Breath, Eyes, Memory Part 22

"Bye, Mama."

"Bye, my star."

I sat up and wrote Tante Atie a letter. Now that she was reading, I wanted to send her something that only her eyes could see, something that she didn't have to have other people listen to. I imagined her standing there next to me, as we reminisced about the konbit potlucks, the lotteries we almost never won, and our dead relatives who we had such a kinship to, as though they were our restless spirits, shadows wandering in the darkness as our bodies slipped into bed.

Chapter 32.

My therapist was a gorgeous black woman who was an initiated Santeria priestess. She had done two years in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic, which showed in the brightly colored prints, noisy bangles, and open sandals she wore.

Her clinic was in a penthouse overlooking the Seekonk River. "You pulled a sudden disappearing act last week," she said as I looked over the collection of Brazilian paintings and ceremonial African masks on her walls.

She put out a cigarette while looking through my file. "Let's go for a stroll so you can tell me all about it."

We usually had our sessions in the woods by the river.

"So what is happening in your life?" she asked, waving a stick towards a stray dog behind us.

I told her about my sudden trip to Haiti, the trip that had caused me to miss my appointment the week before. I told her about my mother coming for me and my finding out that my grandmother, and her mother before her, had all been tested.

"I thought we were going to do some more work before you could actually try confrontational therapy," she said.

"I wasn't thinking about it as confrontational therapy. I just felt like going. And since Joseph was away I took advantage and went."

"I know a woman who went back to Brazil and took a jar full of dust from her mother's grave so she would always have her mother line with her. Did you have a chance to reclaim your mother line?"

"My mother line was always with me," I said. "No matter what happens. Blood made us one."

"You're telling me you never hated your mother."

"I felt a lot of pain."

"Did you hate her?" she asked.

"Maybe hate is not the right word."

"We all hate people at one time or another. If we can hate ourselves, why can't we hate other people?"

"I can't say I hated her."

"You don't want to say it. Why not?" she asked.

"Because it wouldn't be right, and maybe because it wouldn't be true."

"Maybe? You hesitate-"

"She wants to be good to me now," I said, "and I want to accept it."

"That's good."

"I want to forget the hidden things, the conflicts you always want me to deal with. I want to look at her as someone I am meeting again for the first time. An acquaintance who I am hoping will become a friend. I grew up believing that people could be in two places at once. Meeting for the first time again is not such a hard concept."

We watched a crew team paddling across the river.

"Did you ask your grandmother why they test their daughters?" she asked.

"To preserve their honor."

"Did you express your anger?"

"I tried, but it was very hard to be angry at my grandmother. After all she was only doing something that made her feel like a good mother. My mother too."

"And how was it, seeing your mother?"

"She is pregnant now."

"So she is in a relationship."

"It's the same man she was involved with when I was there."

"Are they married?"

No.

"They sleep together?"

"Obviously."

"Did she sleep with him when you were home?" she asked.

"She would never have a man in the house when I was home. It would be a bad example."

"How does it make you feel knowing that she slept with someone? Don't you feel betrayed that after all these years, she does the very thing that she didn't want you to do?"

"I can't feel mad anymore."

A jogging couple b.u.mped my shoulders as they raced by.

"Why aren't you mad anymore?" she asked.

"I feel sorry for her."

"Why?"

"The baby, it's roused up a lot of old emotions in my mother."

"What kinds of emotions?"

"Maybe emotions is not the word. It's brought back images of the rape."

"Like you did."

"Yes," I said. "Like I did."

"What about your father? Have you given him more thought?"

"I would rather not call him my father."

"We will have to address him soon. When we do address him, I'll have to ask you to confront your feelings about him in some way, give him a face."

"It's hard enough to deal with, without giving him a face."

"Your mother never gave him a face. That's why he's a shadow. That's why he can control her. I'm not surprised she's having nightmares. This pregnancy is bringing feelings to the surface that she had never completely dealt with.

You will never be able to connect with your husband until you say good-bye to your father."

"I am seeing my mother this weekend," I said.

"You are establishing relations again."

"Joseph and I are going to visit her so we can get to know her friend."

"You mean her lover, the father of her child."

"Yes."

"Is it hard for you to imagine your mother s.e.xually?"

"I've never really tried."

"Do it now."

"Do what?"

"Imagine her in the s.e.xual act," she said.

I tried to imagine my mother, wincing and clenching her teeth as the large shadow of a man mounted her. She didn't like it. She even looked like she was crying, even though her lips were saying things that made him think otherwise.

"Do you imagine that it's the same for her as it is for you?"

"I imagine that she tries to be brave."

"Like you."

"Maybe."

"Do you think you'll ever stop thinking of what you and Joseph do as being brave?"

"I am his wife. There are certain things I need to do to keep him."

"The fear of abandonment. You always have that in the back of your mind, don't you?"

"I feel like my daughter is the only person in the world who won't leave me."

"Do you understand now why your mother was so adamantly against your being with a man, a much older man at that? It is only natural, dear heart. She also felt that you were the only person who would never leave her."

We stopped at a bench overlooking the river. Two swans were floating along trying to catch up with one another. The crew team was rowing towards the edge of the river.

"During your visit, did you go to the spot where your mother was raped?" Rena asked. "In the thick of the cane field. Did you go to the spot?"

"No, not really."

"What does that mean?"

"I ran past it."

"You and your mother should both go there again and see that you can walk away from it. Even if you can never face the man who is your father, there are things that you can say to the spot where it happened. I think you'll be free once you have your confrontation. There will be no more ghosts."

Chapter 33.

My mother met us on the stoop outside the house. She was wearing a large tent dress with long puffy sleeves. She looked calmer, rested. Her skin was evened out with a powdered mahogany glow.

Joseph had driven in our station wagon, while I brought Brigitte in my mother's car.

"Ca va byen?" My mother kissed Joseph four times on the cheek. "I brought your wife and daughter back in one piece."

She took the baby from my arms and shoved Marc forward to introduce himself.

Marc was a bit fatter than I remembered. He was squeezed into a small gray jacket and a large pair of pants held up by suspenders.

Marc recited his full name as he shook Joseph's hand.

"Marc has a lot of the old ways," my mother said to Joseph.

The kitchen smelled like fried fish, boiled cabbage, and mayonnaise.

"What have you been up to?" my mother said, curling Brigitte up in her arms. Brigitte reached up to grab my mother's very short hair.