but it didn’t feel em pty and there’s a special kind o f dark that
feels like G o d ’s in it, it’s got dots o f light in it all dancing and
sparkling or it’s almost thick so it’s just all surrounding you
like a nest or something, it’s something alive and you’re
something alive and it’s all around you, real friendly, real close
and kind as if it will take care o f you. I was so excited to be at
the movies by myself. I thought it was a very great day in my life
because usually I would be fighting with my mother and she
wouldn’t let me do anything I wanted to do. I had to play with
children and she didn’t like for them to be older than me but all
my real friends were older than me but I kept them secret. I
had to go shopping with her and try on clothes and go with her
to see the wom en’s things and the girls’ things and there were
millions o f them, and they were all the same, all matching sets
with the dressy ones all messed up with plastic flowers, all
fussy and stupid, and they were so boring, all skirts and
dresses and stupid things, little hats and little white gloves, and
I could only try on things that she liked and I wanted to read
anyway. I liked to walk around all over and go places I had
never seen before and I would always try to find a w ay to
wander around and not have to shop with her, except I loved
being near her but not shopping. N o w she was going on a big
trip to Lits, the biggest department store in Camden and
almost near Philadelphia, right near the bridge, and I loved to
be near the bridge, and I used to love to have lunch with m y
mother at the lunch counter in the giant store because that
wasn’t like being a child anymore and we would talk like
girlfriends, even holding hands. So this time I asked if I could
go to the movie across the street while she shopped and come
back to Lits all by m yself and meet her when the movie was
over and instead o f fighting with me to make me do what she
wanted she said yes and I couldn’t believe it because it made
me so happy because she didn’t fight with me and she had faith
in me and I knew I could do it and not get lost and handle the
money right and get back to the store on time and be in the
right place because I was mature. I had to act like a child but I
w asn’t one really. She wanted to have a child but I had been on
m y ow n a long time so I had to keep acting like a child but I
hated it. When she was sick I was on m y own and when I was
with relatives I was alone because they didn't know anything
and when she was in the hospital or home from the hospital I
did the ironing and I peeled the potatoes and once when she
couldn’t breathe and fell on the kitchen floor and it was late at
night and m y daddy was w orking I called the doctor and he
told me to get her whiskey right aw ay but I didn’t know what
whiskey was or how to find some so he told me to go to the
