“I can’t breathe.”
We are standing on the top step of an ugly old building overlooking Morningside Park. It’s been our home since late February. Even though it’s April, it still feels like winter—everything is damp and grey, with a chill that sinks into your bones.
“I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t breathe.”
She says it as one sentence.
Even though my little girl is complaining about a lack of oxygen, I giggle. She looks so gosh darn cute. The surgical mask is covering most of her face, including what I know is a little nub of a nose, and rosebud lips. But I can see her shiny brown eyes that are framed with long fluttery eyelashes that didn’t come from me, nor from that guy, Ace I-Will-Never-Know-His-Last-Name. At least from what I can remember of him from that drunken night from another life ago.
I always wonder if either my father or mother had eyelashes like that.
Sara looks up at me and blinks. Her bangs graze the tips of those eyelashes, and with each blink, her bangs bob up and down in agreement. I’m smiling under my surgical mask. Despite everything, the bounce of her bangs makes me happy.
“You can breathe enough, can’t you, Sweetheart?”
“No!”
“Are you sure?”
She doesn’t answer.
“Look, Sara. Mommy’s wearing a mask, too. I can breathe. It’s uncomfortable, but I can breathe.” Sara turns her head away.
“It won’t be long. We’ll shop really fast. We’ll be out of there in no time.”
More silence.
I brush away a frisson of Bad Mother Guilt and proceed with bribery.
“We’ll buy cookies. Whatever kind of cookies you and Juju want.”
Sara considers this.
“Juju wants Chips Ahoy. And Oreos.”
“I know Juju likes those. They’re your favorites, too!”
I pat the sleeve of her puffy yellow winter coat.
“Come on, Sweetheart. You, me and Juju will get those cookies.”
Sara takes my hand, and we proceed down the stairs. I lead Sara carefully, mindful of the broken areas of the steps that could make us stumble and fall.
The Foodtown is only several blocks away, and I hold Sara’s hand tightly for the stretch along the park. You can feel the unsafeness of the park, especially in the wake of that Columbia student who was murdered last year. Still, I try to be mindful of walking slowly. Some days I forget, and walk at my normal brisk pace. This is too much for Sara’s four-year-old legs, and she will tug at my hand and tell me her legs hurt.
“I can’t breathe,” Sara repeats softly. Her tone is less petulant now, because of the promise of cookies.
“It won’t take long; I promise. I’ll shop as quickly as I can. And you keep your mask on the whole time, okay? Promise Mommy?”
Sara is silent.
“Promise Mommy.”
“Juju isn’t wearing a mask.” Her tone is matter-of-fact.
Imaginary people are funny like that, I think to myself.
“Juju must have an extraordinary immune system.”
Sara doesn’t know what to say to that, thank goodness.
We enter the supermarket. Sara watches as I disentangle a cart from the queue. She waits as I pull out a folded paper towel from my handbag, and a small bottle of 90% isopropyl alcohol. I wipe down the kiddie seat, and the handle bar of the cart, then I lift Sara up and put her in place.
“Good girl,” I murmur. “Try not to touch anything.”
True to my word, I shop as quickly as possible. Zipping through the aisles. The no-name brands of the cookies that I had promised. Frozen spinach. Cans of soup. Not Campell’s, the cheaper brand that was on sale. Ground beef. The no-name brand of Hamburger Helper. Each item added to our cart raises my anxiety. The $78 in my wallet has to last until next Thursday.
But I need eggs and fish. And nuts. Dr. Ahmed said that proper nutrition can help slow the progression. Diet can help a lot, he said. I hesitate, then go to the canned fish section and buy two cans of tuna. Chunk light, not solid white. Foodtown brand peanut butter.
In just over half an hour, Sara and I are back at the front of our building. The knapsack on my back is heavy with groceries. We walk up the front steps, and once inside the vestibule, Sara whimpers through her mask. She knows that I won’t let us take the elevator. Not since the pandemic began.
Six flights of stairs is a lot for a little girl.
“I know, Sweetie. We’ll take it slow. And after dinner, you and Juju can have cookies.”
* * *
That night, I get Sara ready for bed. I sit on the toilet, which slides because of the broken hinge, and watch Sara brush her teeth. Standing on her pink plastic stool, she leans forward and spits into the sink. Her right hand is pressed against the sink’s rim. Her hands still have a baby chubbiness to them, dimples on the back, at the base of each finger.
As we walk from the bathroom toward her bedroom:
“Mommy, can I have a flashlight?”
“A flashlight? What for?”
“To bring to bed with me. I need to have one, too.”
“What do you mean, ‘too’? I don’t bring a flashlight to bed with me.”
“Not you, Mommy. Juju.”
“Juju has a flashlight?”
Sara nods and stops at the threshold of her bedroom door. Apparently bedtime would not proceed until this flashlight matter was settled.
“Why does Juju have a flashlight?”
“To stan-gar.”
It took me a moment.
“To stand guard?”
Sara nodded.
I don’t bother asking what Juju stands guard against.
“I don’t know if I packed any flashlights.” There were still two moving boxes in the living room, shoved into the corner by the window with the broken glass.
“How about I tuck you in, and I’ll go look for a flashlight?”
Sara agrees to my terms.
For all the faults of their apartment—the old kitchen linoleum that curled up at the edges, the rust-stained bathtub with the rotting grout, and the faucet that leaked—it was spacious, half a floor-through. The hall from the bedrooms was so long, it felt like a railroad apartment.
As I started down that hall, twinkles of light float before me. They blink, drift, then fade out. It was happening again, and with it, fear flooded my stomach.
“Mommy? Are you looking for the flashlight?”
“Yes, baby. I’m going to look right now.”
If I were Bobby, perhaps I would reflect upon the irony, the symmetry of looking for a flashlight while seeing flashes of light before my eyes. But I’m not a poet or musician like Bobby. I’m a single mother who was laid off last month, is living from unemployment check to unemployment check and was just diagnosed with an illness that scares the shit out of me.
There’s nothing for me to wax poetic about. I just need to grit my teeth and focus on what I need to do. And right now I need find a fucking flashlight. I try to ignore the twinkles of light and the roiling in my stomach, and proceed to the two boxes in the living room. In thick red marker, one box is labelled “Tools;” the other, “Miscellany.” What a useless thing to label a box. I don’t know what I was thinking.
I open the box: plastic trays, stacked with old bills and pay stubs. On top of that are some framed pictures—Bobby, Sara and me. The biggest one was the photo that Bobby gave to me on Valentine’s Day last year. A photo of us in Fresh Meadows Park. He’s hugging me and kissing the top of my hair. His jagged handwriting scratches across the bottom: “I love you, Figgie.”
I should have just left the pictures at Kew Gardens. To make it seem like I didn’t care.
Now it’s Rina, the new backup singer in his band, that he kisses. It’s her that he now spends slow Sunday afternoons in bed, smoking weed, and having sex. And a song will pop into his head. Bobby will roll over to reach his phone on the nightstand, and then pull up whatever old rock song is beckoning to be heard. The music will start playing, and Bobby will roll back over to face her. And then, in their nakedness and limbs intertwined, they will listen to the music together, Bobby savoring the lyrics like sweet nectar.
He knew me better than anyone. He’s the only person that I ever told about Miss Desiree Dameron. She was the only foster mother that was ever nice to me. He knows that she was old and bony and skinny, but still somehow gave the best hugs in the world, and that her teeth clicked as she talked. I now know she had dentures but when I was five, I just liked it because I thought she talked like a puppet.
He knows that I had asked Miss Desiree, “Why do you call me ‘Figgie”? My name is Frances.” And Miss Desiree said, “‘Cause you jus’ look like a ‘Figgie’ to me,” and she wrapped her arms around me and squeezed me hard.
What Bobby knows doesn’t matter anymore.
And there’s no flashlight in the “Miscellany” box.
I go back to Sara’s room to give her the bad news. I reach her doorway, and see she is sitting up in bed, expectantly. The Snoopy lamp is on the floor. It’s a nightstand lamp, but since we don’t have a nightstand, on the floor it goes. The light casts funny shadows on her round cheeks.
“Did you find the flashlight?”
“Sorry, Sweetie. I looked. We don’t have one.”
“I need a flashlight. Juju has one, and I want one, too.”
“We don’t have one, Sweetie.” Isn’t it enough that your imaginary friend has an imaginary flashlight?
“Isn’t it enough that Juju has one?”
“I want to have one, too. We both have to stan-gar.”
That stand guard thing again.
“What are you standing guard against?”
“Monsters in the closet.”
“Sara, there aren’t any monsters in the closet.”
“Yes, there are!”
“Sweetie, no, I don’t think so.”
“There are!”
I enter her room and go to the closet. It creaks as I open its door. The shelf is bare, and a couple of wire coat hangers hang on the rod. I open the door wide and show her, gesturing with my hand.
“See! No monsters in there.”
“They’re there! They’re big and hairy! They have big teeth and big nails!”
“Big claws?”
“Yes! Big calls!” She hasn’t mastered that “w” sound yet.
“Baby, I promise you, there are no monsters in the closet. Look. I don’t see any monsters. Do you see any monsters?”
“You can’t see them, but they’re there!” she insists. “They’re there! Like Cow-Bed!”
My head jolts and I turn to look at her.
“Covid?”
“Yes!” She is wailing, close to tears. “You don’t see Cow-Bed, but it’s there.”
I’m stunned.
Did I traumatize her about Covid? Have I been frantic and terrified, making her feel that way, too?
Or
Was fear of monsters in the closet just something that four-year-old girls go through?
Why did Bobby fall out of love with me and fall in love with Rina?
Did either my mother or father have retinitis pigmentosa? Did either of them go blind?
Am I going to go blind? How far will it progress?
I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.
I hurry over to my little girl. I sit alongside her on the mattress and hug her.
“Do you want to sleep with Mommy tonight?”
“I’m a big girl now, and have a big girl room. And Mommy and Bobby have a room.”
I flinch.
“It’s just Mommy’s room now,” I remind her.
I think about the now-$41 and change that is in my wallet, which has to last until next Thursday.
Nonetheless, I say, “We’ll go buy a flashlight tomorrow, okay? I promise.” I think I saw a 99 Cent store, a couple of blocks away. Maybe we can get a cheap one there.
In my arms, I feel Sara’s head nod. She sniffs, recovering from the beginning of tears.
“Tomorrow,” she agrees.
***
It’s raining, but Sara hasn’t forgotten my promise. I put on her rain hat, and her mask, and we bring a big umbrella to cover us both.
There is a 99 Cent store, exactly where I thought, on Columbus and 105th. They have a small selection of flashlights. The big ones are $8.99, and the small ones are $3.99. I convince Sara that the small one is good enough, because its handle is red, and Closet Monsters are afraid of the color red. I buy some no name batteries that will probably expire in under an hour for $1.50.
Sara is happy now. She wants to carry the flashlight herself. I’m holding one of her hands, and the little white plastic bag with the flashlight is in her other. She doesn’t complain once about the surgical mask. She doesn’t even complain about the walk up the six flights of stairs.
We make a game of it: one flight up, then turn the flashlight on. She holds the flashlight beam to project on the wall, and I form my hands into a shadow puppet of a dog. My hands are pressed together in a sideways position, thumbs fanned out and pointing up, as dog’s ears. I lower my pinkies in unison to make the dog talk.
“Ruff, ruff, ruff!”
Sara’s eyes crinkle up. I know she is beaming under her mask. “Me now!”
“Next floor, Sweetie. We’ll go up one more flight and then I’ll hold the light for you.”
When it’s my turn again, I try to think of something new for the dog to say.
“Ruff ruff! We’re safe now, Sara! We’re going to keep all the Closet Monsters away!”
Sara looks up at me, her eyes alight.
“You see, Mommy!”
Several more rounds and we are finally at the top floor.
There is a dripping sound. Several feet away from the door of our apartment is the metal staircase that leads to the roof. Water is leaking from the top of the roof door, onto the metal steps.
I wonder what the roof is like. I feel Sara staring at me as I gaze at that door.
“I wonder if that door is locked.” I’m speaking more to myself than to Sara.
Then I decide. “Sara, stay here. I want to see if that door is open.”
“I come too, Mommy.”
“Let me check the stairs first. I want to see if they’re slippery.” Sara pulls off her mask, and waits as I test each step, sliding my foot over each one. The metal has a bumpy grid pattern, and isn’t slippery, despite being wet from rain.
“Okay, Sara. It’s okay.” Then I give the door an experimental push.
Like a gift, the door yields. I peek my head out.
Then, a second gift presents itself: the roof is in surprisingly decent condition: the floor consists of large, flat slabs of concrete, mostly unbroken. More than sufficiently walkable.
“Sara, come see.”
I push the door all the way open, flooding us with daylight, to an expanse of roof and endless sky.
The rain has stopped. Sara is at the bottom of the stairs, looking up with wonderment.
“Come up, Sara.”
We enter the roof, Sara right behind me. The clouds are dissipating. The sun hasn’t come out, but the sky is bright. The air is sweet and clean, that just-after-the-rain smell.
I inhale deeply.
“Juju said it smells like God.”
I look at Sara. I’ve never mentioned God to her. Ever.
“Is that what God smells like--the air just after the rain?”
“Sometimes.”
Just then, a memory pushes its way to my consciousness.
“I’m not crazy about that song. I don’t get that song.”
“Strawberry Fields? You don’t like Strawberry Fields?” Bobby was incredulous.
“His voice is so nasal and drone-y in that song, and the lyrics don’t make any sense. And fields of strawberries? That’s so corny.”
“Strawberry Fields was the name of an orphanage near John Lennon’s home as a kid. He had a miserable childhood, and the orphanage looked all dark and dreary on the outside, with a big ugly gate around it. But he used to climb over the gate, and inside Strawberry Fields there were gardens and wildflowers and the orphans to play with. He was happy there.”
“Living is easy with eyes closed.” John Lennon is singing in my head. I can hear him so clearly.
“I don’t think that’s true at all,” I say aloud.
There are things we need to see and know, I think to myself. I need to see my birth mother and father. I wouldn’t even ask why they didn’t love me. I wouldn’t ask why they abandoned me. I swear.
I just want to know if they still have their eyesight.
Fear and grief still churn inside me, but this rooftop, the rain-washed air and infinite sky comfort me. And then Miss Desiree flashes in my mind. She’s in her housecoat and slippers, and she’s heading for the fridge. She is limping, moving slowly because her arthritis acting up badly. Still, she proceeds with making pancakes for me and the other foster kids. Miss Desiree is muttering to herself in a low tone, but I can hear her. “Alls I gots to do is the task just before me.”
This roof could be our Strawberry Field, I think.
Sara’s and mine.
My gaze turns to my little girl. She’s engaged in an animated conversation with Juju.
I poke her shoulder.
ABou the author
J
“Maybe we could plant flowers up here.”
