“There she is…”
the orderly pointed her out not knowing I had done so myself. Nick stepped
closer and squinted his eyes at the direction of the man’s finger. He saw her
but he didn’t say a word to me, his face was trying to connect the dots on our
faces. “Common,” the man beckoned the two of us, asking the bodyguard to
stay a few feet behind us. We trotted along with him like two obedient children,
trying our best to catch his swift pace. He walked up to my mother and stooped
down to speak into her ear, we stood behind him expecting the worst. Maybe she
would throw an obscene tantrum like the man we met in the lobby. She didn’t
look up at him, as he spoke her eyes were fixated on a spot on the lawn where
the imaginary Frisbee game was taking place. I didn’t blame her, I had cause
to stare at that racket too it was simply the funniest sight on the lawn. The
patient kept calling out to a dog that wasn’t there, scolding it for not
picking up the Frisbee each time it was thrown at him. Several Frisbees lay on
the ground by the invisible animal giving a clue that a catcher did not exist.
I
heard the orderly say to my mother, “She says she’s your daughter.” My
mother’s face looked unperturbed, like a breeze had passed by and she didn’t
catch it.
He stepped back and
whispered to us. “You might find this a little hard, she doesn’t know anyone
right now…she is still in some other place. But take your time. Holler if you
need anything.” He patted Nick on the back heartily and walked away leaving us
alone with her.
Nick grew weary, his
pupils danced like teacups on a saucer. He didn’t know what the next step was.
Do you want to go ahead Nikki or should we leave right now before it gets
worse…these were the questions I could deduce from his panic.
I cleared my throat.
“I think we should pull up a chair and chat with her awhile, Nick…if
that’s okay with you?” he hesitated with a nod and obediently scouted out
for two chairs from the other patio tables. His bodyguard helped him put them
together, one on each side of my mother’s and stood a little distance watching
us. I took the chair closest to my mother, leaned my face to hers and took her
frail hands in mine.
Her hands felt balmy and
weak, even with my touch on hers, she still didn’t look up at me.
“Mama, it’s me
Nikki,” I began in a soft tone. “It’s Nikki mama…remember.” I begged.
I looked back to Nick who had splurged out in his chair with his head in his
hands, elbows on the table. He shook his head clueless as to why there was still
no answer.
Mama suddenly reached
behind her, to Nick’s side of the table, going for a glass of water from the
water pitcher. Nick courteously poured it out for her and stood up, leaning
towards her, he handed it to her.
Perhaps it was his
polite gesture that finally got her to speak. “Thank you,” she remarked
suddenly with a clarity that seemed uncharacteristic. He startled a bit, almost
falling to the ground. He caught my eyes and questioned what to do at this
revelation. I stood up and asked him to push my chair closer to her. If she
wasn’t recognizing who I was maybe it was better she talked to whomever she
did, Nick. He did, sitting down, with uncertainty.
She continued in a slow
drawl to him. “You know I must have seen you before.”
Nick blushed, “You
think?” This was the same statement he had heard everywhere, everyday of his
adult life, countless times over, phrased as differently as possible but still
meaning the same thing, so why was he blushing? Was it because he hadn’t
expected to hear to it from a mentally absent old woman like my mother? She
hardly knew who her daughter was, where she was, or what brought her here, how
under heaven’s skies was she able to recognize Nick? He glanced back at me to
signify minute progress in the situation, and I rolled my eyes back at him to
signify “don’t expect too much.” I took the seat Nick was in a minute ago,
glancing over at them intermittently.
My mother continued.
“You know, my daughter used to have a huge poster of you on her wall. You were
there with four other guys in white,” she trailed off. Nick pinched me
underneath the table. “Yeah, I remember you were a lot younger though…and
the guys are they friends of yours or something?” she asked, her voice old and
wise like a soothsayer.
Nick was almost pinching
blood out of my hand. “No…well yes they are my friends but we’re
musicians,” he said politely. I could detect that he was overwhelmed by all of
this. How could my mother remember Nick from the inconsequential poster on my
wall but she could not remember me?
“You know that
daughter of yours is right here…” he hinted, lodging me by my hand towards
her.
My mother gave him a
hard look, “No she’s not she’s gone. She done ran away. I know that. She
ran away…the same day my other daughter… killed my husband.” The last
words whispered like a purring cat.
As gently as she had
said them, those words still dropped like the bomb of Hiroshima catapulting into
my brain, paralyzing all my motoring abilities. Nick was not pinching my hand
anymore, neither was he grasping, instead he was simply tearing at my skin,
digging his nails into them in resonate shock. I pushed my chair forward closer
to her, sitting nose-to-nose to my mother.
“Mama, look at me,
look at me, It’s Nikki, look at me Damn it. Look,” I demanded, with a shaky
voice. I pushed her face to see mine. “Mama, look at me. What the fuck did you
just say?” I launched my anguish at her, careless with my language. My head
had doubled over so many times that nothing made sense, Stef killed dad,
that’s impossible, mama killed dad, that’s what the police had said, but she
was just too sick to admit it.
“That is no way to
talk to your mother,” she spat out compounding my anguish. “Didn’t I teach
you anything?” her face held a scowl, and the wrinkles by her eyes, arched.
I could hear Nick’s
breath panting. He drained some of her water and the gulping sounds made my
mother laugh annoyingly. She did know me, she was just pretending not to a
minute ago.
“Mama…” I peered
at her eyes, hard to grasp what was going on underneath those glasses.
“Yes, Nikki. How are
you?” She confirmed. “I wouldn’t have known it was you, you’ve changed,
your hair, your voice, you look fuller,” she explained somewhat coherently.
“How did you know it
was me now, earlier you didn’t?” I asked, still in shock.
“Your eyes, they are
still the same, just like your father’s. And him…” she pointed to Nick,
who looked like he was having a small seizure. “I know you liked him, you had
his poster on your wall, and I knew that day you left that if I were ever to see
you again, it would be either with him or any one of those boys you admired.”
She forced a tepid smile.
I laughed out,
hysterically like I was losing grip of my own sanity. So Nick was the clue, if
she hadn’t seen him she wouldn’t have believed that it was I, Nikki, her
daughter.
A tear trickled down my
face negligently and I felt Nick’s comforting hands rub my back in comfort.
“Mama, what you said now…about Stef is it true? Or did you…have you told
anyone this, the police, did she…or did you?” I spoke all at once. I felt
Nick nudge me to take it a step at time, pressuring her for answers would only
push her back into the zombie mode she was in earlier then nothing would get
resolved. I swallowed hard. “Mama…the police said you did it…dad, they
think you…” my voice trailed off as her face reverted back to the
interesting Frisbee game.
I sat back up on the
chair, heaving a big sigh to calm my nerves. Nick rolled his eyes at me to say
he told me so. I took some sips from his glass of water.
“She came home you
know…she came home to get you…” she began, her eyes still fixed on the
field.
I bent down to her face
again to grasp every word from her mouth. She spoke so low that the wind drowned
out the sound of her voice.
“Who…Stef?”
“What do you do now?
Do you work, are you in show business?” she diverted to some other topic.
“No…I’m in
college…I go to school now, I want to be a psychologist,” I proudly replied.
She nodded with her eyes
still squinting towards the field ahead. “And him, are you two?” she pointed
her feeble fingers at Nick beside her.
I smiled. “Yes, we
are…in love that is. I love him, and he loves me.” As I said that I wished
she had an idea of how many roads I had traveled just so I could proudly say
that to her or to anyone for that matter. He loves me and I love him. It sounded
unbelievable even coming from my mouth.
She smiled back thankfully. “Stef would have been proud,
she loved you so much.” She said, this time giving Nick the once over. He had
a certain calm that I didn’t know from where he had mustered it. Half a minute
ago, he was trembling like an epileptic patient.
Stef would have been
proud. If Stef was so proud of me why did she pretend like she didn’t know me,
like she didn’t care if I lived or died, why did she treat me like dirt when I
finally saw her?
“The police don’t
know much, I didn’t want to tell them anything, nosy man, and one of them
looks like Shaft. Remember Shaft? Scared me to bits, he did,” she giggled,
half to herself.
I remembered. We all
used to watch Shaft reruns together religiously. And, I knew the policeman she
was talking about. He was the detective who had kept me in his office that day,
hounding me with questions, the same one who had doubted with every stitch
inside him that my mom had committed the brutal murder. I thought he looked like
Shaft too.
“Ooh… Stef. What a
girl. She came home, Stef…she was home…wanted to get you. She came all the
way from Las Vegas she said, something about her boyfriend running off with
someone. I didn’t know she had a boyfriend. Would have liked to meet him too.
She said she needed someone to help her out with the baby, with her little one
while she worked at the club…so she came home to get you.”
I shut my eyes as the
tears came down trailing down my face. I clumsily wiped them off with my
trembling fingers.