Little Peach (2 page)

I grin and yell back, “I ain’t bad! I’m a GOOD girl!” and they all laugh and nod and Little John knocks over his brown paper bag with the bottle in it. Chuck laughs harder. Me too.

Grandpa smiles. “C’mon, Punks. Time for bed. And don’t say
ain’t
.”

“Chuck says ain’t.”

“Exactly.”

“So does Mama.”

Grandpa pauses on the stairs, then keeps walking, past her broken door that’s mostly closed.

“Just don’t say it, Punks. You talk poor, you stay poor.”

On the floor by my mattress, after our book, he makes me practice:

“What do you do if you’re lost or in trouble?”

I groan, but I know he won’t leave till I finish.

“Look for a cop,” I grumble.

“Speak up.”

“I look for a cop in a uniform,” I say a little louder.

“But what if you can’t find one?”

“A lady. I look for a lady.”

“Why do we look for a lady?”

“’Cause ladies like to help little kids.”

Grandpa smiles down at me. “Good girl,” he whispers. “Good girl.”

Morning.

Mama piled on the couch like laundry.

Grandpa rushes in the kitchen.

Wake. Dress. Breakfast. Cereal today. Don’t leave flakes in the drain or the bugs will come back, creeping through the cracks from the house next door where nobody lives and it stinks.

I can smell the snow outside. I peek through the living room window at the clean white snow cushions on the chairs outside Boo’s.

“Let’s go, Punks. We’re late. Where’s your hat?”

“In my pocket.”

“Put it on. It’s freezing out.”

He looks at her. “Your mom’ll be here when you get home, all right?”

She’s staring at the TV, her eyes all red and slow and gone.

“Corinna!” Grandpa shouts. Mama rolls her eyes and shuffles over, fiddles with my coat even though I’m all zipped up.

“Look at this child,” she mumbles, grabbing a chunk of hair that sticks out from under my hat. “Hold on.” Mama goes upstairs for a minute, then comes back with a white barrette, a rubber band, and a comb. She pulls my hat off and fixes my hair in a ponytail. The teeth of the barrette dig into my scalp. She pushes hard, harder, till it clicks.

“That’s better,” she says.

My arms around her waist. Too tight.

“I’m gonna draw you a picture today,” I say into her floppy shirt, and squeeze like it’s red bear blanket over my head.

She’ll be awake when I get home. I’ll make us a snack like peanut butter toast and be good so she doesn’t get bored and fall asleep.

Grandpa opens the front door. His bear head hangs as frozen air runs inside our house.

Mama shivers and lets me go.

3

CONEY ISLAND HOSPITAL

Coney Island, New York

I know he’s a cop the second I open my eye. He’s short and thick, with blue eyes and a shaved face, his hair buzzed short like a soldier. There’s a gun on his hip, black and huge.

He talks loud, his words hammering at my sore head. “Hey! You awake?”

My right eye won’t open at all. My left, only a little. I shut it tight, praying he didn’t see me move.

“Hey,” he says again. “Time to get up.”

The lights blast on above my bed, the whiteness screaming at my fat eyelids.

Don’t move. Stay still. Just breathe real slow and he’ll think you’re still asleep
.

Where are you, Daniela Cespedes, CSW?

Click
. The mattress groans to life beneath me, pushing me upright. I peek out from my bandages. He’s holding a large remote in his hand, making the bed move. There’s a second cop now—a woman—standing by the window. Watching me.

“Hey,” he says a little softer. “It’s okay.”

My heart bangs underneath the skin-thin hospital blankets, blood shooting to my cheeks, my raw gums, my lips that feel like ground-up bloodred meat, down into my stomach like a sick stew.

“My name’s Mike. I’m a detective. Where you from, kiddo?”

He doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t know what I am. He can’t arrest me. I’m too young, like Kat said. Just stay still. He’ll go away.

“Michelle?” he says. My eye opens.

“Aha! So we know that’s your name. So. Michelle. Let’s start simple. Where’s your mother?”

I want to lie flat again. I want to go to sleep. I want my face to stop hurting. I want you to come back.

My stomach starts to boil. It burns and churns up into my throat.

Then you step into the thin strip of what I can actually see.

“I think that’s enough for now,” you say to him. “You can come back later. She’s pretty beat up. She needs to rest.”

“We got a schedule too,” the girl cop snaps.

You don’t say anything back, just sort of stand there and sigh and rub your forehead like you’re as tired as I am.

“She’s dead.” The words creak out of me, my sore lips cracking as I form each letter.

“What?” The cop leans over me, his gun tapping against the metal railing of my bed.

“My mother’s dead,” I repeat, and vomit leaks out of my mouth.

4

STRAWBERRY MANSION

North Philadelphia

I’m nine.

It’s late at night and I can’t fall asleep, so I look outside my window. Voices and cars and music passing by. It’s almost spring. The mounds of old snow, covered in dirt like hard black frosting, are almost gone.

Grandpa’s in front of Boo’s Lounge with Chuck and Little John and other men who only come at night. Chuck says something to Grandpa, then laughs so hard he starts coughing and has to take a sip from his bottle.
Grandpa pats his back with a smile. Chuck’s a mess, Grandpa says, but we love him anyway.

Then I see her. Walking with her head down. Her hair’s all frizzy and she moves all slow, like her body hurts. Chuck and Little John get quiet.

She hasn’t been home in five nights.

Suddenly, Grandpa’s across the street. He takes her by the shoulders and lifts her chin with his finger and makes Mama look at him. He examines her, then shoves his hands into her pockets. She pushes him away and I hear the creak of the front door, her feet dragging slowly up the stairs.

“Mama?” I say into the dark. Her ghost-body floats down the hall, stopping for a second to look at me in my doorway. I wait for her to say,
Go back to sleep, baby
. Or,
It’s late, ’Chelle. Why ain’t you in bed?

But she doesn’t say anything. She just closes the door behind her.

She’ll be sleeping when I go to school tomorrow. She’ll be gone when I get home. She’s gonna eat the chicken too, and then we won’t have nothin’ for dinner.

Anything
.

I think she’s a junkie. Like the man in the blue house
with the saggy roof up the block that Grandpa says I gotta stay away from. He got nasty scabs on his face, like the ones on Mama’s arms.

I think she’s like the people who visit the boys on the corner up from Boo’s, late at night when I’m supposed to be asleep.

Junkies.

Like Erica’s mom. We seen her once, last spring, outside Sun Moon Chinese after school. Just standing there on the corner, her hair all crazy, her stomach spilling out of her too-small shorts. She called to us.
Erica! Hold up, baby!
But Erica grabbed my hand and we ran. I never seen Erica run in all my life, but that day we ran so fast I thought my chest was gonna explode when we finally stopped, like, ten blocks away.

“Why we runnin’, E?” I panted. But she just shook her head and looked away from me, her eyes all wet like she was gonna cry, which was even crazier than seeing her run, ’cause Erica doesn’t cry. Not ever. But that day, she almost did.

Erica got a new family now. A foster family with a mom and a dad and a couple other kids too. I told her it was good because she’s my friend and I love her and
maybe her new mom will do her hair up like the other girls at school. But it’s been six months and Erica don’t look any different. Except her eyes. They got hard, like cement.

“I got a door on my room,” she said when I asked her what her new house was like. Then she folded her arms up like she does now, like she wished they could make her disappear.

“I don’t like it there,” she whispered.

“How come?”

“I just don’t.” She shrugged and stared at the cold cafeteria floor.

I grab my yellow bunny and curl up tiny and tight beneath my blanket.

I am in a cave.

Morning.

I don’t wanna go to school.

I tell Grandpa I don’t feel good, but he puts his giant hand on my forehead.

“You don’t have a fever, Punks. You gotta go.”

I don’t say another word, just grab my backpack and pretend to walk to school before circling back to the
house. I check to make sure Grandpa’s gone, and then I let myself in.

I climb the stairs, dump my bag on the floor. Then I start in the bathroom. Bucket, Pine-Sol, hot water, and the towel we keep just for cleaning. I wipe everything, even the floor, then go downstairs and wipe down the kitchen again, even though we do that every morning anyway. I make a peanut butter sandwich, wrap it up tight in plastic wrap, and leave it on the counter with a note that says,
For you, Mama. Love, Michelle
.

I lie on my bed and wait for her. Wait to hear the door open till I can’t help it and my eyes close.

When I wake up, someone’s in the shower. The TV’s on downstairs.

Mom is on the couch in panties and a tank top. She’s lying down sort of sideways, her head arched back on her skinny neck like she’s frozen in place. Her fingers are curled, her hands out in front of her like they’re floating. I go over and cover her with a blanket.

Her eyes. I don’t know what she’s looking at. The ceiling?

What’s wrong with her?

Who’s in the shower?

“Mom?” The sandwich is still on the kitchen table.

She drags her eyes toward me. “’Chelle?” she murmurs—slow, sloppy—and her mouth turns up into a smile. “Baby? How’d you get here? C’mere and sit with your mama.”

She lies all the way down, her arms open like paper-thin curtains. I go to her. I climb right beside her and let them close behind me, smushed together on the couch, my nose in her neck.

“Are you okay?”

“Mmm-hmmm . . . ,” she murmurs.

“I cleaned the house. I made you a sandwich,” I say.

Her breath is deep, long and hard like she’s sleeping, but her eyes are still sort of open. She’s so warm. I try not to look down at her bare legs, scabby and marked and grayish. My beautiful mama, all torn up.

“You my baby,” she says, over and over, and she hugs me like I’m yellow bunny. “My baby. My baby.” I squeeze her so hard, I bury my face so hard into her, I want to climb inside so she can see. So she can see that I am good and so is Grandpa and she can stay with us and she don’t need to be so dirty like those other people.
She ain’t like that, my mom. Not mine. Not you, Mama.

“Don’t go away no more,” I say.

“Mmmm,” she says.

The shower turns off upstairs.

“Who’s here?” I ask.

Her arms go soft at her sides. She’s asleep.

A man walks down the stairs with one of Grandpa’s towels wrapped around his waist. He is tall with wide shoulders and a long, thin face. I don’t know who he is. He looks at us, his face sort of split in half, his mouth smiling, his eyes not.

“What’chu doin’ home, little girl?” he says.

“Mama,” I whisper, nudging her.

The man steps closer. “You Corinna’s kid?” I nod. I want to get under the blanket. “Yeah. You look like her. How old are you?”

I do not answer. He stares at me. I stare back.

“Don’t be scared,” he says, laughing. “I’m your mama’s friend.”

“I don’t know you,” I say.

He strolls into the kitchen and looks at the sandwich I made. He reads the card too.

“That’s sweet,” he says. Then he strolls back and puts
his hand on my face. On my cheek.

I pull away.
What do you do if you’re in trouble?

Find a lady
.

“Mom!” I say, but loud. Really loud. Right in her face. I push her chest a little. She jiggles, then jerks, her eyes slide open for a second, then roll back into sleep.

“She’s gonna wake up and make you leave,” I say to him.

“Oh yeah? Stand up.”

“No,” I say.

“Stand up.” And I do. I stand. Because Mama won’t get up and Grandpa’s not here and I’m supposed to be in school but I didn’t go and I’ve never done that before and what if I scream and the cops come and Grandpa gets mad and makes her leave forever.

He leans over, the towel dangling in front of him, and puts his face right up to mine.

“Wake up, Corinna,” he whispers in a little girl’s voice. “Wake up.”

He grabs my bottom, his fingers dig in hard, almost lifting me off the floor. He lets go and I stagger back into Mama, whose limp arm dangles. Useless. Then he
walks to the kitchen and bites into the peanut butter sandwich.

“Go upstairs,” he says. “And keep your mouth shut or I’ll tell your grandpa you been skippin’ school.”

I run to the stairs. Go. Go. Get to your room. Close the door.

But even in here, it feels like his hand is still on me.

5

CONEY ISLAND HOSPITAL

Coney Island, New York

You ask me if I’m all right, but I won’t answer. My room stinks like puke, even though they changed my sheets and cleaned the floor. The cops are still here, outside in the hall, waiting for me.

“Michelle?”

I glare at you as best I can from my one working eye.

“You’re angry,” you say.

You’re right.

“What did you tell them?” I ask.

“I told them what I knew.”

You pause, like you’re picking your words real careful. “I told them the truth: that your name is Michelle. You were beaten and we don’t know more than that. I didn’t tell them anything else. I’m not going to. Not until we talk, you and me, okay?”

“I can’t see right.”

“Your eyes are still swollen. They’ll get better with time. So, what are we gonna do here, Michelle? You found me. I’m here. So, let’s figure out our next move. The sooner you talk, the sooner we can do that, okay? Let’s start with your mom. Did she really pass away?”