Family

I was too young to know these things. They were my big, beautiful and exciting teenage stepsisters. I had inherited them overnight when our mothers fell in love and moved us all in together to that apartment on 15th street with the tall ceilings and steep winding stairs that led to a sunny patch of concrete backyard. There was passionate lovemaking in the bedroom in the middle of the night; I would wake up terrified, but Elizabeth and Traci always laughed and teased our mothers the following mornings about how loud they had been. I reassured myself that it must all be okay, normal. Maybe even funny.

We had cats, two or three, depending on the time of year. Traci would bring one home after finding it in the backyard crying for its lost mother: we have to take it in or it’ll die! I cuddled these creatures and talked to them during the long weekend afternoons when I waited patiently for some attention. I would sing to the cats softly, tell them my secrets and make cozy beds out of pillowcases for them.

Traci and Elizabeth had crazy 80’s haircuts, and clothes with lots of holes: gray, black, netted. I looked up to them and they mostly ignored me, except when they got jealous that I had a father who took me out to eat, who bought me presents, a father who had a stable home I could visit every other weekend.  Then they would make clear to me that I was a spoiled brat. I believed them, and longed to be close, to taste some of their wild teenage life that was still so far from me, to believe that I was part of something, and even if there were two moms, at least I had sisters that sat around the table with us at dinner time. I counted: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Family.

 

My Father Said

Elizabeth called my father to tell him they were leaving to go back to England, all three of them: her, Eve, and Traci. She sounded like she knew what she was talking about, my father said, and the tone of her voice almost convinced him it made sense that she would choose to call him of all people. As if she had even crossed his mind once over the past ten years.

“But did she say why she was calling you? Why you?” I tried to grasp this with all my might: My father, picking up the phone to hear a strange voice of a broken young woman who was the daughter of his ex-wife’s ex-lover. Telling him they were leaving the country. My father. Of  all people. And without any explanation.

“No, I just thought this was part of her mental issues––didn’t you tell me she’d been hospitalized before?” My father wanted nothing more to do with this.

“And your phone number. To think she kept it all these years!” How torn up Elizabeth was the last time I saw her. Her face, how it was puffy and white with a tight smile that never revealed her teeth.

I quickly placed a call to the woman who had once been a type of stepmother to me, a mother-woman caring for me alongside my fiery and anxious mother. I was worried that she and Elizabeth might have already left for England and I would lose that part of my life forever. It had been years since we had last spoken, but I always kept her latest number in my address book. I dialed the digits between short breaths. Eve answered the phone, her voice the same wavy voice, only older. Shakier, but clearer.

 

McDonald’s

Eve had to pick him up in a Mcdonald’s parking lot. You wouldn’t believe it, Naomi, it was so clandestine. She tells me the story shot by shot:

“Uh, yes, Ms. P? I’m calling to inform you that your daughter Traci was taken to jail this morning. We’re contacting you to request you take your grandson in until your daughter’s situation is figured out. There’s no court date yet, but the baby is with a social worker ready to be handed over.”

Eve had no car seat, of course, so she borrowed the one the social worker had with her and promised to return it the following day. The woman looked at her with pity so deep that Eve sensed she was new at her job––the way she handed over the baby, right there in a Mcdonald’s parking lot, and looked Eve in the eye, taking out a business card and handing it to her.

“He’s very lucky to have a grandma to take care of him. Please call if you need support, the district will be contacting you to notify you on the status of your daughter.”

Elizabeth, fresh out of the mental ward after another attempt at slitting her wrists, heard her baby nephew cry all night from her room, next to her mother’s. Eve didn’t tell her why baby Daniel was staying the night; she had to be careful not to upset her.

But Elizabeth felt that something was wrong, she knew there was a reason why her sister Traci hadn’t been returning her calls like she always did, for Traci knew these calls kept her alive, away from the razors and the pills and the hospital. As Elizabeth lay in bed, the baby’s voice carrying through the wall, she wanted to pound the wall with her fist, pound hard, maybe break a hole with a bloody knuckle. Mother, I cannot sleep, get that baby out of here. She tried to remember the last time she had spoken to Traci, was it last week when she called to tell her the baby was starting to crawl? Was it that short conversation on Sunday, or Saturday morning when Traci asked her to hold on, then muffled the phone and never came back? She remembered the voice in the background, unhappy, starting out in a slicing whisper, then getting louder until the phone line had clicked softly, both Traci’s voice and the muffled sound disappearing at once.

 

White Trash

Traci had another child before Daniel. Her name was Jessica and she was the reason Traci was in jail. When Jessica was three, Traci took her and left. Jessica’s father knew she must be heading back to England where she had family and could live off of the state. He didn’t try to stop her. He wasn’t worried about Traci’s drinking; he hadn’t thought it had much to do with her changing moods, or the distance between them that had grown so wide he could hardly feel her absence when she finally left. There was nothing there anymore, nothing between them; he couldn’t make himself feel sad or angry, he just looked at Jessica’s untouched toys, still spread around the stained grayish-blue wall-to-wall carpet as she had left them. He tossed them all in a big trash bag and shoved them into the closet. Better for a daughter to be with her mother.

Traci was pregnant with Jessica the last time I saw her. I was a teenager trying to connect the pieces of my childhood, longing to feel a connection to this young woman who I used to call my step sister. My mother dropped me off at a motel-style apartment building in the middle of nowhere, where Traci and her big belly greeted me and introduced me to the man she would soon leave who was sitting in front of a TV blasting in the background, cheap posters on the walls, piles of pink clothes for the baby. Was this what she had become? Is this what people call white trash? I wondered, immediately feeling ashamed for the thought. The attempt was in the air––she made us tea with milk and sugar, pouring the milk in first before the hot water just like her mother always did when I was a little girl. The Red Rose tea collection of porcelain animals lining the kitchen window sill took me back to the years we lived together when we lived in the City with our two moms in a bohemian apartment in the Mission, in the 80’s, when I was too young to understand anything but she had already been through it all.

She thanked me for visiting her that day, her belly about to burst––it meant a lot to her, and even though she hadn’t been in touch with me for many years, she always thought of me as her little sister, and remembered how I would make her laugh when I was such a silly, silly girl.

 

In Jail

Daniel was two and a half when I called Eve to see if they had already left to go to England, all of them, like Elizabeth had told my father on the phone when she called out of the blue.

“No, Naomi, we’re not moving, Elizabeth imagines things. I was shocked when she told me she had called your father. She was trying to reach out, I guess.”

“So she’s still not doing well.”

“No. She just came out of the hospital after being there for five weeks. It’s really hard to talk about.”

“Wow, I’m sorry to hear. She’s so lucky to have you there for her.”

“Yeah, that’s what I am most grateful about, that I’m stable, finally, after all these years. How are you doing? How’s your mother?”

“We’re good, my mom’s the same. We’re good. And Traci – how’s she doing? Last time we talked she had a baby boy, right?”

“Aaah, Naomi ,” Eve paused and breathed long and hard, “Traci…well, Traci’s in jail.”

 

Photo

It’s all over the Internet: the mother who sold her daughter’s body for drugs, there’s evidence. The girl came out and told her father everything, how her mother allowed men to come in and rape her, how her mother’s new boyfriend raped her, how her mother just watched from the side. The mother pleads innocent, the mother has another child, a boy, from the man who is also in jail, accused of raping his stepdaughter when she lived with them, before her mother sent her to live with her father because she just couldn’t take care of her anymore.

There’s a photo. She is looking straight at me from my computer, from court. It really is her. She looks the same, just older. And vacant. But I can still hear her deep laugh, a stark contrast to this sullen face online. And I see her crooked teeth exposed as she’s laughing–maybe she’s drunk, I realize now, maybe high. I was too young to know these things.

If our mothers had stayed together, if that last breakup had been like all the previous ones, ending in a passionate, dramatic reappearance of Eve and her daughters in my life; if Eve had been given her stabling medication sooner so my mother could stand to live with her; if she were always as charming as she was on the upside of her illness, full of ideas and desires, and love, and laughter; if we had remained a family; if Traci had me to look down on, or my mother to give her more of what she needed; if there had been a real home purchased together instead of deserted apartments that she could never call home; if there were more family dinners. Maybe then she wouldn’t have needed alcohol and drugs, so much that she forgot that she had a tender side to her, that she was really excited about having Jessica when I visited her in that trashy motel apartment, the crib set up, actually glowing in her pregnancy.

 

Innocent

Eve says the girl made it all up: Jessica was angry that her mother sent her to live with her father, she was still a virgin, she was a liar, her father was out to get Traci as well, still angry at her for leaving, crazy motherfucker, made her tell these lies.

Eve defends her own daughter, tells me Traci is innocent and her poor granddaughter made up these lies because she was jealous of her mother’s new life, husband and baby; the jury couldn’t find enough evidence and they were waiting on another trial, the bail too high for her to get her daughter out. She’s still a virgin, Naomi.

I listen, the words running around in my head. I knew this person, I shared a life with her, I was a little girl with her, I proudly called her my sister when I was holding on to things to call my own. I listen to Eve, telling me how beautiful Daniel is, how he has taken her bedroom for himself and he keeps her going, taking care of a little boy at her age. He’ll be wheeling me around in a wheelchair one of these days. She laughs.

I tell her I will call again soon, I will think good thoughts and send them her way. I know she needs it; I know how she will hang up the phone and almost pick it up again to call my mother after all these years, but she won’t, she can’t bear to tell her all of this, and then wonder herself what could have been, what should have been, what might have saved her two broken daughters if she had only taken care of herself sooner.

 

Dark Circles

My mother hasn’t been able to sleep since I told her about Traci being in jail.

“You should call Eve, mom, you really should. I mean, her daughter’s in jail.”

My mother is sitting across from me, a big plate of pie and ice cream between us. I asked her to join me, so we could talk. It’s been hard for me to digest it all too.

“I know I should.” She’s quiet for a long moment.

“Was there anything so obviously wrong with Traci when we lived together?” I break the silence, “I mean, I was too young to know these things, but did you notice anything?”

My mother’s face is still, she picks at the pie crust with her fork absentmindedly. “Not really, Naomi. She did drink as a teenager, but teenagers drink, you know?”

“You must feel so lucky, mom. I mean, think of Eve: two daughters, each one more fucked up than the other— ”

“Oh, come on, it’s a totally different story. You had support they never had. You had a father growing up, your mother wasn’t crazy, you had a completely different childhood. It’s not about luck.”

I lower my gaze and stare at the polished wooden restaurant table, holding in my words, knowing this is not the time to bring stuff up again. I was getting too old for accusations, and it was true, I did have a father, and unlike the stories I had heard about their early childhood, my father never hit me. Luck would have to stay out of this.

“So, do you think it’s true?” I lift my eyes to meet hers, dark circles around them. “Is it true?! I mean, if we didn’t know her we’d be cursing her way to hell, hoping she never sees the light of day again!”

“But we do know her. And if she was so addicted to drugs, I mean — why not just sell her own body?”

“I don’t know, Naomi, I don’t know. How can we understand something like this? It’s Traci’s own daughter, for God’s sake; would a daughter make something like this up?”

“That’s what Eve said. Mom, she said Jessica was checked, and she was still a virgin—”

“So what? God, you’re so naïve. You’ve always been.” My mother pushes the plate away from her and sits back in her chair, head turned sideways. I know she’s thinking of Traci in that cell, and Eve coming to visit her — an aging Eve, bloated from her medication, not the woman she had once loved. She sees Eve sitting with her grandson and daughter during visiting hours, trying to be cheerful for Traci, to give her hope. My mother is asking herself how in the world she would bring herself to make the call she could no longer escape.

 

Her Cell

Traci thinks about me in prison. When she sits in her cell, when she’s out in the yard, when she waits for a whole week for her mother to come visit with Daniel. I know she thinks of me; I have at least crossed her mind, even after all of these years. When she thinks about being in this place for the rest of her life if she is found guilty, she sees her life, all the years flashing before her, in no particular order, leaving out some places that she can’t remember anymore, but she remembers me and my mother, and she thinks of me. I am in her mind as she sits waiting for her next meal, for the next meeting with her lawyer. She remembers her teenage life before she met Jessica’s father, before she started drinking. She remembers our last visit, when she was almost bursting with Jessica in her womb, and she can’t believe I have children of my own now. She regrets never calling me after that last visit, not sending me photos of Jessica growing up. Traci thinks of how you never know what will finally do you in, of how she stood there with me, carrying her daughter whose words have now locked her up in jail, how she suffered through all-day morning sickness for her, how she tore so badly at childbirth that she had to sit on pillows for months, how she nursed until she could no longer stand the pulling sensation on her breasts, how she never quite felt the same after Jessica came into the world.  In her now clear mind, she can see that she never fully got back on her feet, that the alcohol was becoming more and more of her life. And the phone calls she would make to her mother, who was always moving around — still, after all these years — and who could never tell her when she was coming to visit, when she could help with the baby; she was not feeling well, had been to the doctor, they’re trying a new medication, it will all be fine soon, hang in there, give your daughter all I couldn’t give you and your sister, please.

 

Strawberry blond

Every week Eve visits Traci in prison. They still haven’t got her for life, she keeps telling herself. She takes Daniel to see his mother, takes Daniel for his mother to see: He keeps growing, mom; I never noticed it when he was with me. It’s amazing how my heart aches at night in the cell when I think of him, and how I didn’t give a shit’s fuck about him before.

She takes two buses to get to the prison. She prefers not to drive on those days; it makes it more special. She can hold Daniel close to her on the way there and back, and she can cry out the window without worrying about getting into an accident. It gives her time to digest, to process.

When she tries to remember the last time she saw her daughter so clean, so clear in the eyes, the only pictures that come to her are of Traci’s childhood, with her strawberry blond hair curling around her head. She can almost smell her, the sweetness of her first born, always happy and cheery, unlike Elizabeth who followed quickly after a year and half, born with that serious look on her face, sitting and drawing for hours, then crumpling up her work and running out to look up at the sky.

Eve kisses the back of her grandson’s head as they make their way back from the prison home, whispering into his silky-soft brown hair. They haven’t gotten her for life.