Mama opens it.
I haven’t thought about what it would be like to have Mama back here, back in the same city it all happened in, not in years. Once I turned sixteen, I was pretty sure I’d never see Mama again, had my own funeral day just for her.
Here she is, though, slipping her hands under the sleeves of her old Purple Rain sweatshirt. “Didn’t think you’d come.”
I nod. If Mama told me she was a shape-shifter, I’d believe her. Woman standing in front of me don’t look nothing like the one from a few months ago, swallowed the one from a few years ago, chewed up the one from last decade.
“Why you here?” If I didn’t know better, I would think Mama didn’t want to see me, her cheeks swishing side to side like her mouth is full.
“I don’t know, I was talking to Dee and I just—I wanted to know if you’d tell me why you did it.” I need an answer, need Mama to patch together the pieces of these lives we’ve made for ourselves, give me a reason that would make her feel like mine again, like someone I might know. I need her to tell me mamas can change, that there is hope for Trevor, for Marcus, for me.
“Alright, chile. Let’s go on a walk. I gotta show you something anyway.” She holds her sleeved hand out, like the emptiness is an offering. I take it and she steps out into the hallway, closing the door behind her, and leading me back down the creak of stairs, out of this warehouse coffin.
The chill from outside creeps into me. “You sure you wanna be out here? It’s late, Mama.”
“It won’t take too long. Promise.” She nods her head toward the street.
I don’t know if this is a good idea, but the damage is done; I’m here now, holding Mama’s hand like it’s going to dissolve right into mine. I follow her, give Mama her last wish. We walk until I can smell ocean, somewhere just close enough to leave traces in the air, but too far to see.
“Before I answer you, baby, will you tell me something?”
I shrug.
“Why you start fucking with the cops, especially after what your daddy been through? I saw it on the news and I ain’t mad at you, I just want to know.”
I can’t look at her. “I don’t know, I didn’t really have no choice. I just kind of ended up in it and then there wasn’t no way out, you know?”
Mama pauses before a crosswalk, waits for a car to pass. “Then that’s why, baby. That’s why I did what I did. After your daddy died, I felt like I didn’t have no mind of my own, no body of my own, and that turned into something I couldn’t get out of. Some part of me must have remembered the door didn’t lock but I couldn’t handle breathing another minute in that pit your daddy left, so I tried to stop it all without thinking about the lock or you or Soraya, but I didn’t cut deep enough and then they told me Soraya had gotten out and drowned in that pool and I couldn’t handle nothing no more. It was like something shut down in me that ain’t never gonna come alive again and I still feel like I never made it past that day, like I haven’t lived a minute since.”
Mama’s hand is warm in mine. For the first time, I see something about her that isn’t familiar, but it’s soft. It’s the most honesty that’s come out her mouth in a real long time.
She starts talking again, a wispy voice this time. “Soraya took her first step right down by the pool, remember?” Here we go again; Mama always comes back to her spiral. I let go of her hand, slip mine into my pocket. “We was out there listening to the radio ’cause the game was on and it was a nice day and Marcus was out with the boys and you was complaining about how all the other girls in yo class was going to some party and I wasn’t about to let you go on a Wednesday. And I swear you was about to throw a fit and I was ready to give yo ass a beating and I turned around and she was standing, bubbles coming out her mouth, lifting one foot up and setting it in front. Then she moved the other and did it again and I just wanted to watch that child forever but she was walking straight toward the water, like she was tryna dive in, had this look in her eyes like all she wanted to do was taste it.”
“And you picked her up and set her down further from the pool, but she dropped right down to her hands and knees, back to crawling,” I add, image clear as the sky that day.
“Never got to see her walk again.” Mama’s tears are running again and we’re on International Boulevard, but it looks different tonight: Mama’s face, my skin covered, not knowing where I’m walking. Following. She walks slightly in front of me, quiet. Don’t know the last time I saw Mama this quiet, and even though she says she’s showing me something, the pace is slow enough you’d think we were walking aimless.