MY MOTHER'S WHITENESS

FIRST PAGE

The first time I realised something was really wrong was when my schoolteacher bought me home with a bad sprained ankle. He helped me up our rickety front steps all kindness and solicitation. In my case being barely able to walk I was happy to have somebody to lean on. Kind of embarrassed by the tears pushing behind my eyeballs, then squeezing out, I flinched when he patted my shoulder. It seemed like an unwelcome addition to the shame I was already feeling. Shame being something you add naturally to your table, like eating implements, doesn’t mean to say you know what to do with them the first time they’re laid in front of you. The ankle was swelling like it’d been stung by a whole nest of bees. Felt my cheeks turning red too. Some instinct kicking in that you return to later on and point to as a signifier of what was to come.

SECOND PAGE

That the front door was open only seemed kind of odd. That my mother was laying on the floor just inside the little entrance hall she laughingly referred to, as her front passage was reassuring. That she was naked was not. Now there was nothing wrong in mom lying on the floor, she did it all the time. She’d lie down with our dog too, her head on his stomach, both of them still, like they was having a sleep or talking quietly. Often it was that they were talking, according to mom. She’d be whispering something low and soothing, just like she did to me when I was sick, or feeling low, or missing my daddy. The dog would be kind of groaning as if he was letting out more air than he had in. He’d take in a small breath and then ease it out long and shuddering, like he was doing it for maximum effect. Perhaps he really was talking back to mom, taking part in a mutually understandable conversation. Moments between them like that, I wanted to get sick, I wasn’t jealous, just wistful, just feeling the loss I guess.

THIRD PAGE

Me and the teacher just kind of stood there looking down at mom. I could feel his hand on my shoulder all of a sudden getting heavier, like he was leaning on me, instead of the other way round. The dog was with her, both of them lying still like they was carved from stone. Moments like that you seem to elevate from your prickling skin, hovering above yourself, and looking down on a world getting smaller and smaller. Later on of course they said I fainted. I knew better then, I know it to this day. I know I joined hands with my daddy, just then, just for that moment. He was there to tell me something, that was all, he just told me to ‘be careful, take it slow’. That may have been more of that instinct kicking in, or it may have been the heavy hand I’d felt leaning on me, but them words of caution sure served me well with what was to come.

FOURTH PAGE

I’d seen my mother naked. I’d seen her plenty of times before. But she was always standing upright. She’d be towelling herself dry from a hosing down she’d have given us both on the back lawn, or we’d be stirring up some lemonade in the kitchen, stark naked as jaybirds, on the hot summer days she just loved. Mom loved to be brown; she reckoned a tan was a blessing from god. She said I was blessed more than her. Sometimes when kids called me cry baby, tar baby, I felt put upon, anything but blessed. Don’t you worry, she’d say, those same kids are going to be knocking down this door wanting to take you out in a few years time, and then you can have your pick and choose of who you want, or don’t want. She said it was like being a bag of lollies where everyone wants the black one. Your daddy was the colour of liquorice, she’d say, and you never once heard him complain. I thought about growing up and getting bigger and stronger and punching people. ‘Going out’ didn’t factor into it. What was really wrong about seeing my mother naked on the floor was that this was winter. And she was white. Her summer tan had all but disappeared. Now I don’t know what my teacher saw before I started elevating and all that, but I distinctly remember his mouth falling more open than that door was. I like to imagine him standing there kind of sucking at air and hoping something intelligible would come out of his mouth. Of course nothing did. Not for a while anyways.

FIFTH PAGE

I’d sprained my ankle running scared from some kids out on the muddy pitch at school. I’d taken a good slide making a fast turn in the wrong direction, and was all caught up in all the forward momentum of it when one of my attackers decided to stomp on my outstretched foot. Kids do that to one another. There’s no real and abiding malice in it, it’s just the strong of the moment picking on the weakest as they show it. Kids do that, they seize on the moment. I was showing a whole lot of pissy momma’s boy behaviour back then, daddy having just died, and our dog taking it harder than any of us it seemed. The right teacher took me home. He was as brown as deep chocolate and I knew momma would love him; I was pushing out tears way before we got to my gate. He knew I’d be needing sympathy with my pain and all. Kids can see things; they know how it feels to be hurt. By then I’d known mom was hurting real bad too. Her lying down together with the dog had become a sad mat I had to step over every morning on the way to school.

SIXTH PAGE

What seemed like yesterday had dragged right on into winter. I knew I was seizing an opportunity. Embarrassed as I felt, right at that moment, of my mother’s startling whiteness, I also knew, just like daddy told me, I had to be careful and slow, I had to be both victim and perpetrator, decisive but vulnerable. I reckon fainting at that moment gave my mother and the teacher the few moments they needed to get rightly acquainted. Momma said he reached down and stroked the dog’s ears, like it was the first and most important thing to do. His voice was as deep as daddy’s ever was as he introduced himself. The sound of the dog’s tail hitting the floor made them both laugh like momma wasn’t naked at all.