Topic 29
The Kindness of Strangers
As a child, I was work.
Sometimes difficult, sometimes baffling, often joyous, but work all the same. The tender hands that bathed me, and bandaged my skinned knees or elbows, that offered me ripe peaches in summer and lip balm in winter were ultimately directed by the higher purpose of a paycheck, no matter how much I loved them. And I did love them -- all of them more than my mother, who inspired neither affection or fealty but always managed to show up at school and church events - and some of them as a child might love his mother, deeply, unconditionally, with the whole of my heart.
“Lucky bwai to have two mothers, Jackie,” Danielle whispered one afternoon after she caught me peering down the hall after my biological mother, staring daggers and wishing that she would be struck dead by lightning or devoured by the monsters in the basement. “She’s the one gave birth to you, bwai, and that demands respect. Wipe dat face off or I gwine to wipe it off for you.”
So I obeyed, because to disappoint Danielle would have been too much to bear.
When she didn’t knock on my door one morning two weeks later drawling her commands in the Jamaican patois that I loved, there was no other explanation than displeasure, no other reason for her to leave than my insolence or impudence.
When I asked my mother where Danielle was she simply said, “you’re a lot of work, Jackson.”
Curled up on the floor of the pantry in the servant’s kitchen that night, comforted a little but never enough in the indigo hour before dawn, head nestled on a sack of potatoes and my knees curled around a small drum of flour. Stone tile drilled my hip but the pain felt more warm than cold. I’d just drifted into a noisy dream of pots and pans clanging and dishware rattling, when rough hands pressed over my brow.
Lemons and a hint of onion and something else soothing, but most of the ease came from the touch of calluses on my face, and for the first time in nearly twenty-four hours, I relaxed.
“Petit Jack, this is no place for you to sleep. Don’t you miss your big soft bed?”
Adele leaned over me, still in her heavy wool coat, cheeks and nose ruddy with the cold.
“How long have you been here, mon petit? All night?”
I didn’t know what to say. Couldn’t say it, because I didn’t want to cry anymore. Not that choking, heaving, gasping crying I’d been doing, the kind that had left me exhausted and too alive in my skin. No words were left, and none would come, I thought.
So I nodded.
“Why is that?”
Knowing to respect my elders with an answer to every question, I spoke with the truth of my seven-year-old heart, choking on my tears and embarrassment. “I drove Danielle away.”
Adele’s pale eyes shimmered in the half-light, heavy lids drooped and closed, and her slender frame lifted in a sigh as she pulled me to my feet. “Qui indique à un enfant qu'il nous envoie loin? Non-sens d'ordures, petit Jack.” What kind of person tells a child he drives us away? “Nonsense. Danielle left because she was given another assignment. Un travail, a job.”
Travail. Trouble. Work.
I am now as I was then, and ever shall be.
Muse: Jack Hodgins
Fandom: Bones
Word Count: 567
As a child, I was work.
Sometimes difficult, sometimes baffling, often joyous, but work all the same. The tender hands that bathed me, and bandaged my skinned knees or elbows, that offered me ripe peaches in summer and lip balm in winter were ultimately directed by the higher purpose of a paycheck, no matter how much I loved them. And I did love them -- all of them more than my mother, who inspired neither affection or fealty but always managed to show up at school and church events - and some of them as a child might love his mother, deeply, unconditionally, with the whole of my heart.
“Lucky bwai to have two mothers, Jackie,” Danielle whispered one afternoon after she caught me peering down the hall after my biological mother, staring daggers and wishing that she would be struck dead by lightning or devoured by the monsters in the basement. “She’s the one gave birth to you, bwai, and that demands respect. Wipe dat face off or I gwine to wipe it off for you.”
So I obeyed, because to disappoint Danielle would have been too much to bear.
When she didn’t knock on my door one morning two weeks later drawling her commands in the Jamaican patois that I loved, there was no other explanation than displeasure, no other reason for her to leave than my insolence or impudence.
When I asked my mother where Danielle was she simply said, “you’re a lot of work, Jackson.”
Curled up on the floor of the pantry in the servant’s kitchen that night, comforted a little but never enough in the indigo hour before dawn, head nestled on a sack of potatoes and my knees curled around a small drum of flour. Stone tile drilled my hip but the pain felt more warm than cold. I’d just drifted into a noisy dream of pots and pans clanging and dishware rattling, when rough hands pressed over my brow.
Lemons and a hint of onion and something else soothing, but most of the ease came from the touch of calluses on my face, and for the first time in nearly twenty-four hours, I relaxed.
“Petit Jack, this is no place for you to sleep. Don’t you miss your big soft bed?”
Adele leaned over me, still in her heavy wool coat, cheeks and nose ruddy with the cold.
“How long have you been here, mon petit? All night?”
I didn’t know what to say. Couldn’t say it, because I didn’t want to cry anymore. Not that choking, heaving, gasping crying I’d been doing, the kind that had left me exhausted and too alive in my skin. No words were left, and none would come, I thought.
So I nodded.
“Why is that?”
Knowing to respect my elders with an answer to every question, I spoke with the truth of my seven-year-old heart, choking on my tears and embarrassment. “I drove Danielle away.”
Adele’s pale eyes shimmered in the half-light, heavy lids drooped and closed, and her slender frame lifted in a sigh as she pulled me to my feet. “Qui indique à un enfant qu'il nous envoie loin? Non-sens d'ordures, petit Jack.” What kind of person tells a child he drives us away? “Nonsense. Danielle left because she was given another assignment. Un travail, a job.”
Travail. Trouble. Work.
I am now as I was then, and ever shall be.
Muse: Jack Hodgins
Fandom: Bones
Word Count: 567