My mother’s car broke down and changed everything. Unable to afford the repairs, she could no longer make the hour-long commute to Batavia for her factory job, and the green Buick became just one more stopped car in the wide driveway that separated us from the three-tiered apartment building next door. With the car dead, we were as stuck as everyone else.
Caseworkers appeared in our kitchen from the Department of Social Services, asking lists of questions that my mother answered in a hushed voice. She swatted us away as she spoke, but when I heard the social worker ask questions about fathers, I strained to hear. Except for the oldest three kids, none of us even knew our fathers, and the very word, used in our house, was enough to cause silence. My mother’s voice became quieter with each question, until she eventually refused to answer.
In the end, I learned nothing, but we began to receive rainbow-colored money for food. Meanwhile, my mother started a series of lower-paying jobs and the perpetual search for something better—a job with more pay, fewer hours, less strenuous work.
I had never seen my mother’s spirits so low. Her mood sagged, and she spent any time away from work in bed. Like a bird with a broken wing, she circled quietly around us, and became hard to look at.
We began to fight.
Our living space had been more modern at the motel, but on Grand, for the first time in years, all of us were under one roof. Counting my baby sister, there were seven kids now—all growing, all clawing for space.
The bird sanctuary was out of reach. There were no gravel roads to walk up and down until we were worn out, no fields to sprawl out into, no giant birds or hiking trails to lighten moods. On Grand Avenue, whether we walked east or west, everything looked the same. Neighborhood men bubbled on porches, and even the youngest of boys pushed their legs into pimp walks, and forced their mouths into tough talk.
Lisa took to wearing a light blue T-shirt with the word BITCH spelled out in sparkly letters. The glittery word stretched the width of her shirt and expanded gradually and in direct proportion to the development of her bust. Lisa wore that BITCH shirt like a badge. She was surly, talked back to my mother, and once, after getting slapped for something she’d said, Lisa hit back. My mother’s mouth hung open. Lisa hit again. My mother grabbed a broom and tried to hold Lisa back. Though only ninety pounds, Lisa was tight as a fist. Both were red in the face, unwilling to give. Lisa was all backbone and pushing forward. And my mother, for her part, was stunned and trying to hold onto something she’d already lost.
The rest of us girls cried. No one had ever hit my mother. Everything seemed changed. Broken. We knew Lisa’s anger and my mother’s stubborn pride and were sure it would end in death.
We screamed for them to stop, and when neither listened, Steph shepherded us into the bathroom where she sat us on towels she’d rolled into cushions and told us it would be okay. We bit our lips and tried to block out the sounds of fighting while she ran to the kitchen and came back with cans of creamed corn and wax beans.
“Don’t worry,” she said to our bent heads, taking time to look into each of our faces, “we’ll stay in this bathroom for as long as we need to, even live here if we have to.”