Mother May I

for K.M.

  My little girl always asks me why is it that I have no pictures of my real mother around the house.  “Is it because she’s bad, mum?” she would say.  Iman never expects an answer even now that she is thirteen and growing into a young woman.  I always tell her that young women never ask questions in excess or, even worse, those that are inappropriate.  She smiles every time I say it.  Then she replies with a feisty statement, “I may be an uptight young woman now but you’ll grow me into an inquisitive and inconsiderate child.”  And when I think of it she is right with her words.  It is my need to tell her my childhood stories that makes her want to know.  Although I have never said it aloud Iman has sensed it.  That ability to sense things, whether good or bad, is something she acquired from me and, I, from my “real” mother.

I sensed it that night.  I sensed that very bad feeling that found comfort in my gut and did not leave until this bad thing occurred.  I was only in the third form with an expectedly sheltered life.  My mother, Georgia, who preferred to be called Mrs. Grant, was a Christian lady of virtue.  She was divorced from my father, who I call “The Man”, when she was thirty years old.  They were married when she was twenty-three and, he, twenty-seven.  I did not know, just then, why she kept his name.
I was a bit confused by her Christian lifestyle outside of the home and her blatant hypocrisy within.  Although mother cursed about what “foolishness” went on in church she would use the same doctrines to threaten me into bed or to lure me into studying for my school tests.  Some nights, in the midst of my rest she would grab me out of the bed to pray and ask God for forgiveness.  I had apparently done something wrong again.  This time the situation, I thought, was just as ridiculous as the previous ones. Mother found my most precious poetry book with original poems written by my very best friend, Taylor and myself.  I was, however, totally unaware of the fact that it was not the poetry that upset her but a letter written for a boy.
“Do you think I am blind?” she asked.
Terrified by her stare I loosened myself from her grip and dashed to a corner of my room.  Somehow, having my back against the wall gave me a comforting feeling.  She could only attack me from the front and I would be prepared for it.
“What have I done?” was my signature question as “do you think I’m blind?” was hers.
She peeled the book open and allowed the letter to fall to the floor.  I saw it land and I bowed my head.  Taylor and I were pretending to write love letters to the boys that we were in “love” with.  I had a crush on Steve who was just a year ahead of me at school.  Taylor had a real boyfriend who lived in another country.  We dreamed about them everyday.  Writing the letters was an attempt to ease our love-aching hearts.
“Who is Steve?” Georgia asked as she approached me stealthily. “Who the hell is Steve?”  
I did not know whether to tell her the truth or to lie.  My mind raced at a million kilometers per hour.  Despite all my lifelong attempts to speak the truth I always told lies because I was afraid she would not believe me anyway.  I always ended up being beaten and bruised by her because she almost always found out that I lied.
“Steve is s-s-someone…” I stammered, scrambling for words.  “…Who I saw in a movie that Taylor and I watched.”  The lie just kept running off my lips.  “And he was the star who was very cute.” I whispered.  I felt as if I had sunken into the ground because I was embarrassed for telling mother that a boy was cute.  I was very brave.  “So we pretended to write love letters for him to see how we thought he was cute.”
“ ‘And I need you to touch me!’ ” She read while she stooped over the letter on the floor.  I felt my skin set ablaze from embarrassment.  “ ‘AND I LONG FOR YOUR KISS!’ ”
She scrambled to grab my legs and fell clumsily unto her face.  I did not hesitate and ran into the bathroom.  The door clicked as I turned the lock.  Jesus! It’s two in the morning, I thought.  There was one thing I learned about my mother while I lived with her.  She was never afraid to hurt me.  She was not afraid of me, or her ex-husband, or my stepmother, or the neighbours.  I started to believe that she was not afraid of God either.  I thought that if she were really afraid of Him then she would never hit me.  God saw her every time she struck me.  “ No.” I said to myself. “ She sure isn’t afraid of God.”
I heard her scramble outside.  Suddenly the blade of an axe pierced the wooden door.  
“ Mommy! Mommy! Please don’t kill me!”  I jumped into the bathtub not knowing what else to do or how to protect myself.
“YOU’RE GOING TO HELL IF YOU DON’T OPEN THIS F*****G DOOR!”
“Mommy, please!”
The door flew open.

Class seemed extra long that morning.  The English Literature teacher rambled on and on about some unimportant main character in some unimportant book.  I was not at the least concerned about what was being taught.  I felt Taylor tug my uniform blouse and whisper something.  I ignored her.  At lunch she ran to catch me.
“You’re being such a you-know-what today.”
“Why don’t you just bug off, Taylor!” I screamed.  I was obviously angry about what happened to me the night before.  She never understands, I thought.  “Look! You don’t have the slightest idea what it feels like to be beaten for no f*****g reason almost every f*****g night!”
“Shush!” she said looking around as if we just committed a serious crime.  “If Mrs. Grant ever heard you talk like that she would have more than enough reason to beat the crap out of you.”
I slapped her hard on her cheek and walked away.     
After school Steve and his friends gathered at the same place they usually would.  I watched him toss a cricket ball into the air.  He was completely unaware that I watched him every day after school.  “ Couldn’t I be a pretty girl?” I asked myself aloud.
“You are.” I heard a voice say from behind me.
It was Taylor.  She was never upset by anything I ever said or did to hurt her.  That really pissed me off sometimes.  Never the less, I was glad to know that she was one of those ‘permanent’ friends one was destined to meet within one’s lifetime.
“ You’re just not the pretty you want to be.”
“ And that would be?” I turned to look at her, gesturing for her to say what she meant. She thought that I was motioning for her to sit down.
“ That would be Tiffany Reynolds’ pretty.”
“ Yeah, well. Her kind of pretty is what Steve likes to see.”
It puzzled me how all the girls in my form year were thirteen, just like me, and yet some received much more attention from older boys than others.  Tiffany Reynolds was one of the more fortunate girls.  She was rich; her hair was really long; and even though she was considered black, she was almost as fair as Taylor who was white.  I was never ashamed of my blackness around Taylor.  But whenever I crossed paths with Tiffany (who never directly spoke to me) I felt inferior.  Taylor hugged me.  I could not protest.  I needed that hug no matter how much I wanted to ignore her that day.
“ Let’s not write love letters again, okay.”
“ Why not?” she asked.
“ We have to be good girls.” I paused to think about how much of a good girl I could be. “ And because I said so.”  

“ My friends always ask me how come my grandparents are white and I’m black, mum.”
“ Iman, you already know why.” I say.  Her continuous chatter agitates me at times.  Right now I just do not know whether to send her outside to play or send her to her room to read.  “ It’s because –”
She interrupts me and continues my statement in a mocking tone.  “ You were adopted.”  She slumps down in the couch.  Iman is a beautiful child who can make herself very unattractive when she is angry. “ Why they adopted you is what I want to know!”
“ Shouting at me won’t get you anywhere.  I am just as stubborn as you and if you want a competition then bring it.” I reply while barely looking away from the novel I am reading.
“ I must be very inconsiderate to be asking so many questions!” she says sarcastically to the vase beside her on the mini table.  “ Am I too young to hear about your real mother? I don’t even know the woman’s name!”
“ Why should you?” I reply angrily.  “ I have come to the simple conclusion to tie up your mouth and lock you in the back room where no one can see you.”
I smile to myself knowing that I do not have the heart to do such a thing.  I promised myself as a child to never turn into my mother.  But every now and then I say things to my daughter that mother would say to me.

Mrs. Grant spared no thoughts or words when she was cursing me.  Her words were just as painful as the beatings she would give me.
“ You old w***e!”
“ Mummy, I swear nothing happened!” I screamed.
Taylor and I went to the movies the day before.  Somehow one of mother’s friends was at the theater and saw us looking at Steve who happened to be there also.
“ Krishina never lies to me and that’s why she’s my friend!  Now are you telling me that Krish would just come around here for no apparent reason to just say how lovely you looked when she saw you at the movies?”
Mother’s friends never hesitated to exaggerate about any situation they saw me in.  I hated them for being afraid of her.  They never called her Georgia, like I sometimes did.  Instead, they made the extra effort to call her Mrs. Grant and trash Mr. Grant for not being around to hear how lovely her name sounded.  Mother peered down into my nightgown.
“ And those things are growing! And I know you like it! ‘Cause Krishina told me that you, Miss Morgan Grant, were rubbing it all up in the boy child’s face. And that white b***h, Taylor, allowed you to. I don’t know how you can call her your BEST FRIEND! CHILDREN DON’T NEED BEST FRIENDS! THEY NEED BOOKS! BOOKS!”
I was horrified.  Mother got the story all-wrong.  Taylor and I saw Steve but never really spoke to him.  She just made me run into him and pretend that it was an accident.     “ Mommy! I didn’t do it.”
“ I won’t even waste my energy on you today.  I have church to go to.”
She turned and left me alone in the room.  I closed the door hurriedly.  Her peering into my nightgown embarrassed me.  I began to think that my breasts were too small to be rubbed into anyone’s face.  Steve would laugh at them anyway, I thought.
After getting dressed for church I approached the living room with caution.  Mother was already there, seemingly awaiting my arrival.  However, I soon learned that she was looking out for her chartered taxi.
“ Where the hell are you going?” She barked.
“ To church… with you.” I whispered.
“ What is your name, child?”
“ Morgan Kimberly Grant.  But you already know that.”  I wondered why she was being so difficult.  She shot me a disapproving stare.
“ Well, Miss Morgan Kimberly Grant.  I don’t think someone like you deserves such a nice name.  The name is invited to church but surely not you!”
I was genuinely confused.  So I stepped forward and touched her.  Mother leaped backwards when she felt me stroke her hair.
“ I don’t understand, mommy.  I really don’t.  And I’m sorry.”  My chin trembled as tears flowed out of the corners of my eyes.
“ I won’t be able to believe that. If you love me you should always be a good girl.”
“ But I try!”  And I really did.  I started walking back to my room.
“ I love you, you know.  But you make it so difficult for a woman to run this house.”  I stopped but did not turn around.  Mother continued.  “ What should I call you in the mean time?”
“ Iman.” I said confidently.  This was the last time I would allow mother to make me feel like a piece of meat.  Lifeless and bleeding and unable to move to protect itself from being chopped up even more.  I had always loved the name.  Mother really hated it but it was the name I was planning on calling my daughter one day.  “ Iman.”

“ We need to by some makeup although you’re still young.”  
Mother was scrambling in and out of the closet trying to find the ‘perfect’ dress for Taylor to look like us.  Taylor was sleeping over for the weekend.  Mother was taking us to shop at the Mansfield District Plaza.  I wrote up a shopping list just to look busy.
“ Makeup you said?”
I was happy.  Mother would have all sorts of surprises up her sleeve for me at times.  She told me she loved me for the whole time Taylor was here.  She did not say it to show off.  She just felt more comfortable saying it in front of others.  When we were alone there was “ an awkward feeling” as she explained.  
“ Yes.  Makeup to cover up stuff that you don’t want others to see.”  I saw her look at Taylor through the corner of her eye.
When Taylor went home on the Sunday mother took me to her bedroom.  
“ I want to show you how to apply the cream concealer we bought.”  She lifted my plaits off of my shoulders and shifted them to one side exposing my neck.  “ You see that scar where I cut you one time?”
I nodded my head.  I was tense and uncomfortable.  She looked like she wanted to choke me.  She raised the sponge to my neck and rubbed the concealer into my skin.
“ All you have to do is blend it in.  So now your friends won’t ask what’s wrong with your skin.”
She amazed me how she could pretend as if it was nothing to beat me.  I was pissed at her for buying me the concealer.  It was a sign of things to come.  She beat me that very night.  And in the morning before school she said, “ Here’s your opportunity to try that thing I bought for you.”

Iman looks at me staring off into thin air.
“ Mom, just a few seconds ago you were going to lock me in the back room.  Then you just take off in your brain to some other place.”
“ Am I freaking you out?” I ask Iman in an eerie voice.
She laughs.  “ Are you kidding me?”  Iman crosses the room and flops down on the carpet in front of my legs.  “ So, since this is one of those silent bonding moments can we put on some makeup?”
I look down on her mischievous face.  “ You don’t have any makeup.”
“ That is why we are going to wear yours!”
She stands and gives three cheers for makeup.  Iman is absolutely preppy.  In high school I avoided preppy people like the plague.  I am not dissatisfied with her; however, I am just surprised that she is such a handful.
“ You don’t need to wear makeup.” I say.  The day mother bought me the concealer flashes back to my mind.  “ You wear makeup to hide things you don’t want others to see.” I say to myself.
“ What?”
I realize that I am remembering my mother’s words.  “ Nothing. Go to your room.”  I leave the room and enter the kitchen.  But Iman relentlessly follows behind me.                        
“ I am very sure that your bed is not in the kitchen.”
“ I’d rather go to Grandma’s house.”
Iman is defiant although she has no reason to be most of the time.  I almost always give into what she wants.
“ Get your bicycle.  Be careful.  The motorists are – ”
“ Mad men.” She says again in her mocking voice.  “ I’m thirteen.  I have a lot of sense.”
“ Thank God!  I knew I was getting my money’s worth.”  I smile and she rolls her eyes.  I kiss her.  “ I love you.  I really do.  Please tell Mommy Carmen and Daddy Ryan hello for me.”
“ They are your parents, you know.  Can you stop with the Mommy Carmen and Daddy Ryan thing?”  She shakes your head and I shake mine too.
“ You’ll never understand it.  Now leave!”
I watch her run out through the back door.  I shout after her to remind her not to ask her grandparents too many questions.