Time of the Locust (24 page)

The Bath

I
n the bathroom, Brenda bathed her child in the deep, claw-foot tub. The surrounding white porcelain, the tiles, the chrome, the sound of trickling water were together cathartic, and the bathroom itself, with its buttery lighting and dark blue rugs, was at that moment a sanctuary for them both. Pouring bathwater over Sephiri's shoulders with the little wooden ladle made each dip seem a libation. On the wall was a framed Kenyan proverb Brenda had purchased from an antiques shop years ago. “Absence makes the heart forget,” it read. She bought it hoping that it was true only in the largest sense, that absence only made the heart forget the sadness that had been there, not the brightness of what was and could have been. In the elegant calm, she forgot her swollen ankles and strained eyes and sat on the ledge of the tub. She lathered the soap into big white puffs and slathered it gently on Sephiri like meringue. He did not balk and was silent, as he sometimes was during this evening ritual. She, too, was quiet, emptying her mind of her troubles.

She had stayed home with Sephiri all this past week. The long sleeping bouts at the center scared her, and she needed to watch him go to sleep and watch him wake up. To her relief, it seemed that over the past few days, the fog that had gripped him lifted, and he returned to his habit of sleeping three or four hours at a time.

Sephiri curled his back, and Brenda again ladled more warm water over his shoulders. He murmured something soft and unintelligible, as he sometimes did. It reminded her of the cooing sounds he made when he was an infant, his head a downy crown, a ball of plump preciousness smelling of fresh cotton and powder. She used to snuggle him close to her, both of them curled together on the bed. That had been a time when they didn't need words between them. And it struck her that she had been grieving not only for Horus but also for the child she thought Sephiri would be.

Brenda listened to the sound of the slow leak from the tub faucet, the steady metronome of drops into the sudsy water, and let her hand rest in it. She could feel her sugary, pulsing blood, challenging her to live on her own behalf. And she knew at last that it was time to lay it all down. That the sugar had become too heavy a burden even for her to carry any longer.

More than that, she regretted that in her quest to see what might be going on in her boy's mind, she had set aside the greatest part of the truth. She alone was his mother. No matter what studies were tried or what medications taken, no matter how many articles she read or how much professional advice she received, she alone would be the one to dry Sephiri's tears. Her son had been the shape and make of her life, and she could not imagine what form it might have taken without him.

And now all Brenda wanted was her baby. To hold him, even if he fretted and hung from her arms like a doll. She wanted to pull him close to her, so close that he might soak up all of the love and comfort she wanted to offer him. Sephiri, the hidden treasure that meant his name, that had always been most precious to her, was in this little boy's frame, somewhere. And she was ashamed to admit that in the secret garden of her hopes, she had been engaged in this business of trying to fix Sephiri, as if he were a broken toy. And staring into the bathwater, she thought of all the pain and strife that gripped the world, that had befallen herself and all she loved, and she wondered if it was everyone else who was broken, and if children like Sephiri were messengers of the silence that needed to replace the noise. And it was then that she felt it was time to ask God an important question, which was this:
If I accept Sephiri as he has been given to me, might we then find our way to each other?

Humming now, Brenda poured more water over Sephiri's sleek back and watched it run down in smooth rivulets. A mother's love. It had no limit, a story with no end. This much she knew. She would wait for Sephiri in the labyrinth of their life together. She would listen for him and move ever nearer.

Sephiri listened to his mother hum and cradled his knees in his arms, his bowed head nestled in them. What she could not have known, even if he could find a way to tell her, was that there was a man who rescued him from confusion, who helped him get back to the shelter of this moment with her, the stranger in the World of Water, who was now, for reasons he could not explain, familiar. The man who was at first not there but then there. And Sephiri could not tell his mother that when he was out in the open water, adrift in a world even he no longer recognized, when he bowed his head and cried, he thought of her. Not as a talking person of Air, but as an entity of safeness, a place of harbor, and he had longed for her then, as he longed for her now. He wanted always to know that her presence was near, of which he had been aware since the day he was born. But there were no words in the Land of Air or the World of Water for such feelings, no vowels or consonants wide enough to hold what she meant to him.

Sephiri lowered his knees into the water and lifted his head to look at the emerald green of the mouthwash bottle sitting on the sink.

Brenda beheld him. Always Horus was there looking back—in Sephiri's eyes, in the jawline, in the dimpled chin. He was there always in the little face, an echo of the man she wanted to save from the world, from himself. And there was no language for what filled her, for what had grown into fullness since Sephiri's existence began. And so she let her heart speak, and listened for the slightest sound from his. And when her eyes captured a flitting moment of his direct gaze, her heart said,
I love you, Sephiri
.

And ever so slightly, so much so that Brenda almost missed it, Sephiri smiled.

Acknowledgments

I've learned in writing this book that there is real magic in relentless effort, vision, and people who believe in your work. I would like to acknowledge and thank my husband, who for many years was my only fan, coach, and reader in the world. I thank my three incredibly patient and hopeful children who tolerated the hours and silence it took for me to write this book. I am deeply appreciative of my editor Malaika Adero for hearing me in the dark and understanding much from a great distance. My heartfelt thanks go to Annie Cameron and parents of autistic children ­everywhere fighting the good fight every day. I am grateful for the support of the wonderful Wilkes University MFA community: Robert Mooney for his literary hawk eyes in reviewing my work in its primordial stages and seeing it through to the end; Nancy McKinley for her priceless encouragement of all my efforts; ­Norris Church Mailer for that twinkle in her eye when she handed me a scholarship; ­Kaylie Jones, Jeff Talarigo, Jan Quackenbush, Christine ­Gelineau, and Ross ­Klavan for cheering me in the ring; David Poyer and ­Lenore Hart for their steadfast advice; Bonnie Culver and J. ­Michael ­Lennon for opening academic and literary doors on my ­behalf; and ­Rashidah Ismaili Abubakr for the living history she shared with me. I greatly appreciate the unwavering international support of Steve Moran of the Willesden Herald in the United Kingdom, ­Suzanne Kamata of the Yomimono Journal in Japan, David Fraser of
Ascent Aspirations Magazine
in Canada, Santosh Kumar of the
Taj Mahal Review
, and Gloria Mindock of
­The ­Istanbul Review
. I thank the PEN/Bellwether Prize, the Dana Awards, and Johnny Temple of Akashic Books for ­recognizing the early promise of this work. Finally, I honor those unnamed individuals who have inspired me with their light and refusal to quit.

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 by Morowa Yejidé

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Interior design by Kyoko Watanabe
Jacket design by James Perales
Jacket photograph Boy On Beach, © Kami Kami/Arabianeye/Getty Images
Water background © Shankz/Shutterstock

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Yejidé, Morowa.
Time of the locust / Morowa Yejidé.—First Atria books hardcover edition.
pages cm
1. Autistic children—Family relationships—Fiction. 2. Children of prisoners—Fiction. 3. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 4. Murder—Fiction. 5. Retribution—Fiction. 6. Redemption—Fiction. 7. Psychological fiction.
I. Title.
PS3625.E432T56 2014
813'.6—dc23
2013027440

ISBN 978-1-4767-3135-3
ISBN 978-1-4767-3137-7 (ebook)