Chapter 12: You know what? Screw “Amazing Grace.” I’ll just stay lost.
Tuesday
I trudge upstairs and into the kitchen, hungry and still half-asleep. I’m pretty sure that staying in my old room put me into some kind of wacky time loop, and I’m pretty sure I dreamed about high school — and Jenny — the night before.
My mother’s sitting at the kitchen table, gazing down with a glassy stare at the front page of the newspaper.
I give her a hug from behind and kiss her on the cheek. “Hey, Momma.”
“Hey, baby,” she sighs without looking up. “Glad you got home safe last night.”
The pre-surgery chemotherapy has left her worn and thin, like an old rug. Her skin is almost grey; a do-rag covers her head to hide the hair loss. It’s not the way I’m used to seeing my mother. I frown.
“You alright?” I ask.
“Yes, baby, I’m fine.” She stops. Looks up at me. Then she shakes her head. “No, I’m not alright. Not really.”
I get an empty plate down from the cabinet and load it with bacon and eggs from pans that are still warm on top of the stove. I sit down next to her. She glances from the eggs to me and shakes her head, smiling.
“Still the hungriest of all my children,” she says.
“Still the biggest of all your children,” I retort.
“True.”
I pour a glass of orange juice and take a sip before I say, “So what’s wrong? You feeling bad from the chemo? Or are you nervous about the surgery?”
She looks up, studies me a moment before answering. “No. I’m sure the surgery’ll be fine.” She rubs her hip absentmindedly, the one with the tumor hidden inside it.
“You sure? It’s okay to be nervous.”
“No, I’m… ” She heaves another sigh, eyes moving past me and staring at nothing in particular. “’Course I’m nervous ’bout the surgery. Why you gotta ask a silly question like that in the first place?”
I smile at the sharp edges in her words because that sounds more like my momma. As long as she can snap at me like that, there’s still hope.
“Heard you jumped in, helped your baba and your brother last night at the restaurant,” she says, changing the subject.
I decide to go with it, not press the issue of her surgery, because when has my family ever been particularly good at talking about our feelings? We either don’t talk about them at all, or we yell. And I’m too tired to yell. So I shrug, tear off a chunk of bacon with my teeth.
“That’s what I’m here for, right? Help out with things til you’re all recovered?”
She nods and goes back to rubbing her hip. “Didn’t figure you’d start last night, though. Not after flying all day.”
“They were in the weeds. It was the right thing to do. But anyway, what’s going on today?” I ask. “You want me to go with you to that chemo treatment?”
“Actually… I was hoping that your baba could go with me. And you and Gerry could watch the restaurant?”
My eyes narrow, not over being asked to babysit Soul Mountain, but at the million-and-one questions I still have about my brother. I decide to brave the topic.
“So about that. About Gerry, I mean. He said he’s been clean for over a year and he’s living here and working at the restaurant? Are you really sure you should let him do that?”
“Your brother has turned a corner.” She says it in her non-negotiable fact voice. “He’s different now. I believe the Good Lord gave him a bona fide revelation. And you need to give him a chance to prove that to you.” She jabs a finger at me when she makes this last statement, which makes me feel a little like, fuck, between me and the heroin addict, how did I suddenly become the bad guy?
But then Gerry’s words from the night before come back to me. If he’s the black sheep, then I’m dark grey. Except maybe he’s not the black sheep at all anymore.
(“For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.” — The parable of the prodigal son, fucking gospel of Luke, 15:24. Look it up. And yes I know the word “gospel” is supposed to be capitalized, but I don’t fucking feel like it, okay?)
Maybe Gerry’s the prodigal son. The “Amazing Grace” once was lost, now he’s found ex-junkie. Always the favorite, underneath it all.
But me? Yeah. Still the fucking dyke.
I hold up my hands defensively. “Okay, alright. Don’t bite my fucking head off.”
“Watch your mouth, Anika.”
“Sorry. I was only asking. ’Cause last I heard, he was officially not an official member of the family anymore. That’s all. I just wondered what had changed.”
“You want to know what’s changed?” she asks. “Everything’s changed.”
Not quite everything, I think bitterly. I rip into the bacon again like a savage.
#
It’s Gerry and Becker and the Hispanic guy (who’s name is Emir, I learn) and me who open up Soul Mountain at eleven that morning. We’re more of a dinner place, and almost all of our lunch business is take-out from people who swing by on their lunch hour, so it’s blissfully quiet and restful, and I mainly spend my time running people’s credit cards in between playing games on my phone.
Jodie and Ben come in right on time at noon for their weekly game of Scrabble. Jodie’s a hairdresser who owns a salon down the street; Ben owns the failing record shop on the corner. They used to date, years and years ago, but they’re still friends and get together once per week at Soul Mountain so that Jodie can beat Ben senseless in Scrabble. I haven’t seen them since the last time I was in Ohio, which was almost five years ago, and now Ben’s pony tail is streaked with silver and white and Jodie’s hair color looks like it definitely came out of a box.
Jodie gives a high-pitched squeal of delight when she sees me behind the podium, shoving the Scrabble box at Ben and then prancing up to me with outstretched arms, wrapping me in a tight hug before I really have time to object.
“Oh my God! Anika! Nobody told me you were coming home!” she exclaims against my shoulder. She pushes me back, still gripping my forearms. “Let me get a good look at you. Your hair’s still a disaster, but I like the shorter cut.” She pulls on the curly ends so that they come down just past my chin. “It frames your face nicely.”
“Thanks… I think.”
Her eyes scan up and down. “And you look like you haven’t aged a day. Like you’re going to walk in here in your high school uniform.”
I give her a half-smile, but I’m thinking to myself, You have no idea how much I’ve aged, lady.
Instead of saying that, I say, “You guys look good, too.”
She finally lets go of me, but she’s still inspecting me like like she’s a fucking CSI lady-detective.
“So what are you doing home? I thought you were playing basketball in Switzerland. That’s what your dad told me.”
“I still am,” I say, although I wonder if it’s still true. Technically, I broke my contract by coming home. I don’t know how much the town of Marcine knows about my mother’s cancer, so I tell her, “My mom’s taking a break. So I came home to help out for a while.”
I see Ben nod knowingly behind Jodie, so I’m thinking that maybe they know she’s sick, but then Jodie’s brow furrows in confusion.
“You guys still get the same thing?” I ask, redirecting before she can ask more. I point to Ben. “Dal bhat tarkari for you, collards and chicken masu for Jodie?”
Jodie beams up at me, already forgetting my mom’s mysterious absence. “I can’t believe you still remember, after all this time. Yes. You know, you always were my favorite Singh.”
I ignore the last comment, because I’ve got a headache and because I already had to play fucking sibling rivalry games in the kitchen this morning with Mom.
“You guys sit down. I’ll bring out your iced tea and mango lassi,” I tell them.
“Oh — no more mango lassi for me,” Jodie says apologetically. “My old lady stomach can’t handle the dairy anymore. I’ll just take tea.”
I nod and escape into the kitchen while Ben leads Jodie to their table in the corner.
I’m carrying out a pitcher of iced tea for them a few seconds later when I catch a glimpse of some girl with neck-length dark hair and an expensive-looking pea coat jacket standing at the podium, her back to me.
“Be with you in a second,” I call. I feel her tracking me with her gaze as I walk into the sunny spot in the corner and pour drinks for Jodie and Ben. Jodie starts babbling as soon as I arrive, asking me Have you visited so-and-so yet? Did you hear about what happened with so-and-so? Business at Ben’s record shop is really picking up, you should go by some night when they have live music, and on and on. I’m glad for the girl waiting at the podium because it gives me an excuse to jerk my chin in her direction and say,
“Sorry, Jo, I gotta go help this customer”
and Jodie can only give me a disappointed but understanding nod.
I high-step it back to the podium and say, “Can I help — ” before freezing mid-sentence.
Because guess who it is?
“Hi,” yesterday’s Tinkerbell-sized Jane Lane seat mate says to me. “I heard this place had the best Nepalese and soul food fusion in town. Thought I’d check it out.”