Momma, you say, ‘Oh, she fixed us the best supper last night,’ or something like that.”
Charles nodded. “Yeah.”
Looking back, this was obviously a plan made by a bunch of kids. We had some cans and some cereal in the house, but that was about it. We scrounged up all our money, and Charles walked down to the 7-Eleven to buy some food. Even though it seemed like all the money in the world at the time, it couldn’t have been more than ten bucks.
It seemed like we lived that way forever without Momma. We’d get up and Elizabeth made sure we looked tidy and our clothes were clean, and Charles would put Momma’s signature on our papers and everything since he had pretty good cursive. Then we’d get on the bus, and we’d come home and we’d lock the door and, when somebody knocked, we wouldn’t answer it.
Phillip cried a lot, and Elizabeth and I would try to calm him down. Sometimes we’d put him in front of the TV, but then the TV quit working. And then one day, it must have been a week or two later, we got home and a couple of grown-up ladies were sitting on our couch.
At first I was real excited when I saw people because I figured one of them was Momma. Maybe she’d come back and it’d all be all right.
But it wasn’t Momma. Charles tried to run when he realized what was going on, but the police got him right down the street.
“We only want to help you,” one lady had said. She’d seemed nice to me, but Charles had screamed at her, “No, you don’t! You want to take us away from each other!”
I remember crying and saying, “Where’s my momma?”
Phillip, he’d got real quiet and done that rocking-in-the-corner thing again. Elizabeth, she’d put her arm around me and stroked my hair. She said, “Diana, you just remember that no matter what happens, I love you.”
She was so young. Charles too. All of us. So young. She just left us there like a bunch of stray kittens that nobody wanted. If your own momma doesn’t want you, who could? To this day, I don’t know what happened to my momma. Part of me hopes she’s been dead all this time; that’s the only explanation that lets me sleep at night. I’m sure I could look into it and find out. I could probably find out who my daddy is too.
But why should I? If Momma got killed in some awful way, it’s only going to make me feel bad. And if my daddy didn’t want me back then when I was cute and little, he sure as hell doesn’t want me now that I’m all grown-up.
After those ladies showed up, I didn’t get to see Charles and Elizabeth and Phillip anymore. Foster families, they were all right with taking on one kid, sometimes maybe even two. But nobody was going to take on four, especially with one like Phillip. They’d put him in a facility instead. It took me more than twenty years to find him, just up the road. It was my thirty-second birthday. Finding Phillip was the best gift I’ve ever gotten, even better than the sparkly shoes the Salvation Army brought over one year at Christmas.
I remember how excited I was, going to see him that first time. I knew he’d be grown-up, but I also expected him to be that same Phillip. I imagined that he’d smile and say he was glad to see me even if he wouldn’t look me straight in the eye or anything.
But then I got there, and, oh my Lord, it almost brought me to my knees to see my sweet brother just sitting in that chair and staring into space. I’d tried to talk to him, but he’d just looked at me kind of blank and turned back to the window. You didn’t have to be real smart to figure out what was going on.
“What in the hell do you have him on?” I asked the first woman in scrubs I saw.
“He has to be sedated, ma’am. He gets violent.”
“Gets violent?” I felt like I was about to get violent. “He’s the sweetest thing in the world as long as you don’t come at him too quick or try to hug him.”
“Ma’am,” she said like I was an idiot, “I’m not equipped to fend off an unpredictable grown man.”
I was mad as hell—but I did have to put myself