playfully.
'I told you I could have been Southern.' My mother laughed.
'Do you have a favorite Negro spiritual?' Joseph asked my mother.
'I sure do.'
'Give us a rendition,' urged Marc.
'You'll regret asking,' said my mother.
'All of you will help me if I stumble.' She rocked Brigitte's body to the solemn lift of her voice.
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.
A long ways from home.
We all clapped when she was done. Brigitte, too.
'I want that sung at my funeral,' my mother said. 'My mother's got me thinking this way; you've got to plan for everything.'
The day ended too soon for my mother. We never got a moment alone for her to tell me what she had decided. That night as we said good-bye, she wrapped her arms around my body and would not let go.
'She will come back,' Marc said, separating us.
'Us Caco women,' she said, 'when we're happy, we're very happy, but when we're sad, the sadness is deep.'
On the ride back to Providence, Joseph kept singing my mother's spiritual, adding some bebop to the melody, as though to reverse the sad tone.
'Your mother's good folk,' he said. 'I always understood why she didn't like me. She didn't want to give up a gem like you.'
My mother had left two messages on our machine by the time we got home.
'We had a nice day, pa vre?' she said when I called back. 'Did Joseph enjoy himself? The two of you, you go very well together. Marc thought he was old for you, but he liked meeting him anyway.'
She stopped to catch her breath.
'Are you really okay?' I asked.
'It was wonderful to see you.'
'The nightmares, have they stopped?'
'I didn't tell you what I had decided. I am going to get it out of me.'
'When did you decide?'
'Last night when I heard it speak to me.'
'Are you sure?'
'Yes. I am sure, it spoke to me. It has a man's voice, so now I know it's not a girl. I am going to get it out of me. I am going to get it out of me, as the stars are my witness.'
'Don't do anything rash.'
'Everywhere I go, I hear it. I hear him saying things to me. You tintin, malprop. He calls me a filthy whore. I never want to see this child's face. Your child looks like Manman. This child, I will never look into its face.'
'But it's Marc's child.'
'What if there is something left in me and when the child comes out it has that other face?'
'You mean what if it looks like me?'
'No, that is not what I mean.'
'Marc has no children; he must want some.'
'If he wants some badly enough, he can have some.'
I heard Marc asking who she was talking to.
'I'll call you tomorrow,' she said before hanging up. 'Pray to the Virgin Mother for me.'
Chapter 34
I had a late afternoon session on the bare floor of Rena's office. Through her smoked French doors, the river looked a breathless blue.
'How was the visit with your mother?' she asked.
'I am very worried about her state of mind,' I said. 'It was like two people. Someone who was trying to hold things together and someone who was falling apart.'
'You feel she was only pretending to be happy.'
'Deep inside, yes.'
'Why?'
'That's always how she's survived. She feels that she has to stay one step ahead of a mental institution so she has to hold it together at least on the surface.'
'What has she decided to do with the baby?'
'She is probably taking it out as we speak.'
'What do you mean she's taking it out?'
'Losing it. Dropping it. I can't say it.'
'An abortion?'
'Yes.'
'Why?'
'She says she hears the baby saying things to her. He says hurtful things, this baby.'
'Your mother hears a voice?'
'Yes.'
'Has she always heard voices?'
'When I lived with her, it was just the nightmares, her reliving the experience over and over again.'
'And now she hears these voices?'
'Yes.'
'If she's afraid of therapy, perhaps your mother should have an exorcism.'
'An exorcism?'
'I am not joking. She should have a release ritual. The kind of things you do with the sexual phobia group. You can help.'
'She is afraid to deal with anything that would make this more real.'
'It has to become frighteningly real before it can fade.'
'It's always been real to her,' I said. 'Twenty-five years of being raped every night. Could you live with that? This child, it makes the feelings stronger. It takes her back to a time when she was carrying me. Even the time when she was living with me. That's why she is trying to get the child out of her body.'
'I think she needs an exorcism. Has she told her lover that she wants to abort?'
'I wish you wouldn't call him that.'
'Why not?'
'It sounds-' I hesitated.
'Sexual?'
'Yes.'
'Too sexual to be linked with your mother? I think you have a Madonna image of your mother. Part of you feels that this child is a testimonial of her true sexuality. It's a child she conceived willingly. Maybe even she is not able to face that.'
'I just want her to be okay,' I said.
'Does her lover know that she doesn't want the baby?'
'The way my mother acts, he probably think it's the best thing that's ever happened to her. I don't think she's ever really explained to him about how I was born.'
'Do you think he would want her to have the baby?'
