Same Sun Here (17 page)

So I feel awful bad about it and wish I could do it over.

I wish I could’ve seen
A Chorus Line.
It sounds like a lot of fun. Our school never does any good plays. I wish you had taken me a picture of your drawing of Dadi with her grass sickle and schoolbooks. That sounds awesome. Next time you design a set, draw me into it so that I can say I have been on a stage in New York City. I keep thinking about Ms. Bledsoe crying in the wings when “What I Did for Love” played. I don’t know why I can’t get her out of my mind, but I keep wondering why she was crying. I looked up the lyrics online, and to tell you the truth, I think it is a pretty good love song. I bet she loved somebody and they left her and now she’ll never get over it and die a lonely old woman who sits by the window crying every night because she can’t move on (actually, this reminds me of the woman you heard crying, the one Mrs. Lau said has a heart like a squashed tomato). I like to make up stories for people sometimes. Sometimes the made-up story is way more interesting than the real one.

Since you are so good at designing sets and all, maybe you should think about getting a job working on Broadway. I can write plays and you can design the sets and do the lights and help everybody memorize their lines. We could be partners.

It’s weird that your parents have been fighting, because mine have been getting along better than ever. Dad stayed with us as long as he could stay away from the job down on the Gulf, but he finally had to go back. Before he left he spent the whole evening playing basketball with me, the way he used to. And we went to the Dairy Dart and ate foot-long chili buns and large orders of onion rings and root beer floats. Mamaw never takes me to the Dairy Dart. She doesn’t believe in hot dogs and cheeseburgers.

The day before Dad had to go back to the Gulf, I was coming out of the woods and I heard my mother laughing. I hadn’t heard her laugh in so long that I thought I had forgotten what it sounded like, but as soon as I heard it, I knew that laugh belonged to her. Her laugh is like a kind of music. And when I came around the porch Dad was kissing her on the forehead. She hasn’t had any more headaches yet and has been going down to the little office building to help Mamaw make posters and get ready for the big rally.

I’ve been helping make signs for the rally. Here’s what some of them say:

SAVE THE ENDANGERED HILLBILLY

NOT AN ACT OF GOD — AN ACT OF GREED

NOT ONE MORE MOUNTAIN,
NOT ONE MORE SCHOOL,
NOT ONE MORE CHILD

Last night Mamaw had a bunch of people come up to the community center and teach everybody how to get arrested without getting hurt. She says that some of the people in the rally might end up getting taken to jail. They also learned how to do what they call “non-violent protest.” Some of them are talking about chaining themselves to the front porch or the front doors of the capitol building.

On our way home I told Mamaw I didn’t want her to get arrested. I’d be worried to death about her if she got taken to jail. She pulled the car over to the side of the road, and we weren’t even halfway up the mountain to home.

“Now, listen here, River Dean Justice,” she said. She propped her elbow up on the steering wheel because she was turned all the way around in her seat to face me. “The law isn’t protecting the people, son. They’re not making the coal company go by the law because it has all kinds of money. So we’re going to go up there and get their attention.”

All night long I thought about what she said. And I believe she’s right. So, late that night I got on the phone and called all the boys who had been there when the rocks came in on us (they are all out of the hospital now; Mark was the only one who got hurt really bad). So we all decided that we are going to the capitol, too. Ever since it happened, I’ve been wanting to do something to help Mark. There’s not been anything I’ve been able to do except sit in the hospital and watch TV with him. But now I can do something for him. So we’re all going to march. We’re going to march for Mark. And for Town Mountain.

More later,

My Own True Self,

River Dean Justice

February 18, 2009

Dear River,

Today I am a teenager. Thirteen years old. Hello 12, Hello 13, Hello Love (that’s a song from
A Chorus Line
). Mum brought a bakery cake home after work that said NINA in blue frosting. I thought maybe they had given Mum the wrong cake, but she said the bakery hadn’t heard the name Meena before, so they misspelled it. Kiku stuck his pinkie in the frosting and made NINA into MEENA and then put some frosting on the tip of my nose. He is such a goof. I am almost out of room, so I will write you another postcard.

PART II. We called Daddy and put him on speakerphone and everyone sang “Happy Birthday.” We sang quietly in case the landlord was lurking in the stairwell. Mum gave me socks and some of Mrs. Rankin’s old books.
David Copperfield
,
The Wind in the Willows
, and a biography of a scientist named Marie Curie. Best news: Mummy-Daddy’s citizenship exam date is May 14. In three months, maybe we will be citizens. Hello to the postal people, if you are reading this. Meena

22 February 2009

Dear Meena,

I have never gone to the store and bought a birthday card before, but we were at the Dollar General yesterday and I had just gotten your postcard saying it was your birthday, so, well, I thought it’d be a good time to buy a birthday card for the first time. I am not much for writing in longhand, so that is your birthday present, to see my handwriting in more than just my signature, which is all you usually see. Not much of a present, huh? Since it really is not much, I’m also enclosing a buckyeye, which I found in the creek. That’s why
why
(sorry, I’m not used to writing by hand so much) it’s so smooth. You probably never heard of a buckeye before. They grow on trees. Some people here carry them in their pockets for good luck. I thought you’d like it better than if I went and tried to pick out some kind of stupid gift. Anyway, I hope you are knowing that you’re my best friend and that I’m real happy you’re alive, and I hope to know you for many more birthdays. So I hope you have a good one.

February 25, 2009

Dear River,

I am writing to you from under the bed. It is 1:00 a.m. and I have rubber-banded a flashlight to the springs beneath the mattress so I can see.

Mum and I had a big scary row tonight.

She came home from work in a bad mood. I can always tell her mood from the way she takes her shoes off at the door. If she slaps them down on the ground, she’s frustrated. If she lays them down gently, she’s happy.

Well, tonight, she slapped her shoes down hard and then she started banging pots and pans around in the kitchen like she was REALLY mad at them.

She cooked
aloo gobi
(potato and cauliflower) and
dhahi vada
(yoghurt and donut things that are too hard to explain). The whole time she was making dinner, she was acting forgetful, like her mind was flying around somewhere else. She forgot to salt the potatoes, she forgot to start the rice, but the worst thing was when she let the
phulka
(bread) burn, which set off the smoke detector. Mrs. Lau had told us to never let that happen because it would draw attention to us.

Kiku took the broom handle and knocked the batteries out of the smoke detector, and I flapped the bedroom door open and shut to make the air move around. Mum whispered some curses and huffed around. She was covered in flour and looked a little crazy. And in the middle of all this, Kiku’s phone rang with Beyoncé’s “Put a Ring on It,” which is Valentina’s ringtone. He handed me the phone.

Valentina was excited and talking fast and squeaky. She said a bunch of Drama Club kids were going to a 6:30 movie with Carlos’s aunt as a chaperone. I had to call her back in ten minutes to say if I could go so she could buy me a ticket before they all sold out.

So Mum was in a bad mood but I had to ask right away if I could go see
Coraline
. I guess you can already see where this is going. . . .

I almost didn’t ask. I almost called Valentina back and said, “Sorry, I can’t go out on a school night.” But then I thought about how you said that sometimes I should do what I want to do.

I got Kiku to meet me in the bathroom, and I asked him for some money. He gave me enough for a ticket and popcorn. He said, “Good luck, Mee-Mee,” and patted me on the head like he felt sorry for me.

Then I went back to the kitchen and asked Mum.

She slipped almost immediately into her “No” face and said, “Who are these people from Drama Club?”

I said, “Valentina, Carlos, Jeremy, Tasheka, Peter, and Carlos’s aunt Bianca, who is a grown-up. She’s a guidance counselor, so she’s very responsible. And I don’t need any money for a ticket because I have some of my own.”

Mum didn’t even look at me. She sighed and stirred the aloo and said, “Boys, too? I don’t know these people. I don’t want you sitting in dark places with them. You’re too young to see films without your family.”

I guess I should have stayed quiet, but all of a sudden I wanted to see the movie so badly I couldn’t breathe. I pictured all my friends laughing and eating popcorn and having a great time without me. I felt like all my bones were frozen in place and I was completely alone in the world. So I guess I kind of freaked out.

ME
: Maybe you’d know them if you weren’t always with other people’s children.

I sounded mean and desperate even to myself, but I couldn’t stop the words from coming out of my mouth.

Mum slammed down the
tava
(a flat kind of pan).

MUM
: Meena, if your father heard you speaking this way, he would spank you.

ME
: Well, he’s not here, so I have to ask you — even though you NEVER let me do anything. And I’m just going to marry whoever you make me marry, so what’s the big deal with boys being there?

MUM
: Meena. Don’t forget yourself. You are my Indian daughter, not my American daughter.

ME
: Breaking news, Mum. YOU BROUGHT US TO AMERICA.

MUM
: You’re not going to see a film on a school night. And stop shouting or we’ll get thrown into the street.

ME
: You’re the one who set off the smoke alarm, so if we get thrown out, it will be YOUR fault.

MUM
(now crying): I am your mother, Meena. I am not your enemy. I had a very long day and I don’t want to see you behaving so badly. Please go to the bedroom and leave me alone.

(By the way, all this time she was talking in Hindi and I was talking in English.)

ME
: That’s what you really want, isn’t it? For me to leave you alone. For me to disappear. Mothers don’t leave their daughter for six years! Mothers don’t abandon their child and move across the world and bring only their son with them JUST BECAUSE HE’S A BOY. Mothers don’t do that, but guess what! That’s what you did. That’s what you did to me.