They raced to the dresser and squared off.
“I’ll be right back,” he claimed. “I’m just gonna flip it and make more.” Momma wanted to believe him, but his “flipping,” rather than multiplying, had always divided. After so many times, she knew what could be flour, rice, and navy beans would be poured down his throat. He was still playing, laughing, and smiling as he pleaded. But it was not a real smile, not a real laugh. A jagged snigger snaked out of his throat. He pushed her from the drawer. Momma bounced back with each shove. He laughed, as the bounce became part of the game. He finally granted her entry into the drawer. She grabbed the money and clenched it behind her. He reached, pressing his body against hers, rubbing his hands up and down her thighs and around her chest as she cried, “Stop playing, Carl.” But he was not playing anymore. He wanted her, tears and all, on the bed under him.
He pulled her from the dresser, as she caged herself behind her arms. She thrust all of her power against him with her belly. He fell to the bed. She fisted the money, stuffed it under her breast and turned to see his smile, the real one and fake one slathered together in a scowl. She knew then he didn’t want her anymore. He just wanted the money and he wanted her to shut up.
Her heart thumped too heavily in her chest. She felt it in her neck, in her temple, in her belly. Cramps tightened with each beat. The baby inside thrashed violently. I sometimes wonder if LaTanya were gasping for amniotic air or bracing for what was to come. Momma, wailing, ordered him to leave, and warned she’d call his parents, Ms. Mary and Mr. Frank, if he didn’t act right.
An image of his father, green eyes, red whites, slurring words, and his mother’s arms crossed around herself, a hug meant for him holding her together, angered him even more. Hands flailing, he paced the room, stopped, looked at her, pointed, screamed something incomprehensible, and charged toward her, pressing her back into the dresser. He clamped her forearm and began turning, turning, turning, as if he were wringing out a washrag. Momma’s arm remained wrapped around her breasts and her belly. When he released her, his hand impressions were hot against her flat skin. Despite the pain, she held on to the two dollars.
“Lois,” he said her name repeatedly, as if it were a nail he could tap flat.
“I have to feed Champ, Carl,” she said. “I got to get some food for the house.”
“Give me the damn money, Lois,” he snarled. Spittle sprinkled the side of her face. Momma trembled, shut her eyes, moved her lips in a silent prayer. Her closed lids lapped tears eager to carve lines down her cheeks. He shook her and pushed her to the floor. She choreographed a landing on the softest part of her, clutching her stomach, curling into the fetal position.
He snatched the money while she lay twisted on the floor. She scrambled to her feet and chased him to the door, coming away with a fistful of air as she grabbed for his shirt. When she tried again, she connected, grabbed his arm and twirled him around to her. His face held no anger, no sadness, just emptiness, which revealed how far from her he had grown. Momma knew then that he had it in him to hurt her and sprung back. But, it was too late.
He grabbed her arms, turned both of their bodies, and hurled her down the stairs like a sack off a bridge. She thumped heavily, her fluttering arms reaching, without success, for the banister. Her face contorted into a soundless scream. When there was the final thud that denoted the falling was done, she lay sprawled there, hands on her stomach. My father looked down from the top of the stairs, toppled down, stepped over her, and walked out of the door.
Later, after Carl and the money were gone, while Momma made another bottle of water for Champ, she vomited. She was too late in her pregnancy for morning sickness and there was nothing to expel anyway. Still, her stomach turned into a blender, crunching her insides. She went to the bathroom, sat on the toilet, waited for something to come out. Then there was a plop, but the expected feeling of release and relief did not follow. Then another and another. Then just red drops diving past water’s surface. She gripped the side of the toilet with both hands. If it hadn’t been porcelain, the seat would have molded to her grip. Another jolt, one that made her stand as if her body were called to attention. Blood ran down Momma’s legs like rivers to a red ocean. Her brown thighs were the canvas, and the blood, in lines and clumps, sketched patches of life along her skin.
Momma later woke in the hospital. She sat in the bed, pressing her belly, trying to see if any parts of my sister were still there. Blood pouring from her body, the call for help, the ride to the hospital, the news her baby had died were all clear memories that could not belong to her. She imagined them suspended in air, waiting to be picked up by someone else. She pressed her flat belly. It had never been large and round like most mothers’. It had always had that not pregnant, just full look, so “she” could still be there, hiding, waiting to see if it was safe to come out.
People passed Momma’s door, but no one came in. Her thoughts went to Champ as she wondered whether he had something to eat. Worry turned to guilt as a nurse brought her a tray of food: Jell-O, green beans, chicken and rice, grape drink with foil covering, and milk. Momma looked at the food, breathed in its aroma. She could taste each morsel through her nose. That meal cost more than the two dollars Carl took and it alone could have fed them for days if she managed it right.
At home, she would have cut the chicken breast into little pieces, added water, flour, and made gravy. This she would have separated into fours. Chicken gravy on rice one day, chicken on bread the second, chicken soup the third day, and broth the fourth. She would have mixed most of the rice in the concoction with just a little salt and sliced the green beans into oval pieces, which would give the allusion of more. She’d have added water to the juice until it was lavender and sipped it for breakfast and lunch as she imagined the taste of the chicken strands against her tongue for dinner. She would have cut the Jell-O into cubed pieces and put them in the freezer so she could suck the cubes if she had a sugar or soda craving. The milk she would have saved just for Champ. She would have diluted it of course, but left it thick enough for the top of his tongue to turn white with the sucking, so he would know what real, not evaporated or powdered, but real milk tasted like. She could have done so much with so little, as she had always done.
Weeks into my stay, the doctors released me. I wasn’t the baby Momma brought into the hospital. Rolls of fat gathered under my neck, in the creases of my arms, and hugged disposable pampers, which replaced Momma’s hand-washed ones. I had cut two new teeth, those which Momma discovered as I bit down when she tried to extract a clump of bread I’d stuffed in my mouth. I was walking then, teetering across the hospital room, pulling at oxygen lines hanging from the wall. The nurses, with pride, had shown Momma I had learned to walk as one held my arms over my head and the other stood at the end of the hall beckoning me to her. Momma said she cried when she saw this. I’ve always wondered why.
The plastic tent was gone. The needles, too, were gone and the only indication I’d been sick was a dried patch of mucus sitting atop my lip. Momma said I was a favored baby on the floor. The nurses all bragged I never fussed, that I always ate well, and smiled the brightest when they entered my room. It wasn’t unusual for Momma to visit and find me draped on the hip of one of the nurses at the nursing station. This made Momma proud. Good babies came from good mommas, and according to the nurses I was as good as they get.
After my discharge, all of the nurses gathered to say goodbye. They kissed my cheeks, held me one last time, and showed Momma again how well I could walk. One of the nurses planted me on the floor. Momma held out her pinky finger. I teetered forward, then backward. I reached for one of the nurses and then for Momma. Seeing me walk and laugh made her happy I was well, but many milestones separated me from her. I looked to the nurses for food. I looked to them for comfort after only a few weeks. The only times she was allowed to be my sole caretaker were the early morning feedings, which she never missed. Every day, she was there to spoon me my first meal. She even took a spoon for herself when the nurses weren’t looking. Every day she visited that hospital, rubbed my back, fed me my food. Still tired, still worried about Champ back home, there was happiness in seeing me grow strong. Strength was what I needed. She, alone, knew what we had to