Sacred Time (24 page)

I continued to wait. Quietly. But I lasted barely two minutes. “You'd rather burn?” I finally yelled at him.

He looked pained.

“What do you want, Anthony? Suffer some more?”

Still, he wouldn't speak.

“Hold still. Goddamn you.” I jumped up from my towel, opened the bottle, smeared lotion on his back; and when he flinched I said, “Just hold still.”

Anthony wasn't there the morning my twin was put into the earth with her favorite toys and sweets in her coffin, with Nik-L-Nips and Bazooka bubble gum and paper candies and Chuckles, with her Tiny Tears doll, who could cry real tears, but not with the Superman cape that had failed her so.

I tucked Papa's domino game into my sister's coffin, because he wasn't allowed to be at her funeral. On the phone from jail, he'd cried, and I'd promised to find something that was his and send it with Bianca.

Afterwards, at my grandparents' house, where we were staying for a while, Anthony's father whispered to Great-Aunt Camilla that Anthony had stopped speaking the day Bianca died. The sight of food made me queasy, but the grown-ups piled linguine and beans and a slice from Riptide's Christmas turkey on my plate. I carried the plate upstairs, and as I hid it under my grandparents' bed, the sudden roar of an airplane taking off startled me; when I glanced up, the Jesus with the summer tan and the curious eyes was spying on me from the painting above the dresser.

Quickly, I picked up the plate and took it outside, where the air was as gray as the siding. Its ridges looked like the ridges in cardboard, but when I pressed one fingernail against them, it didn't leave a mark. I opened the lid of the milkman's box and set my plate inside. Against the drab sky, my grandparents' wrought-iron banister looked like an ink drawing. So did the empty wrought-iron flower boxes that were bolted to the walls below the first-floor windows, from where I heard voices, laughter even. How could anyone laugh today?

All at once I had to pee. But if I went back inside, they'd only fix me another plate. I searched for something tall to squat behind. But what if another airplane came by, lower? I decided to pee standing, like a boy. Halfway down the alley, next to my grandparents' side of the attached house, I slipped my fingers beneath my black skirt and bunched myself up so that my pee had to squirt out front. Still, I got my hands wet. What astonished me was how warm the pee was, something you don't find out when it just runs down some toilet bowl.

I didn't get to see Anthony the next day or the day after.

For twenty-three days I didn't get to see Anthony.

Not on New Year's Eve, which we didn't celebrate.

Not when school started in January.

His parents didn't send him, kept him at home, as if his heartache were bigger than mine. I felt cheated because I had to go to school though it was
my
sister who'd died.

From what I was told, his parents were taking Anthony to doctors because he still did not speak—not one word—and when one of the doctors suggested it would be best for Anthony to be somewhere else for a couple of weeks, his father and our grandfather took him to Canada.

“Why they'd think of a hunting trip, I don't understand,” Riptide said. “Or why they'd figure a trip with men only will do the boy good. It's crazy.”

“Perhaps we're all a bit crazed right now,” my mother said.

Though I was a year older than Anthony, I wasn't allowed to come along to Canada. It bothered me that I missed him more than my sister.

During those twenty-three days, we moved to furnished rooms on Ryer Avenue, and I was transferred from St. Margaret Mary's to St. Simon Stock. In each place I'd lived so far, the furniture had been different, and I thought of it as the landlord's furniture, because all landlords merged into one person, who had the power to keep our deposit if we scratched or stained furniture more than it already was. “Careful with the landlord's furniture,” Mama would remind me, because it was crucial to get a refund of our deposit, which would become the deposit for the next apartment. And there always was a next apartment. Sometimes we moved secretly, in the middle of the night, because the rent was overdue. The only pieces of furniture that moved with us were Mama's sewing machine; her dummy that followed us like an extra child; and the television that Uncle Victor had given us.

I loved the television bishop, Bishop Sheen, who'd walk toward me as if about to step from the screen, hands folded, to inspect each new apartment. Then he'd open his hands and remind me, “Believe the incredible, and you can do the impossible,” and I'd look around and suddenly notice all Mama was already doing to improve the apartment, washing walls, rubbing tables and chairs with lemon oil, concealing even the nastiest upholstery beneath clean slipcovers—striped cotton for summer, green velvet for winter—that had ties and folds to adjust to any size sofa and chairs and made each apartment instantly familiar.

Most of her fabrics she bought on sale at Pring's, where the bolts were stacked so high that I couldn't see beyond them. Since new fabrics made my eyes burn, Mama would wash them, and if that was not possible, at least air them before she started cutting and sewing. Miss Pring—Emily-from-the-fabric-store, Mama called her—looked so pleased when Mama showed her new sketches or thanked her for special fabrics she'd saved for Mama in the back room. Emily-from-the-fabric-store talked with Mama about who was getting divorced, about how people liked Mama's wedding gowns. Emily-from-the-fabric-store said Mama had exquisite hands and showed me what she meant by taking Mama's hands into hers till Mama pulled away. In each new neighborhood Mama found new friends quickly, and I liked those women better than Emily-from-the-fabric-store, whose breath clung to the fabrics, bothering my eyes.

Fabrics that Mama could afford on her own were never as expensive as those she worked on for her customers, whose scraps she kept to make something for me. Sleeveless blouses took the least fabric. That's why I had several expensive-looking blouses that Mama didn't let me wear when customers came back. Though I couldn't recall which customer had brought which fabric, Mama always knew, because she believed anything that ran through your hands settled in your memory. “It gives me a lift seeing you in good clothes,” she'd say.

Great-Aunt Camilla had good clothes, elegant clothes; and I craved that elegance, craved not being poor. “Camilla is fortunate,” the relatives would say, “to have a friend to share apartment expenses with. That's why she can afford to live on the Upper East Side.” Did any of them understand about the love between her and Mrs. Feinstein? It probably didn't occur to them. They'd tell her to bring Mrs. Feinstein to family dinners, but she seldom did. “Mrs. Feinstein is visiting her own family,” she'd say. They'd tease each other about visiting Camilla, because Mrs. Feinstein had antiquing kits and antiqued everything in sight with streaks and golden flakes. “Watch it,” they'd say, “you'll come home looking antique.”

Knowing that soon, once Anthony was back from Canada, I'd have him all to myself, was not the only good thing that happened when I no longer had a sister. I also had my own room. And my parents appreciated me more than before. I also liked the building on Ryer Avenue better than our last one, because its bricks glittered when the sun hit them, and because I no longer had to be scared of taking the trash down to the cans in the cellar but could throw it down the chute to the incinerator. The super would set the ashes on the curb for the garbage truck. Some nights you could see smoke rising from my chimney, and once a flaming piece of paper floated on the smoke and burned for an instant like a wishing star.

Whenever Mama's sadness came, I kept my leftover family together, running to the store for groceries, winding the alarm clock, boiling water for hot dogs and spaghetti. Those were the two things I knew how to make, and I'd mix them, slice the hot dogs and stir them into the spaghetti while it boiled. Margarine kept it from getting sticky, but we didn't always have margarine.

One afternoon, early in January, I found Mama crying on her bed, facedown, skirt up to her garters. I rubbed one hand between her shoulders. “I'm here,” I said, “I'm here.”

When Papa came home, he tried to turn Mama around.

“Don't,” she whimpered.

But he pulled at her till she stood in the circle of his arms, swaying.

“Floria,” he whispered. “Hey, girl—”

She coughed. “I can't.”

“Take my breath.” Papa blew into his palm, cupped it lightly across her mouth. “Pretend it's yours.”

“I—I—”

“Swallow it. Pretend it's yours.”

“Do it, Mama. Swallow,” I cried. Already my family had changed from four to three, and though we'd been three before, whenever Papa had been Elsewhere, we'd always become four again. Only now we wouldn't. Because it was Bianca being away, not Papa, which meant that if he went Elsewhere again, there'd just be two of us for a while, Mama and I, and if Mama choked from coughing and died and got buried, I'd be all alone. “Swallow,” I yelled at her. “Swallow Papa's breath. I said: now.”

“I'm sorry.” Mama's face was slippery, her mouth open.

“Belinda,” Papa said, “turn on the shower. Hot. And keep the door closed.”

I ran into the bathroom, scooped my rabbit from the bathtub, settled him in his cardboard box next to the toilet, and waited for the water to get hot. Odd, to see water running from the shower without anyone standing underneath it. Puffs of steam like white flowers. Aunt Leonora said white flowers were not as strong as flowers with color. I liked Aunt Leonora even though Riptide Grandma had told me that Aunt Leonora was pretty selfish; but all I could see was that Aunt Leonora was pretty, and if pretty was the same as selfish, I wanted to be pretty selfish, too. The white steam flowers were spreading their blossoms around the lamp, hiding cracks in the ceiling, curling edges of wallpaper. There'd been white flowers around Bianca's coffin. At least she was not a pagan baby.

When Papa came in, he was carrying Mama across one shoulder. One arm locking Mama's legs against his chest, he sat on the toilet lid, nudged the rabbit's box aside with his shoe, and slid Mama forward till she was sitting on his knees, leaning into his arm. “Steam will make it easier,” he said. “That's it, good, Floria girl, keep breathing.”

Grasping my rabbit by the folds in back of his neck, I settled him into my arms. “That's it, good, Ralph. Keep breathing.” I'd had lots of pets, when all I'd really wanted was a dog. But we never had enough space. Still, Ralph was the largest of my pets. And there were small dogs that were the size of Ralph. I sneezed.

“Bless you.” Sweat trickled down Papa's forehead. His chin rested on her hair.

As I crouched on the edge of the tub, I wished I could sit on his knees.

“Let's practice numbers,” he said.

I scuttled closer to him.

“So, then…imagine you have twelve chocolate snaps. You want to keep half of them for yourself and give half to—”

“But I want to keep them all.”

“Division is about sharing.”

“I don't like to share.”

“But knowing division helps you to make sure you don't ever get cheated.”

“You wouldn't cheat me.”