the world will work as expected. That kind of confidence rubs off on the less fortunate. That’s what happened to Momma. She became so immersed in that environment she forgot what awaited her at home. She forgot what had prompted her to leave.
She attended classes, walked the Norfolk State campus like she’d always belonged there, and spent nights with other Upward Bound students talking about lives they would enjoy after graduating and entering college. That was her plan too. Upward Bound, college, maybe even the Army. The Army would get her far from Deep Creek.
While there was more than enough food at Norfolk State, there were still those pangs, those cramps in time that doubled her over, and left her paralyzed in a bathroom stall. She rationalized her weak stomach as nerves. Then she found she was sick at her calmest moments. Finally, she visited the infirmary. After a quick rundown of her symptoms—nausea, tender breasts, headaches, vomiting—the nurse recommended she take a pregnancy test.
She didn’t need a test. She knew there was something growing inside her and its life meant her life would forever be changed. She knew this soon after Pop did what he did, soon after that first ride on those handlebars. No, she didn’t need a test. She needed a time machine, a way to go back and do things the right way so the life she’d glimpsed those few days at Norfolk State could be hers.
After she learned she would be a mother, she learned there would be no Upward Bound graduation. As if she and her pregnancy were contagious, Norfolk State officials told her to leave the campus. No longer one of the hopefuls, she instantly became the girl Norfolk State graduates would look down on, the one they would warn their sons to steer clear of, one they would caution their daughters against becoming. All the possibilities, the future she’d imagined, college, Army, moving far from Deep Creek, were no longer possible. She needed answers and to get away from the people she’d spent weeks with, so she boarded a bus to Portsmouth. She was going to a place she felt safe, a place she knew had answers and possibly a way out. She was going to her momma.
In preparation for Momma’s visit, Grandma Rachel had strewn her newly purchased red dress across the bed. She’d crisscrossed the store several times, trying to find the perfect one. Then she saw it, fire-engine red, with gold buttons on the side, a modest split, and turtleneck top. She couldn’t wait to try it on and show her baby how done up she’d be for her Upward Bound graduation. In celebration of Momma’s visit, she hadn’t taken a drink all day. She was not sitting at the kitchen table, arms limp at her sides, head smashed into the tablecloth. Her baby wouldn’t have to place her ear against her mouth, just to see if she were breathing. Grandma Rachel was wide awake, alert, and sober, all because she wanted to see her daughter’s face when she showed her the dress she’d purchased.
Grandma Rachel stared out of the window as she saw Momma trudging toward the house. She studied her daughter’s movements, her body. Something just isn’t right, she felt in her back, her neck before she saw Momma’s tear-stained cheeks, before her growing belly came into view. Grandma Rachel gathered the red dress with the gold buttons, folded it into a square, and placed it in the drawer atop her clothes. She smoothed the creases in the fabric, wiped the tears that fell down her face, and went to greet her daughter.
Together, they devised a plan. Momma would have to tell her daddy she was pregnant. They agreed that was the right thing to do, but Grandma would be there. Not next to Momma, in the conversation, but on the porch steps, able to get to her if necessary. Where she’d live? What she’d say to Pop? All of that would come later. She first had to tell her daddy.
Granddaddy’s gaze pulled Momma to the car. The passenger seat was empty, waiting for Momma to sit there, waiting to transport her back to Deep Creek. Momma saw that emptiness and knew it was a void she could no longer fill. The walk from Grandma’s porch to the curb had never been so much of a journey. She looked through the open window, saw her daddy’s bronze face, his round chin, which sat heavily on his chest, obscuring his neck. He didn’t look so mean, so demanding in that car by himself. He just looked like her daddy, the man who’d worked at the shipyard all of his life, the one who sold liquor to his little brother and then gently collected his rumpled, inebriated body after he’d passed out in the yard. She saw that man who’d loved hard, so hard sometimes she felt as if she were being strangled.
Momma walked that last stretch of yard, paused at the open window, and placed her hand on the door. She leaned down to him, careful not to lean too far in. He locked eyes with her. She heard him questioning why she hadn’t gotten into the car even though he never opened his mouth. Momma swallowed, but her throat was as dry as the dirt yard she’d just traveled. She fingered the rim of the car window, wishing she could slink into the thin opening.
Granddaddy, again, didn’t open his mouth, still speaking with his eyes, penetrating, growing more demanding with blinks. Momma had no response. She did not have his powers. It was hard enough to speak with her tongue.
Granddaddy’s look softened, eyes questioning rather than barking orders. Her hand moved from the door to her belly. She began to speak with her mouth, eyes talking to the ground only. “Daddy, I’m,” and her opened hand resting on what had always been flat spoke the rest.
His eyes widened at first, then retreated into his face. Their eyes met again, but his, this time, looked away. She heard an “umpf” escape him, as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. He raised his fist, but no blow came. The hum of the car engine was the only sound, the only feeling radiating through their bodies. Then there was a shift, not of her, but of the car. She felt it go into gear. She opened her eyes and saw her daddy looking at her in wonder, as if he were meeting her for the second time and trying to place where they first met.
She considered telling him it wasn’t her fault, that Pop had done this, and she had never really been willing, but there was no use. No matter how far she walked from that reality, the blame would always find its way back. So, she remained quiet and watched her daddy, shoulders slumped near the steering wheel, hand hanging on the shifter. She watched as her daddy slowly coasted away.
MISSING INGREDIENTS MISSING INGREDIENTS
Missing Ingredients Missing Ingredients
Soon after Momma learned she was pregnant, she sent Pop a letter. He revealed his life was just beginning as he trained for the Air Force and they could never actually be together because she was so young. He questioned whether she’d given it to someone else, probably because it had been so easy for him to take it. He decided the baby wasn’t his, but because he wanted to assist her, he’d get his cousin to give her pills, so all their troubles could disappear. She never wrote him again. Just months after her sixteenth birthday, she became a single mother. Grandma Rachel decided she would take care of the baby so Momma could go back to school, but months after the baby was born, Grandma Rachel suffered a massive stroke and died.
Momma met my father, Carl, on the school bus when she was six months pregnant with Pop’s baby. Fortunately for Momma, her pregnancy didn’t broadcast a “This body is busy making another body” signal. Momma’s pregnancy was inviting, her body tight, round in all of the right places. In those first months, she lost weight and that made her features more striking than they’d been before she got pregnant.
After she’d asked to sit next to him, he cautiously sparked a conversation with her, knowing what all guys at Cradock High knew: she was a Boone girl, the youngest, and that meant you didn’t mess with her, unless you wanted to be messed with. But somebody had already messed with her, he saw. Messed with
