Life as a Whirlwind - Part II
And for some strange reason, I once again felt like writing poetry...
My uncle Raymond and my aunts Rebecca and Sylvie - if they’re anything like my mother was, it makes me doubly sad that I never got to know her. They’re warm, always hugging and laughing and they made a point of including me in everything. I barely made sense out of what they were saying because they all wanted to talk at the same time about my mom.
They showed me a picture of her, taken at Disneyland when she was a teenager. She was wearing those silly mouse-ear hats - the one where you can have your name stitched on it. My hands trembled, seeing myself in her deep brown skin and laughing eyes. She looked like one of those teen models with perfect skin, hair and makeup and she was making rabbit-ears behind her brother. She looked as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
“You look just like her,” Aunt Sylvie said as she dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Right down to the zit-free skin.”
We laughed some more about that, but I just couldn’t let go of my mom’s picture and I prayed they wouldn’t want it back. It was as if the picture was my only tangible link to the woman she’d once been.
Before a lying, snake-tongued bastard entered her life and destroyed it.
And from somewhere, I had to ask:
“What took you so long to contact me?”
Before any of them spoke, I already knew the answer.
Of course, why on earth would the saintly Reverend Wheatley want his motherless daughter to know that she had relatives who weren’t from the projects? After all, admitting that her real family actually had more money than he’d ever see in a lifetime wouldn’t work on his parishioners, who admired him for taking in the child of a drug-addled crack whore.
“I wrote several letters,” Aunt Rebecca said, her voice betraying none of the anger I knew she had to feel. “They always came back as ‘return to sender’ though I was more than certain I had the right address.”
“You weren’t alone though,” Uncle Raymond told me, holding my hand. “We watched over you from a distance. I knew people at every school you attended, and they kept me abreast of everything you did as much as they could.”
I sat for a moment and thought about that. Interestingly enough, I’d always had the sense that I was being watched, but I never thought too much about it. After all, there were bigger things on my mind - like not strangling the Reverend and his brainwashed PTA-mom of a wife.
And again that warmth - of knowing that they cared enough about me to watch over me, even with the obstacles my father (that sticks like a bone in the throat having to admit that some of his blood runs through my veins) put in front of them.
There were so many other questions I wanted to ask, but they told me to slow down, to digest everything one at a time. And as much as I hated to admit it, feeling like a kid on Christmas Day wanting to unwrap every gift at once, I knew they were right. Something inside told me they were in my life to stay and there would be nothing Reverend Wheatley could ever do about it.
I saw tears of joy in Mrs. Brennan’s eyes and she hugged me tight and for a moment it felt as if my mother’s arms were around me. If I couldn’t have my real mother, Mrs. Brennan was more than acceptable in her stead. I wondered what my aunts and uncles thought of some strange white woman hugging me, but they were all smiles. Then again, with Mrs. Brennan’s incredible soda bread in their stomachs, they wouldn’t have cared if she had three eyes and tentacles.
“Are you planning to take my darlin’ Phyllis away from us,” Mr. Brennan asked teasingly, though he looked at me as if the final decision was mine. I shook my head.
My uncle laughed. “If she’s anything like her mother, getting her out of a bookstore would be next to near impossible.”
Later that night, Shawn came up to my room as he usually did. I felt like talking and yet I didn’t. I was still staring at the picture of my mother, then staring into the mirror to see if I could see her in me. I wanted none of my father’s bland, pasty features. I wanted sun-brown skin, fawn brown eyes, a riot of unruly curls that resisted every attempt at flat-ironing them. I wanted my mother’s full and lush mouth - what the stepford wife called ‘generous’ and from her it wasn’t a compliment. I wanted my mother’s nose - not the beaky, aquiline thing the Reverend had - but a nose that was meant to smell everything good and catalogue it in one’s memory banks.
I don’t know how long he sat on the floor and watched me. All I do know was when he stood behind me, his arms around my waist as my head sank into his shoulder.
And I really do feel like writing poetry.
My uncle Raymond and my aunts Rebecca and Sylvie - if they’re anything like my mother was, it makes me doubly sad that I never got to know her. They’re warm, always hugging and laughing and they made a point of including me in everything. I barely made sense out of what they were saying because they all wanted to talk at the same time about my mom.
They showed me a picture of her, taken at Disneyland when she was a teenager. She was wearing those silly mouse-ear hats - the one where you can have your name stitched on it. My hands trembled, seeing myself in her deep brown skin and laughing eyes. She looked like one of those teen models with perfect skin, hair and makeup and she was making rabbit-ears behind her brother. She looked as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
“You look just like her,” Aunt Sylvie said as she dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Right down to the zit-free skin.”
We laughed some more about that, but I just couldn’t let go of my mom’s picture and I prayed they wouldn’t want it back. It was as if the picture was my only tangible link to the woman she’d once been.
Before a lying, snake-tongued bastard entered her life and destroyed it.
And from somewhere, I had to ask:
“What took you so long to contact me?”
Before any of them spoke, I already knew the answer.
Of course, why on earth would the saintly Reverend Wheatley want his motherless daughter to know that she had relatives who weren’t from the projects? After all, admitting that her real family actually had more money than he’d ever see in a lifetime wouldn’t work on his parishioners, who admired him for taking in the child of a drug-addled crack whore.
“I wrote several letters,” Aunt Rebecca said, her voice betraying none of the anger I knew she had to feel. “They always came back as ‘return to sender’ though I was more than certain I had the right address.”
“You weren’t alone though,” Uncle Raymond told me, holding my hand. “We watched over you from a distance. I knew people at every school you attended, and they kept me abreast of everything you did as much as they could.”
I sat for a moment and thought about that. Interestingly enough, I’d always had the sense that I was being watched, but I never thought too much about it. After all, there were bigger things on my mind - like not strangling the Reverend and his brainwashed PTA-mom of a wife.
And again that warmth - of knowing that they cared enough about me to watch over me, even with the obstacles my father (that sticks like a bone in the throat having to admit that some of his blood runs through my veins) put in front of them.
There were so many other questions I wanted to ask, but they told me to slow down, to digest everything one at a time. And as much as I hated to admit it, feeling like a kid on Christmas Day wanting to unwrap every gift at once, I knew they were right. Something inside told me they were in my life to stay and there would be nothing Reverend Wheatley could ever do about it.
I saw tears of joy in Mrs. Brennan’s eyes and she hugged me tight and for a moment it felt as if my mother’s arms were around me. If I couldn’t have my real mother, Mrs. Brennan was more than acceptable in her stead. I wondered what my aunts and uncles thought of some strange white woman hugging me, but they were all smiles. Then again, with Mrs. Brennan’s incredible soda bread in their stomachs, they wouldn’t have cared if she had three eyes and tentacles.
“Are you planning to take my darlin’ Phyllis away from us,” Mr. Brennan asked teasingly, though he looked at me as if the final decision was mine. I shook my head.
My uncle laughed. “If she’s anything like her mother, getting her out of a bookstore would be next to near impossible.”
Later that night, Shawn came up to my room as he usually did. I felt like talking and yet I didn’t. I was still staring at the picture of my mother, then staring into the mirror to see if I could see her in me. I wanted none of my father’s bland, pasty features. I wanted sun-brown skin, fawn brown eyes, a riot of unruly curls that resisted every attempt at flat-ironing them. I wanted my mother’s full and lush mouth - what the stepford wife called ‘generous’ and from her it wasn’t a compliment. I wanted my mother’s nose - not the beaky, aquiline thing the Reverend had - but a nose that was meant to smell everything good and catalogue it in one’s memory banks.
I don’t know how long he sat on the floor and watched me. All I do know was when he stood behind me, his arms around my waist as my head sank into his shoulder.
And I really do feel like writing poetry.