Imani All Mine Read online

  I went around Eboni house the next day, too, but on the third day Eboni wasn’t there. Miss Lovey was all out of breath and sweating when she come to the door. She say, Come on in the kitchen. And I went. Miss Lovey was making grits and frying up some fish. She say, Eboni had her girls early this morning. I’m telling you, it was a easy labor. They were a minute apart. It seems like they were racing to get in the world. They’re both healthy thank God and so pretty with good hair swirled around their heads. I say, Oooh, I want to go see her and the babies. Miss Lovey say, I’m sure Eboni wants to see you, too. You can leave Imani next door where I left the kids and we can go up to the hospital later. She made herself a plate and one for me.

  I say, I ain’t really hungry. I already ate.

  Miss Lovey wasn’t even stutting me. She opened up the stove and took out a pan of biscuits and put two on my plate. For a while she ain’t say nothing. She ate. Sprinkling hot sauce on her fish. Slurping from a big cup of juice. Putting jelly and butter on her biscuits. I cracked open one of them hot biscuits and buttered and jellied it for Imani, who was sitting in her stroller whining because she knew there was food but wasn’t none of it coming to her mouth. I fed some to her and tasted it for myself. It was good. I could tell it wasn’t from no can popped open on the counter. Then I looked up at Miss Lovey and stopped eating. She had that I-know-you-got-a-secret look on her face. Right then I knew Eboni must have told.

  You know, Miss Lovey say, I been meaning to talk to you.

  I cut her right off. Not in a mean way. But I say, I know what you fenna say, Miss Lovey.

  Miss Lovey say, Is that so? If you know what I’m going to say, you need to be on one of those psychic telephones making some money for yourself, child.

  I bust out laughing, even though I ain’t want to.

  Miss Lovey put one of her hands on top of one of mines. It was warm and soft.

  She say, Child, you have to go back to school. Shooting the hook won’t solve your problems.

  I say, I know that, Miss Lovey.

  She say, You don’t act like it. I know you’re scared of that boy who raped you.

  I looked down at the table. That was the first time that word been said.

  Then Miss Lovey said it again. She say, I believe he did rape you.

  I ain’t say nothing. Miss Lovey reached over with her other hand and started rubbing my back. Round and round in circles like you rub a baby back to get them to sleep. Like I rub Imani. She say, It’s all right to talk to me about it.

  I couldn’t say nothing. I just found my hand that was on the table squeezing her hand tight tight. Miss Lovey ain’t ask me to say nothing else. She moved up close to me and put my head down on her shoulder and kept rubbing my back with her hand all warm. Pulling me back from inside myself. She was pulling me back every time she made a circle. Made a circle. Made a circle. It was like she was looking for the place I was. Reaching down inside that cold dark with her warm hand. Picking me up from that ground. Pulling me out into the world where I opened my eyes into the soft light.

  It was a while before I lifted up my face. When Imani saw it she started crying. Miss Lovey picked her up and put her on her lap to rock her. She fed some grits to Imani right off her plate. Miss Lovey say, Go back to Lincoln on Monday and see how you feel. If you want to get out, I’ll help you.

  I say, Only my mama can do that.

  Miss Lovey say, I’ll talk to your mother then.

  I just shook my head.

  Miss Lovey say, I won’t tell her nothing you haven’t. It’s up to you to tell her about the rape. She needs to hear that from your lips. But you need to be in school. What kind of future can you make for this child with no education? I looked at my little greedy baby and she put out her arms to come to me and I took her in my arms. I was holding her all close feeling her heart beating up next to mines. Miss Lovey say for me not be worrying about going to another school. She say I would only have to cross that bridge if I come to it.

  I made myself go back to Lincoln the next Monday. I was real nervous. About running into him. But I had so much schoolwork to catch up on, I spent most of my time with my mind on that. In the cafeteria I was looking for him and not looking for him, thinking maybe I wouldn’t have to come to that bridge at all. It was the middle of the week before I seen him. Me and Coco was sitting together at lunch. I wasn’t hardly eating. I was studying for a Latin test. When the bell rung we was rushing to take our trays up. That’s when I seen him, just ahead of us at the dish room, putting his dirty tray on the belt. There I was at the bridge. I wasn’t even thinking about crossing it. I wanted to jump off. Kids was pushing up behind me to take they trays back. My feet took on a mind of they own and ain’t even move when he turned around to leave.

  Coco stepped up right next to me and took my tray. What’s wrong with you, Tasha? she asked. Making us late?

  That boy looked up then. I got a pain in my stomach, thinking he heard my name. But he ain’t even look at me. He was looking at Coco. Smiling at her. She sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes at him, and the smile he had on his face slid right off. He walked off without saying nothing.

  I seen him the next day in the cafeteria, and he walked right on by me without noticing me. I knew I wasn’t going to cross no bridge after all. I could feel it in my heart that he ain’t know who I was. I was some girl with no name. I was some girl with no face. I was just some girl in a dream he ain’t even remember.

  FOUR

  Ten Little Angels

  I MIGHT have killed Imani. That’s what I come to find out from Mrs. Poole right before our Christmas break. But I ain’t know. How was I supposed to know?

  Shaken Baby Syndrome. Mrs. Poole was talking about it in the class one day but I wasn’t paying no good attention to her, I was looking at a magazine I had inside my notebook. Seventeen. It was a December one, full of ways to dazzle everybody at holiday parties. There was this white girl in a plaid dress that was red, green, and black that look like a tablecloth. She was at a party and there was some white boys with teeth like Chiclets and presents in they hands or standing under some mistletoe ready to get kissed. I imagined me at one of them parties in a velvet dress and fifty pounds skinnier with some braids Eboni put in. They tight and hurting my head, but I ain’t care because they looked good. I ain’t have on the earrings Eboni gave me, the ones with my name on them, because they say projects. They say East Side. Fruit Belt. Humboldt Parkway. Jefferson Avenue. You ride the 12 and 13 bus. They say all that with just your name spelled our in fake gold. So I had on some pearl studs. Real tasteful. I looked so good, it’s like I’m the belle of the ball like them white girls in the magazine. And then Mrs. Poole walked right in the party, talking about death.

  Shaking a baby can cause its death, she say. Shaken Baby Syndrome. Never, Mrs. Poole say. Never shake your baby for no reason. Because you mad. Because they crying and working your nerves. Even because you just playing with them and throwing them up in the air.

  I closed up my notebook with the magazine. Mrs. Poole was holding a bald naked baby doll, just a-shaking it. Some girls was laughing, because the doll big head was flopping around. Mrs. Poole stopped shaking it and say what would happen to a real baby. You could bounce they brain against the inside of they head and give them a concussion. That’s a brain injury. She say you can shake a baby so hard, you can break they neck. Snap they spinal cord. That’s how you can kill them. Everybody stopped laughing. You could hear the lights and clock humming and somebody screaming like a crazy person out in the hall.

  I was looking at the doll all naked on the desk, wishing Eboni was there. I tried to remember if Mrs. Poole say something about this before. She make me sick, talking about stupid shit like routines and schedules and burping and how often to change a diaper, but ain’t say nothing about not shaking a baby. Because I already done it.

  I shook Imani just the week before. I ain’t shake her because I was playing with her. I was shaking her because she be making me mad and
get on my nerves. We was supposed to be going to a birthday party Bett-Bett was having for her youngest baby. Her son just turned one, and I had been pinching pennies so I could go and take Imani. It was at Party Time Pizza. I had to pay my own way in and get a gift. Mama say it’s a waste of money to have a party for a baby so little. They don’t remember it. But I wanted to go. So when Imani have her birthday, some other girls and babies will be there to make it a party.

  Me and Imani ain’t get to go, though. Imani was sick for two straight weeks before the party. At first she got the runs. I was changing her once a hour. Then she started throwing up and had a fever, so I took off from school to take her to ECMC. She see a pediatrician there. He a man from India with black black greasy hair and skin so pretty, it’s like chocolate pudding. He say Imani was teething and she had a cold and a ear infection too. He say not to take her to no daycare. She should stay home a few days. So I had to stay home with Imani, and she doing nothing but crying and whining and rubbing her fist in her mouth and grabbing at her ears. Mama was sick of both of us by the second day. I was wishing she would just go off with her secret boyfriend, but she kept coming into my room, asking why Imani was crying so. What I was doing to her? I told her I wasn’t doing nothing to her. She crying because she sick. Mama want to pour some warm olive oil in Imani ears. The doctor ain’t say nothing about that, so I wouldn’t let her do it. She ask if I put that teething gel on her gums. And I ain’t lie about that. I told her I ain’t put it on there because Imani bit me last time I tried. Mama laugh at me. That’s part of being a mama, she say. Pain. Sometimes you got to do things to your children they don’t like. Things that hurt them if it’s good for them. I say, I ain’t never going to hurt my child for nothing. Mama say, You don’t know what the hell you talking about. Why you think you know so goddamn much? I say, Mrs. Poole teach us how to take care of a baby.

  That was the wrong thing to say to Mama.

  Mrs. Poole? Mama say. Mrs. Poole? Who is that cockeye bitch to teach you anything? What she know about babies, what she read in some book?

  I want to say Mrs. Poole got four children, but instead I say, Mama, I know what I’m doing.

  Mama say, If you know what you was doing, you wouldn’t never have had no baby in the first place. Then she left me and Imani alone.

  I was smoking mad with Mama. Saying I ain’t know what I’m doing. Talking to me like I’m some fool! Imani was fussing. I sat with her on my bed and give her her teething ring. She bit it one time and threw it across the room. Her nose was all snotty, so I tried to suck out the snot with one of them little bulb things. She hated it and started screaming and kicking like I was abusing her, and I stopped. I started rocking her like Miss Lovey rock her, across my knees. I was jiggling and jiggling and she crying and crying. I turned on the radio. But she ain’t shut up. So I started singing to Imani “Ten Little Angels.” She stopped crying and only whined while I was singing, so I kept on.

  I wasn’t thinking nothing about them angels. I was thinking about Mama. How I want her to give me some credit about how I take care of my baby. To have her say, Imani sure do look pretty today. You sure combed her hair real neat. Got it all greased up and shining. You sure keep her clothes clean. You sure keep her smelling clean and fresh like a baby should be. You sure is a good mother.

  I can’t stand it when Mama pick pick pick. Sometimes I feel like I’m some kind of scab she trying to peel away. I kept right on singing to Imani. There was hundreds of them little white angels dangling off kite strings and falling down into bed before she fell to sleep.

  On the third day Imani was better. I don’t think she was feeling good enough to go out to school with me. But I took her on anyway. I ain’t even need to be missing no more time in class. Not with all the time I missed running from him. It ain’t like I be seeing him all the time in the cafeteria anyway. He hardly been coming to school. I don’t know where he be at. But I’m hoping he stay wherever it is.

  At least Imani could sleep all day in the nursery. I’m the one had to stay awake and go to my classes. Our school crazy, now that it’s cold. Some rooms don’t be having no heat in them. It’s like you going to school at the North Pole. You got to be wearing a coat and still be sitting there freezing, with your feet so cold they go to sleep and forget they part of your body. Then there’s other rooms where it’s hot like a desert. Sometimes the windows swole shut and you can’t get them open for a breath of cool air. Your mouth be all dry, like it got sand in it, and you be real sleepy.

  My English class one of them ones out in the desert. Mr. Toliver the teacher. He a black man who wear a suit all the time, but don’t never sweat in all that heat. He be real cool. I like him because he wear cologne that smell like burning wood. But Mr. Toliver take everything so serious. He be making us talk proper English in his class and keep on correcting us when we don’t. We have to talk that way, he say, so we’ll have a good future. Maybe he right. All I know is my head be hurting in his class when I concentrate on talking like that. It don’t come natural to me, and it seem like I’m just putting on. Like I’m trying to be white.

  Mr. Toliver act like his class the most important thing in the world, and if he see we ain’t paying attention, he stop and lecture us. Ladies and gentlemen, he say in a voice all calm, even though you can tell he ain’t calm. He say, I can stop teaching right this moment and sit down the rest of the period. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, I have mine. My car. My house. My degree. And need I remind you, I get paid if you learn or not. You need to realize I’m trying to prepare you for a world that cares nothing about you. If you think it does, you’re sadly mistaken. Now let’s get back to work.

  On the day I come back to school, Mr. Toliver seemed like he was out in the desert with the rest of us, though. Tired and thirsty. His voice was all scratchy. When he seen we wasn’t paying attention, he didn’t even lecture. Halfway through the period he give up and told us to read silent at our desks. That’s when I went up to him to ask for the work I had missed while I was out with Imani.

  He told me to step into the hall, and he ask, What do you want it for, Tasha?

  So I can catch up, I say.

  Mr. Toliver ask, Oh, is that so? You don’t seem to take this class very seriously. This is the second time this term you’ve missed days at a time, and now you waltz back into my room like some belle of the ball and expect me to catch you up.

  Static. He was giving off so much, I wanted to tune him out. But I say, It ain’t even like that, Mr. Toliver.

  He say, Isn’t it?

  My baby been sick, I say.

  Your baby has been sick, he say.

  I flipped the switch to the way he want me to talk. Real slow and careful, I say, My baby has been sick, Mr. Toliver. She has had a fever and I had to stay home with her.

  Well, well, well, he say. So, Miss Dawson, in your absence you haven’t forgotten how to speak the English language.

  Aw, stop playing with me, Mr. Toliver.

  He say, I’m not playing with you. Do you think having a sick baby is an excuse?

  I’m not giving you a excuse, I say to him.

  An excuse, he say.

  It’s not an excuse, I say. I’m trying to make up what I’ve missed.

  Let me tell you something, Tasha, he say. You have to do better than you’ve been doing, because the world cares nothing about you or your baby. I’ll give you your assignments. Have them in by tomorrow, he say, and pointed for me to go back to class while he went on down the hall to get some water.

  That night I did just what Mr. Toliver told me. By the time I finished up the work for his class and my other classes, it was something after three. Imani was sleeping real hard. I was working in bed, and she laid right next to me the whole while, not even moving.

  The next morning when I got up to get Imani ready for school, she was scratching herself. I ain’t see no rash on her. Just a few bumps around her neck. Mama seen Imani scratching when I was feeding her. Mama com
e looking under her shirt and say, Tasha, she got the chicken pox.

  I say that ain’t no chicken pox.

  Mama say, I know the chicken pox when I see them. You had them.

  I ain’t want to believe her. I told Mama I’m going to call the pediatrician. Maybe he’d let me bring her by real quick and I could make it to school by lunchtime.

  Mama say, Stop being a hardhead and listen to me. The doctor won’t let you bring her in with the chicken pox. Call him if you don’t believe me.

  I was going to call the doctor, but I knew that would make Mama mad. Anyway, I was thinking she might be right.

  I had to stay home from school for the next week and a half, worrying about what Mr. Toliver was thinking of me. I called up to the school for him every day for the first week. Them secretaries nem maybe never give him my message. But I told them to tell him I done my work. He ain’t never call me back. I know that each day he was driving his car to his house and looking at his degree on his wall, and not even stutting me. He was probably thinking I’m not serious. I ended up calling this girl I hardly even know that’s in all my classes, and got her to give me the assignments I was missing. That would show Mr. Toliver I wasn’t no belle trying to dance my way through life. I ain’t even know how he could think that about me, with me having a baby. But I knew he was thinking it. There wasn’t no telling what my other teachers was thinking, even while I was trying to keep up. While I was home with Imani, who was looking worse every day.

  Them bumps was popping up everywhere on her. Even in her mouth. In her head. We wasn’t going to no party at no Party Time Pizza. I rubbed Imani down with calamine lotion that Mama bring home to me when she went on one of her dates. I bit off her nails to keep her from scratching. But Imani kept on scratching. My baby looked like a monster. She ain’t do nothing but whine whine whine. Scratch and scratch and cry and squeal like a little pig.