Sandrine's Letter to Tomorrow

Part One, Pages 3 — 6

Before I went to the bathroom to get dressed, I passed through the front room, our living room and Mama's bedroom, to look out the front door at the eaves of the porch. Clean. The whole room smelled musty, sweaty and sharp sour, Mama's clothes from yesterday thrown across the sofa, empty cans of Jax beer and an overflowing frog-shaped ashtray crowding the three framed pictures on top the console tv. One was my first grade picture, all front teeth missing from my wide smile, the one in front of Mama with one of her friends, Joe Henry, their eyes half-closed, the tiny table in front of them covered with empty glasses and little red straws. The third, pushed toward the back, I only got to look at closely when Mama wasn't in the room; if she saw me do it, she'd take it from me and send me to my room or to do the dishes. It was a Polaroid, too small for the brass-colored frame, the colors blurring but I could still pick out Mother Dear, Mama's mama, my aunts and uncles and my mother, all still teenagers, except Tamira, waist-high to Dear. Uncle Jerry stood in the back, taller than Uncle Frank though Uncle Frank was three years older, Aunty Margie, Auntie Z and Mama in front with Tamira but it was the white lady next to Dear, her hand on Mama's shoulder, I couldn't figure out. Social worker? Teacher? In a family picture? My stomach hurt I was so hungry. I put the frame down to go get dressed.

Light came in the kitchen from the east through the three big windows, the off-white counters with pale-colored speckles reflected the light, the cabinets were white and smudge-free — I'd scrubbed them every morning with Mr. Clean and Comet for the fingerprints and wiped them once more each afternoon before Mama got home — and the pale blue and white tile was clean from corner to corner, even along the baseboards and in the crevices of doorways. While I crunched through a bowl of corn flakes, I heard Mama talking outside, her voice light and happy; she must've been talking to a neighbor since no "friend" of hers came by during the daytime, or at least this early, not with Mother Dear next door watching. When Dad called, her voice was annoyed and low, with Mother Dear it was fast and high-pitched but not happy and with me she was all that and more — flat and slow, tired and clipped, and, late at night, drawling and sour with beer.

Mama sat on a folding chair on the porch, looking out at the street. It was hot and humid early. None of the kids on the block would be out to play until late, between dinner and complete darkness, when it got cooler and there might be a little breeze. My suitcases were right inside the screen door. I sat on the top step to put on my sandals, huaraches Mama had bought from a man around the corner who made them in his shed. I hadn't worn them much yet and the leather straps were stiff.

"Get up," Mama said. "What are you wearing?"

I stood so she could see my blue t-shirt with a US flag on front and the cut-off shorts she'd made from last year's jeans. One of her friends Dave had given me the t-shirt, said he bought it from a van on St. Bernard and when I tore it from the plastic bag, brand new, she pouted at Dave, "You ain't get me one?" I hadn't worn it yet to keep from ruining it with Mr. Clean and Comet and bleach.

"Go change." I opened my mouth to ask why I had to change for a five-hour car ride, some through red dust it was too hot to close the windows against, but Mama raised her hand at me, as if to block me from sight. "You will not go with him looking like some project orphan. Go put on a dress. And your good sandals, not those back-alley huaraches."

I wanted to let the screen door slam behind me but she already sounded tight and mad. Dad had been coming to get me for the summer ever since they split up and though I don't remember the first summer pickups when I was three and four, I could guess what they had been like by how things were now and how I felt the closer it got to Dad showing up. Mama always had my suitcases outside on the porch or right inside the screen door and the closer Mama stood to the porch steps, the guiltier and jumpier I felt. It seemed like I had done something wrong when she waited inside, looking through the screen door at my back, but if she stood behind me while I waited on the steps, her face hard like she couldn't wait for me to leave, I felt like my head would bust open. One year, she threatened to make me wait in my room because she didn't like how I waited on the porch for him, like I'd been waiting since last summer she said. I didn't say anything back but later, a little while before Dad was due, I told her she was the one who always wanted me to wait on the porch. She looked at me funny and said she didn't know what I was talking about.