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| picture provided by Pintrest.com |
“Tell me again Mama.” The little girl looked into her mother’s eyes, hopeful that she would see a trace of what she longed for. “Tell me what my daddy called me when he saw me.” Her little eyes sparkled in delight as she smiled, inhaled deeply, and slowly released her breath, turning away and closing her eyes to envision a face like hers, but masculine, with finely chiseled lines indicating the many hardships life attempted to throw his way, but he had championed. Her daddy was her hero; Super Man come to life.
“Oh Baby Girl,” Mama said, as she stroked the long coarse tresses of her only daughter’s hair, with a wide-toothed brush, attempting to soften it enough to sit in a bun atop her head. She stalled for a while before speaking, taking a peek out of the living room window sitting to her left. Speaking of her husband had become burdensome. One in which she hesitated to bear, by quickly changing the subject whenever his name was brought up in conversation. It was the only way she knew how to sustain some measure of strength in order that she could carry on with life.
A tear slowly made a trail down her cheek, puddling at the cusp of her smile. “Your daddy,” she started slowly, “used to say that you were the most beautiful girl in the world. Then, he would whisp you into his arms and fly you through the air. You were his gift sent straight from God. An angel.” The crackle sound from hair making its staunch resistance against the brush pierced the silence that sat between them; both lost in the fantasy of reflection.
She looked forward to this part of the day. When Mama would come home from work, drop the load of her bags on the kitchen table and, still dressed in her uniform, plop down on the sofa and pat the inside of her knees. This was the indication for Sasha to come and sit on the floor in front of her mama. This was their special time, just before she went to bed. Even though the tired from cleaning homes all day was written into the sulk of her chest; Mama would still take time to take her hair down from all of the pretty bows and bands she had placed in the night before, massage her scalp with grease, and then invent a fresh style for her to wear the next day.
As she prepared for bed that night, Sasha adjusted the hair scarf around her new style so that it loosened enough to not cause her head to hurt. She looked at her silhouette in the foggy bathroom mirror, collecting more steam from the warmth of the water in the tub.
“You are the most beautiful girl in the world.” She repeated her nightly mantra to the blurred image staring back at her, making her voice deep in an attempt to mimic that of her father’s.
Then she smiled and walked in the direction of her room, which sat alongside her mother’s. By the time Sasha had finished her bath, Mama was already asleep, possibly in dream land judging from the sound of her soft snores.
The next day when Mama dropped her off at school, she still had the words of her nightly motivation playing in her ears. She needed the shield their encouragement provided.
“Oh, it must be such a pity to be so dang pretty.” The girls would tease as soon as she stepped into Mrs. Dandy’s second grade class. Sasha had loved school before the second grade. She craved learning new things, and soaked knowledge in like a brand new sponge. She also enjoyed the social time with her friends. One she couldn’t so readily do at home because Mama would not allow her outside of the apartment without her being there, which was most of the time.
The chant she was greeted with daily was one seeded in malice. What made it worse is that the leader in this group of hecklers was who she once considered her best friend. Her name was
Maddy-Grace. Their father’s were best friends, and it was Maddy-Grace who was there with her on the day which changed her life forever. She thought Maddy-Grace would be by her side always; which made it hurt even worse to be sitting on the receiving end of her taunts and dirty stares.
As she pushed past the girls while they snatched and grabbed at the straps from the sleeves of her favorite dress, she was able to make it to her desk this time without skinning her knee in the crack on the tile at the front of the classroom.
Sasha sat in her assigned seat, in front of Jared, the boy from the complex next to her building, and also the one she and Maddy-Grace had mutual crushes on. Of course, if left up to Sasha, Jared would never know how she felt about him. On the other hand, everyone in homeroom knew that Maddy-Grace liked Jared. She almost put her mark on him by making sure during recess, every time Jared would climb the jungle gym, and slide down the slide, she was there to greet him with a bashful smile, and a hello; waving her right hand so fast it almost looked as though it were vibrating independent of her arm. Sasha rolled her eyes at the thought.
The taunting went on endlessly throughout grade school, and into middle school. She thought by the time they made it to high school, the girls would have matured enough to let up, but in the way they felt it their personal responsibility to make her life miserable, it seemed as if each one was aging backwards. Sasha had come to ignore them. She no longer made attempts to reconcile her and Maddy-Grace’s friendship. Besides, with each attempt she was disregarded like a used piece of trash.
By graduation, Sasha had determined that college was not for her. She took a job working as a library assistant at the elementary school she used to attend, and had happily settled into life with her mother in their cozy little apartment.
After what happened to Daddy, Mama had never considered remarrying. The shock and devastation of that day took away her desire to ever want to be with anyone else. She was happy to have her baby girl still be there to support her even after she grew into adulthood. Still, she dreaded the day when Sasha may decide she’d had enough of living life attached to an old woman, and without a husband to call her own.
Sasha didn’t seem to mind keeping her mother company throughout the years. She genuinely enjoyed her mother. They were best friends, the only one she’d had since Maddy-Grace. The nightly routine of having her mother do her hair, had turned into a welcomed practice of playing Gin or dominoes as she grew and learned how to style her own hair. Although she did miss those scalp massages. She attempted to do them on her own, but never got the relaxed sensation she experienced from Mama’s touch. Her efforts did serve to keep her mane thick, long and flowing well past her shoulders even in its coarse natural form. How she’d worn her hair for her entire life was now the new societal trend, well accepted among the very people who used to make fun of her for having the nerve to dawn it.
Her life was just the way she wanted it to be. Uneventful, predictable, and consistent. That is until the day Jared walked back in. It had been many years since she last had the pleasure of being in his company. Despite having witnessed the countless turmoil she endured from her former best friend, which made her ridicule all the more embarrassing, he embraced her, even leaving his group of friends to come and sit with her during recess so she wouldn’t be alone.
