The Door Girl, Part 4

All that to say, these little escapades my mother went on had happened before. So please, dear reader, do not think me entirely heartless at my aloof reaction to Sarah Davey having gone missing. Again.

The time before that, Aunt Cassie, my mother’s sister, was about to get married. It was four months until the wedding and Auntie found her fiancé dead from a blood clot in his leg.

My mother, upon hearing the news, ran out of the house crying. We spent the rest of the day searching for her. Never mind Aunt Cassie’s fiancé! Where was poor mother? We, my grandmother, aunt and myself, plodded through town looking. We called her pharmacist thinking maybe she had gone to him for something to numb the pain. There was no sign of her anywhere. Later that night, as we all sat around grandmother’s table not worrying about Aunt Cassie, my mother appeared in the doorway in full make-up and a beautiful yellow A-line dress, belted at her petite waist.

“I shall wear yellow,” she stated in a queenly tone, her face upturned. “For dear Cassie’s beau is about to join our dear Lord in heaven. This, my loved ones, is the best day of his life and I shall wear yellow in honor of this joyous occasion. God be with him.” And we all crossed ourselves, including mother, and wished Aunt Cassie would stop crying already.

Later that night, we all sat around our table, which was actually an empty carpet spool a friend of mother’s had found on a curb.

“Ma, can I have a smoke?” I asked.

“I guess,” my mother said, “but only because it’s a special occasion.”

She handed me one and the four of us: my grandmother, mother, aunt and I sat blowing rings of smoke. That day, my mother consented. Last week, she told me if she ever found me smoking, she would beat my ass, make me sit on the front porch and smoke an entire pack and then eat the butts.

“And then you will never want to smoke again!” She added with lips pursed, eyebrows raised, and a slim cigarette between her fingers.

It was a world of relativity, but one I knew how to function in. One day things were black, and the next day they were white. I never questioned the rules, but simply shifted along with them, like a mallard floating along with the ever-changing tide.

In that moment, we were like beads on a string that was slowly unravelling. If the beads fell off, they would simply scatter on the floor; they would become orphans unto themselves. And so we clung on to the insanity that bound us together with white-knuckled hands. We filled up our lungs with nicotine and tar and everything bad for us and smiled inwardly that we were all on the string as one.