas or birthday or anniversary gifts marked; To: Claudette Emanuel From: any other Emanuel, including Bishop. Why there were no anniversaries, at least no celebrations of anniversaries. Later, I learned that it meant that she was going to hell because she had committed a sin against God and her marriage and Bishop. What I was confused about was why so much of the rebuke for her mistake seemed to rain like molten lava on to me.