father shouts. Anna and I jump, but Mama stands there as if this loud voice came out of Daddy every single day. “What damn plan does your god have?! Tell me, because I want to be a part of it!”
Mama presses her Bible closer to her chest and doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t look angry. Just a little bit . . . a little bit broken.
“Don’t take this away from me,” she says. “Not this, too.”
I lay my head down on the kitchen table. The pages of my notebook feel cool against my face. We’re supposed to write a story about a dream we had that changed us. I’ve had three hundred dreams and still wake up in this tiny apartment in this world that doesn’t have anything to do with us.
“I was a cop for fifteen years,” my father says to the window. “Fifteen years! When I walk down these streets and see cops, I see that thing in their eyes that still believes in it. Still believes they can protect the world and change it and make it good. Well, you know what—I used to have those same beliefs, but they died with Raymond Taylor. They died the morning I walked into the D.A.’s office. They died when Randall and Dennis got sent to jail for manslaughter. I did that. I sent two cops to jail. Two cops! And it tore me up inside! Tore me up!”
Me and Anna sit straight up, our eyes wide. They went to jail, I think, feeling a smile coming on. The first few times we asked him, he wouldn’t tell us, and then we were too scared to ask anymore. And now, here it was, in this tiny apartment all these miles away from Denver. They went to jail. When I look over at Anna, she’s half-smiling, too. I hug myself hard, scared of my father’s voice, so loud in the room, but loving the words coming out of his mouth. They went to jail!
He turns slowly and glares at my mother. “Do you know what that felt like? It felt like sending myself to jail. It didn’t feel like the right thing no matter how many times you tell me it was. It felt as wrong as Raymond Taylor’s dying felt! And so now what do I have? Tell me, Mrs. Thomas. Tell me what your god’s next plan is, because I’m as tired of myself at this window as you are!”
Mama bites her bottom lip and stares at Daddy. The room is silent. It is the most he’s said in a long time, and the words hit us all hard. Anna stares down at her hands. The smile is gone now, but she’s not frowning, either. I put my braid in my mouth and chew the end of it for a minute. The apartment is dead silent. When my father sighs, I get up and put my arms around his shoulders. He reaches up and pats my hand absently. He is crying.
“I’m sorry,” Mama says after a long time has passed. “I’m sorry it had to happen like this . . . to you . . . and to us.” She sniffs and lets her breath out real slowly. “It’s hard for all of us here, but we don’t have to live this way.”
Anna looks over at me and mouths jail. I nod. Even in this airless room, there is that tiny bubble of all rightness. A tiny kernel of justice coming at us across all these miles.
Mama’s voice softens. “In another month, I’ll be certified to teach here and can start putting in applications at all the schools I can get to.”
My grandmother taught. Mama says she never thought of doing anything else. Teaching’s in my blood, she said. No, she said. Teaching is my blood. It’s all of me. The one thing the Feds screwed up on was my mother’s teaching certificate. First they botched her name, then they forgot to send a new one. My mother believes it’s because they didn’t want her to teach for a while. For whatever reason, it was finally on its way.
At night, my mother studies the Bible the way she once pored over her daily lessons, marking passages, researching the origins of them and reaching further to understand and explain it all. Who was Judas, Job, Hotham the Aroerite, Salome, Apostle John? Where was Gomorrah, Canaan, the Black Sea, Babylon, Eph esus, Patmos? Ask Mrs. Thomas. She knows.
That
Mama presses her Bible closer to her chest and doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t look angry. Just a little bit . . . a little bit broken.
“Don’t take this away from me,” she says. “Not this, too.”
I lay my head down on the kitchen table. The pages of my notebook feel cool against my face. We’re supposed to write a story about a dream we had that changed us. I’ve had three hundred dreams and still wake up in this tiny apartment in this world that doesn’t have anything to do with us.
“I was a cop for fifteen years,” my father says to the window. “Fifteen years! When I walk down these streets and see cops, I see that thing in their eyes that still believes in it. Still believes they can protect the world and change it and make it good. Well, you know what—I used to have those same beliefs, but they died with Raymond Taylor. They died the morning I walked into the D.A.’s office. They died when Randall and Dennis got sent to jail for manslaughter. I did that. I sent two cops to jail. Two cops! And it tore me up inside! Tore me up!”
Me and Anna sit straight up, our eyes wide. They went to jail, I think, feeling a smile coming on. The first few times we asked him, he wouldn’t tell us, and then we were too scared to ask anymore. And now, here it was, in this tiny apartment all these miles away from Denver. They went to jail. When I look over at Anna, she’s half-smiling, too. I hug myself hard, scared of my father’s voice, so loud in the room, but loving the words coming out of his mouth. They went to jail!
He turns slowly and glares at my mother. “Do you know what that felt like? It felt like sending myself to jail. It didn’t feel like the right thing no matter how many times you tell me it was. It felt as wrong as Raymond Taylor’s dying felt! And so now what do I have? Tell me, Mrs. Thomas. Tell me what your god’s next plan is, because I’m as tired of myself at this window as you are!”
Mama bites her bottom lip and stares at Daddy. The room is silent. It is the most he’s said in a long time, and the words hit us all hard. Anna stares down at her hands. The smile is gone now, but she’s not frowning, either. I put my braid in my mouth and chew the end of it for a minute. The apartment is dead silent. When my father sighs, I get up and put my arms around his shoulders. He reaches up and pats my hand absently. He is crying.
“I’m sorry,” Mama says after a long time has passed. “I’m sorry it had to happen like this . . . to you . . . and to us.” She sniffs and lets her breath out real slowly. “It’s hard for all of us here, but we don’t have to live this way.”
Anna looks over at me and mouths jail. I nod. Even in this airless room, there is that tiny bubble of all rightness. A tiny kernel of justice coming at us across all these miles.
Mama’s voice softens. “In another month, I’ll be certified to teach here and can start putting in applications at all the schools I can get to.”
My grandmother taught. Mama says she never thought of doing anything else. Teaching’s in my blood, she said. No, she said. Teaching is my blood. It’s all of me. The one thing the Feds screwed up on was my mother’s teaching certificate. First they botched her name, then they forgot to send a new one. My mother believes it’s because they didn’t want her to teach for a while. For whatever reason, it was finally on its way.
At night, my mother studies the Bible the way she once pored over her daily lessons, marking passages, researching the origins of them and reaching further to understand and explain it all. Who was Judas, Job, Hotham the Aroerite, Salome, Apostle John? Where was Gomorrah, Canaan, the Black Sea, Babylon, Eph esus, Patmos? Ask Mrs. Thomas. She knows.
That
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