MAMA HAS GOOD days and bad days, and I never know which one it’s gonna be. Like today, she’s awake before me and Charlie, but she’s just sitting up in bed staring at nothing, so I think it’s gonna be a bad one.
“Mama, you okay?” I ask with a groggy voice.
Mama looks at me, and she smiles.
“Of course, baby,” she says. Then she goes left field. “One day, baby, you gonna wake up, and your voice will be as deep as your daddy’s!”
She’s laughing, so I do my deepest deep-voice impression.
“What’cho mean, one day? It’s already deep!”
“All right, li’l Barry White,” Mama says. She moves her covers and nudges Charlie, who’s curled up in a ball. “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty. We got somewhere to be.”
“Where we going, Mama?” I ask. But it doesn’t really matter to me, as long as we get to leave this room.
“I have some tickets to the children’s museum, and they expire tomorrow.”
“For real?”
I’ve only been to the children’s museum a couple of times, and both times Daddy was there. I watch Mama’s face for sad shadows, but she seems okay.
“Yes, for real,” she says. She walks to the tiny kitchen area and gets bowls for cereal. She actually starts to sing!
“Charlie baby, Charlie baby, get on up! Charlie baby, Charlie baby, strut yo’ stuff!”
I can’t stop my eyes from getting big, cuz Mama hasn’t sung in forever! I bounce on her and Charlie’s bed until Charlie starts to whine.
“ ’Saiah, I’m sleepin’!” she says, all attitude-y.
“It’s time to get up, Charlie baby!” I tell her, real close to her ear the way she does to me.
“Stop!” she says. Whew! That morning breath ain’t no joke! I back up and fan the air in front of my face.
“Yeesh! You need to go brush your teeth!” I say. I dig through my green basket of clothes until I find my black jeans with no holes. I put on one of my nice shirts, the kind with buttons, and go to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face. I can still hear Mama humming the Charlie song, and I pray real hard that the whole day is just like right now—happy. I tell God that I’ll do everything I can to make sure Charlie behaves, but He’ll have to handle Mama. That’s only fair.
We take the bus to the museum, “for the experience,” Mama says. I get my own seat for most of the ride, but an old man slides next to me once we’re almost there.
“Is that the museum, Mama?” asks Charlie from the seat across from me.
“No, baby, that’s the hospital,” Mama says.
My heart beats a little faster, and I’m afraid to look at Mama. Was this the hospital they took Daddy to? Mama’s face still has a smile on it, and she wraps an arm around Charlie and pulls her close. I relax a little and turn back to the window. A few minutes later, Charlie’s at it again.
“Mama, is that the museum?”
“Charlie, stop!” I hiss, nudging her pink sneaker with my foot. Mama looks out the window and pats Charlie’s leg.
“Charlie, that’s a church!” Mama says, giving Charlie a tickle. “You know that!”
Charlie giggles and settles into Mama, and for a quick second, I wish it was me sitting there, close to Mama, laughing. Or even better, I wish that it was Daddy sitting next to me instead of the old man who keeps bumping me with his arm.
Charlie turns it into a game after that. She’s all, “Mama, is that the museum?” when we pass a car wash, and, “What about that, Mama?” when we stop at a light in front of a real fancy restaurant. Mama plays along, and I want Charlie to stop so bad! I don’t want Mama to use up all her happy before we even get there.
Finally, Mama says, “This is us,” pushes a button, and a few minutes later, we’re inside the museum. We stand in a line that’s kinda long, and when we finally get to the front, Mama hands the clerk our tickets. One thing I notice, though, is that Mama really has four tickets. She puts one back into her purse super fast, and I pretend not to see.
Daddy’s ticket. Now I remember him telling us that we’d go to the museum over Christmas break. I can’t help but feel down for a second, cuz he’s not here, but I’m also glad we are.
“Enjoy your time,” says the ticket clerk with a huge smile.
“Thank you, we sure will,” Mama replies, and she has a big smile, too. Whew!
Inside the museum, me and Charlie make huge bubbles, create a song on a giant keyboard, and pedal a bike that makes a light come on. Even Mama has fun with that, and we talk about riding our bikes once it’s summer.
Before we leave, Mama gets us pretzels and pop in the museum snack shop. She doesn’t get a pretzel for herself, but she takes a bite out of mine and Charlie’s.
“Not bad,” she says.
“Why don’t you get another one, Mama?” I ask.
“Nah.” Mama shakes her head and smiles. “Mama’s not that hungry.”
I shrug and take another bite of the warm, salty pretzel, thinking that this is the best day in forever.
“Look at that, Charlie,” I say, pointing to the girl twisting dough into the shape of a pretzel. She moves her hands so fast, it’s like magic.
“I wanna get a job doing that,” I say. Mama smiles.
“You have five, six years before you have to worry about getting a job,” she says.
But she’s wrong. I’m worrying about getting a job right now.
We watch the pretzel girl a little longer, but then Mama looks at her watch, taps the table, and tells us we gotta catch the bus back. Charlie can’t finish her pretzel, so Mama gobbles it up. I guess she was hungry after all.
It’s colder when we go outside, and the sun is setting, but we’re all happy anyway. I grab one of Charlie’s hands, and Mama grabs the other, and we stand outside the museum. Once we’re back on the bus, I stare out the window at the buildings and cars, and especially the people. I think about how I can see all of them, but they can’t see me; and even if they can, they still don’t know me. They have no clue that me and Mama and Charlie had the most awesome day ever, or that we need a ton more.
I can’t get out a poem when I try to write in my notebook later, but at least I have a few words to add. Happy. Warm. Sunset. Safe.