HOPE in HELL

My history make no difference to anyone, cept' to me. Maybe you?" She trails off, stutters, slow to regain her composure. "I'm someone. Someone who fought and scraped and struggled for what I have, for what I am." Where's my tissue she thought to herself, I need my tissues.

"I am a survivor, blessed to be alive." She waited a beat, before she continued.

"Baby, my youth were taken from me when I were 8 years old, as me mammy put me on an all white bus in 1953 to Arundel, Mississippi so I has a chance," she paused, hands twisting in her lap, her eyes shifting about the room. "This was me chance at education, me chance at life, me chance to be more than the daughter of a whore." She pauses again this time looking away. She looks at her reflection in the mirror on the wall to the side of the expensive couch; she shouldn't be sitting on for fear of making it dirty. Her reflection stares back at her. I looks so tired, she thinks, I always looks so tired. She turns back to the focus of her attention.

"Don't look at me so. I wants you to knows your history, knows where you come from. You needs to know what's in your blood," she points at him. "In your mammy's blood," she states pointing back at herself, "in me mammy's blood. 8 years old, I was sent. There was no one to look after me, no one to cares."

"You stay with white woman, my mammy said, she make you smart," she stated tapping her temple. "What she really mean is, you give white woman's man, what he want, and you get smart. You get to survive, not live. Me innocence were stolen from me at ye tender age of thirteen. What does a girl know at thirteen?" She shifted in her seat distinctly uncomfortable, forging back the tears that threatened to overflow. She continued.

"I knows if I make it with white man, give him everything he want, I get hand me down books from his daughter who twelve. I knows if I clean up real good, I get to eat leftover steak, not two day old chicken. I knows..." She panics. Her lips quiver, her chin quakes with the all too real possibility of his disgust, his hate.

"No! Don't turns away from me," Her voice is guttural, harsh, the guilt in her voice getting the better of her. She stops herself. She closes her eyes, the knot in her throat hard to pass, her breathing shallow. "I prayed and prayed and prayed it wasn't trues. I prayed God would strikes me good for who I am, for who I become. Strikes me stomach for my evil, evil ways." She clenches her stomach remembering that day, her eyes pleading with him now.

"Theys throws me on da street. Call me whore. Tell me I'm not wanted, no good." She can't hold them back anymore. Her tears travel the grainy plains of her face. Her tears seeming to find the only wrinkles that face downward, highlighting the portrait of which her thousand sad memories remain. She clenches her tissue between her hands as she brings them to her mouth to stymie her next words. Her way in which to stall so she can concentrate and get herself together. Her ways to seize her final words and not have them possess her.

Her forehead crinkles, the place between her brows furrow. She has prepared herself for this day. She wore her Sunday best, her gray tinged hair straightened for this occasion. She should be proud of herself and the things she has accomplished. She worked in a factory for thirty years. She raised a family instilling in them what she knew she had wanted for herself. She survived two miscarriages. She fought racism in the school her children had attended, and won. She helped those in need, and stayed humble through her years. She went to church every Wednesday and Sunday and prayed for her loved ones every night. This was her only regret.

"I's didn't knows what to do. I's was only fifteen and no ones knew whats you gonna look like," she finished, trembling. "No ones knows you gonna look white and be white. I's just a negro kid...whats I supposed to do?"

He stood. He was so handsome, not a trace of her in him except her blood. He had the look of his father. He was tan, bold and strong. The only outward sign of her, in him, was his black wavy hair. He could never know what it cost her to hold on to him and then have to give him away. She had to see what he would look like, had to see him white before she rid herself of sin.

He walked out of the formal living room, leaving her to wallow in her regret. She let the stink of shame slither up her spine and envelope her aged skin. Her form looking dejected, torn. She heard footsteps, two sets, and began to stand. She braced herself for his response.

"Mom, I want you to meet my wife," she looked between them, tears pouring from her eyes. His wife was the epitome of beauty. Her skin brown and smooth, like warm chocolate. Her eyes were soft brown, her nose wide on her round cheekbones, her lips full. He had married a black woman.

Her heart thumped with the unmistakable beat of hope. He called me, mom. Hope in hell, she thinks, hope in hell.