Jodi

RUNNING YOUR KNEE INTO A TRAILER HITCH

When it’s getting to be rhubarb season, and you’re thinking ’bout putting it up, you gotta do it quick as you can. Them first cuttings is the right time to freeze. Wait too late and all you got is a fibrous old stalk, tougher than nails.

After I said out loud that maybe I oughta give you up, I thought I’d just give it a little time, figure out if I could make it through without drinking again. But I could just hear my grandma’s voice in my head, talkin’ about that rhubarb. And I knew if I was gonna do it, it had to be right soon.

But deciding to give up your child is damn near like having to choose whether to cut off your hand or your foot. Don’t matter what you pick, you ain’t never gonna be whole again.

I don’t know who said time heals all wounds, but they ain’t right. ’Cause don’t matter what I do, I won’t never get over giving you up. That’s why growin’ up is so hard. You can know right clear in your heart that you did the right thing. But that don’t keep it from hurtin’ like running your knee into a trailer hitch, all day, every day, over and over and over again.

Buddy and me, we decided the last night of our trip we would be fancy and go out to dinner. His treat—seeing as how I had four bucks to my name. I was real sad that night, tryin’ to figure out what I was gonna do, but already knowing the right thing, like you always do. I wanted so bad to be the momma you needed—without drinkin’ myself into the common ground at the trailer park.

So Buddy was just drivin’ along, and I said, “You know what, I don’t care what my daddy said. I’m gonna get on welfare, keep my baby, and pray real hard to stay clean and sober.”

I don’t know if it were a coincidence or a sign from God but right in that same dag dern minute I saw a tiny girl, probably not more than eighteen months old, outta the corner a’ my eye. Her house was damn near falling down, weren’t nobody watching her, she weren’t wearing nothing but a diaper that looked like it hadn’t been changed since Bush was president, and she jumped right in a puddle of God only knows what. I was fixing to tell Buddy to do something, but he was already on the phone with the police.

I was getting outta that truck, saying, “We cain’t just leave her there!”

But the sheriff pulled up, and I got to crying instead a’ helping.

“It’s okay,” Buddy said. “The police will handle it.”

And that’s when I knew.

I shook my head and through my tears said, “No, Buddy. That’s what I’m talking ’bout. That could be Carolina out there.”

“What d’ya mean?” he asked, taking his hand off the steering wheel to rub my shoulder.

“That momma in there, she’s probably all right when you get right down to it. But she ain’t got no clue her kid’s out here in the cold, worse’n a orphan ’cause she’s passed out.”

Buddy waved his hand and said, “Naw. She probably just slipped out the door in a second like kids do.”

That minute you was born and I saw that pretty face, I swore to heaven that I’d protect you forever. I couldn’t near imagine any momma not feeling that way. But I didn’t say any of that to Buddy because he wouldn’t have understood anyhow.

“Oh, Jodi, just give it time. I’m sure it gets easier.”

I stared out the windshield into the black night, the stars twinkling above my head, feeling as lost down here as I would up there. “That’s the thing,” I said. “Being a momma ain’t supposed to be about what’s easy.”