A Piece of Heaven (3 page)

“You seem cheerful,” he commented.

“It’s my birthday,” I announced, pushing my way out through the jingling door. I popped the rest of the doughnut into my mouth, swallowing its sweetness, and crossed the street. A morsel of coconut remained on my tongue, and I mashed it onto the roof of my mouth. Finding a free bench in the park, I sat down to watch. There were so many people in the park! People with dogs, and women in sunglasses. Girls wearing hoop earrings, men who looked rich and fashionable, men who looked all worn out. Two boys on skateboards, carrying boom boxes, and a little girl in a stroller hanging on to a balloon. In the middle of the grass, a lady slept on a blanket next to a shopping cart, and on a bench nearby, a man in cowboy boots read a newspaper. The sun sparkled over all of them.

I opened my thesaurus and looked up words. Another word for hot was
torrid.
Something sweet could be called
mellifluous
. Something fragrant might be
odoriferous. Charm
could also mean
magnetism.
There was a whole string of words that meant
stench: stink, fetidness, foulness,
funkiness
.…I looked up and a big boy with a leer in his eye was heading right toward me.

“Let me see your fine booty, baby!” he called menacingly.

I jumped up. “GET LOST, FUNKY FOULNESS!” I screamed in his face. Then I ran as fast as I could. Stuff like that scared me, but Otis had taught me to act fast and tough.

Out of sight of the boy in the park, I scooted into the grocery store. After catching my breath, I looked at the bulletin board. There were no notices for baby-sitting, but there was an ad that looked interesting.

YARD HELPER WANTED. STRONG WORKER NEEDED TO CLEAN UP YARD FOR NEIGHBORHOOD SINGING TEACHER. GOOD PAY. START IMMEDIATELY. On the bottom of the notice there were little tabs listing an address not far away. I tore off one of the tabs. I hadn’t seen many yards in New York, unless you counted the community garden, which was pretty nice. Ma had taken us on the subway to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. It was exquisite. I’ll never forget the dazzling red tulips. The pink azaleas there were so bright that you saw spots in front of your eyes if you stared at them for too long.

Ducking out of the store, I took off for the address, which was only a few blocks away. I found the house easily. It was a tall and narrow dark brick building. One of those old-fashioned-looking houses that hadn’t been divided up into apartments yet. On the front of the house were two tall windows with flowing white curtains inside and curvy black iron grilles outside. The front steps were made of gray stone. Altogether, the house looked very fancy. I stood on the sidewalk admiring it. I figured that the yard was in the back, since I didn’t see one out front.

I ventured up the steps to the polished wooden door. Just as I was about to ring the doorbell, I heard music. Someone was playing the piano! Piano was my favorite instrument. We had one in our chorus room at school. I sat down on the steps to listen. Whoever was playing had really fast fingers. Notes were flying everywhere! The music cascaded out the windows: high notes and low notes and chords that came crashing. I closed my eyes and drew in a breath. It was like a sparkling waterfall, tumbling into a river and taking me with it. Tears came to my eyes. Any moment I thought that someone would begin singing something from a grand opera. But the piano went on alone, startling the air and then wrapping itself around me. Then, abruptly, the music stopped. I went up and rang the bell. A tall, striking man opened the door. His face was elegant, but he was wearing a T-shirt. I glanced at his hands, which were huge, then up at his eyes, which were jet-black with thick, curling lashes.

He smiled. “May I help you?”

“I came about the yard job,” I said with a swallow. I looked at him in awe. “Was that you playing the piano?”

He nodded. “I made a few mistakes, I’m afraid.”

“I thought it was incredible!” I said eagerly. “I was sitting here listening. I hope that was okay.”

He laughed. “Thanks. Come again anytime. I’m not a professional piano player, but I could always use an appreciative audience.”

“So, are you the singing teacher in the ad?” I asked. I held out the paper with the address.

“The same,” he replied. “My name is D’Angola Jackson.”

“My name is Mahalia Moon. Is the yard helper job still open?”

“This is a job for a hulk,” he said apologetically. “There’s a lot of heavy lifting.”

“I’m pretty strong,” I volunteered.

He looked at his watch. “Can you come back later? I’m expecting a slew of students, and one any minute. Can you come back at six o’ clock?”

“I’m not sure,” I replied hesitantly. “My mother is making a dinner.”

Just then a slim young woman in a red-flowered dress walked up. She had something tucked under her arm that looked like sheet music.

“Hi, Shari,” he said.

She smiled. “Hi, Jackson.”

Jackson
stepped aside and she walked in.

“Try to come back,” he said, giving me a little wave. “If not tonight, then tomorrow.”

I stuffed the slip of paper into my pocket and Mr. Jackson shut the door. He’d said that he wanted a hulk for the job, but maybe I had a chance. Otherwise, why would he have asked me to come back? If I couldn’t come back at six, I promised myself, I would definitely come back tomorrow. I started for home. Maybe I could help Ma make the birthday cake.

I could never have imagined what I found back at home. First of all, there was smoke in the hallway. I ran up the stairs. Our apartment door was open. Otis stood in the doorway, and I could see Nirvana just inside. I heard someone crying.

“Ma burned your birthday cake,” Otis announced as I rushed past the two of them. Nirvana’s grandmother, Mrs. Brown, was standing next to the table. Ma was sitting at the table, wringing her hands and sobbing. She was surrounded by all kinds of vegetables, some peeled and cut up, some already cooked, and others still wrapped in plastic. In the middle of it all, still in its pan, was a smoldering cake.

“Don’t cry, Ma,” I said, hugging her. “We can bake another one.”

She laid down her head and kept sobbing.

“Your mother has been this way for two hours,” Mrs. Brown informed me. “I heard her crying and knocked on the door.” She clucked her tongue. “She’s broke down.”

Fear clutched at my chest. “Stop crying, Ma,” I said, patting her on the back. “We can buy a birthday cake at the store.” She sobbed louder still.

“Stop crying, Ma!” Otis demanded.

Ma lifted her head for a moment. “I’m sorry, kids,” she managed to get out. “I have to go to the hospital.”

My mouth went dry. “You’re going to work?”

“Not to work,” she said, catching her breath. “I have to get help.”

“She needs a doctor!” Mrs. Brown’s voice clanged over the din.

Suddenly, Nirvana was next to me. “Don’t worry, Haley,” she said softly. “We’ll take care of you while your mother’s gone.”

“She ain’t going nowhere!” Otis said angrily.

I clutched Ma’s hand. She looked at me helplessly. “See that?” she asked, pointing to one of the vegetables. It was a cooked butternut squash, split open in a baking pan. A jumble of white seeds lay nestled in the heart of its dark orange flesh.

“You see that?” said Ma, her voice rising. “That’s me, Haley!”

I blinked. “No, it’s not.”

“That’s me,” she insisted.

Otis put his hands over his ears. “Shut up!”

“I can’t work things out anymore,” Ma said, struggling to speak through her tears. “I feel like the jumble of seeds in that squash.” She looked away. “Forgive me, Haley. It’ll just be for a little while.”

“Things will be okay,” Mrs. Brown said, helping Ma up.

They walked across to the closet and got out the suitcase.

“How long will you be gone?” I cried, following her.

“It won’t be long,” Mrs. Brown said, answering for Ma.

“Ma?” I clung to her elbow as she reached for her clothes. “You can’t just leave us like this!”

Her face crumpled. “Try to be patient, darling.”

She crossed to the dresser, opened the top drawer, and took out her pay envelope. She pressed what was left in it, a twenty-dollar bill, into Mrs. Brown’s hand. “Use this if they need something,” she said. “There are plenty of groceries.”

Mrs. Brown took the money and nodded.

“Why are you so sad, Ma?” I asked, crowding up close. Otis stood slouching near by.

“Snap out of it, Ma,” he begged. “It’s just a stupid birthday cake. It’s just a stupid squash.”

“Do you miss Grandma Dora, Ma?” I whimpered. “Is that why you’re crying?”

Ma squeezed her eyes shut. “I have to do this,” she whispered fiercely. “Otis, take care of your sister. Now, leave me alone.…”

CHAPTER THREE

I lay scrunched up on my bed, waiting for the phone to ring. It was another stifling night. A fly had gotten in and was buzzing around the ceiling near the light. Ma had said that she’d call us, but she hadn’t. Nirvana had offered to sleep over in the apartment with us, but Otis had said no way. Then Mrs. Brown had asked me if I wanted to sleep over with them. I couldn’t, because of her cats. She seemed to have forgotten that I was allergic to them. After all that had happened, I had no desire to itch and wheeze all night long and turn into one giant pimple. So it was just Otis and me.

The first thing my brother did after the Browns left was to go out and buy ice cream. Oddly enough, ice cream was the one thing Ma seemed to have forgotten to buy. Maybe she had had a premonition about the doomed cake. Along with the ice cream, my brother also brought back a tiny television!

“Where’d you get that?” I asked in amazement. Our own television had been broken for ages; Ma had stored it in the back of the closet.

“I borrowed it from a friend of mine,” Otis said, setting it on the floor. He plugged it in while I dished out the ice cream. Then the two of us camped out in front of it.

“What’s your friend’s name?” I asked.

“Reggie,” he replied. “He’s the one with the incense stand.” Otis patted my knee. “I thought you might like it. Get your mind off things.”

“Thanks, Otis,” I said, scooting closer.

He turned to a nighttime talk show. Otis laughed at a guy telling jokes, but I couldn’t make myself follow him. There was this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I picked at my ice cream. “Why isn’t she calling us?”

“More than likely, it’s too late,” Otis said, keeping his eyes glued to the screen. “She’ll call us in the morning.”

“What do they do to people who cry too much?” I asked, touching his elbow.

“How should I know?” he responded. “They probably put Ma in the psych ward with all the other nutty people.”

I hung my head. A tear rolled down my cheek. “She isn’t a nut. She’s our mother.”

“Don’t cry, Haley.” He reached over and wiped away my tear. “But I do think that Ma is a little bit crazy. Didn’t you notice how weird she was acting?”

“She seemed tired,” I admitted. “She was zoning out. I hope she feels better now that she’s at the hospital.”

“People know Ma at the hospital,” Otis reminded me. “They’ll fix her up. Probably give her some kind of pills or something.” He cocked his head. “I wonder if she admitted herself. She
is
one of the admitting clerks.”

“Be serious, Otis,” I objected.

“I know a brother whose mom had a breakdown,” Otis reported. “She pulled through.”

“A breakdown?” I said in a shaky voice. “Is that what you think happened to Ma?”

“We’ll find out tomorrow,” Otis said. “We can’t do nothin’ about it now.” With a determined look on his face, he screwed his eyes back to the television.

I wandered over to my bed, my heart thudding. I curled up, hoping to hear the telephone. My thesaurus was next to my pillow, along with my
Grimms’.
I looked for the moon, but clouds had covered it. Then I noticed an edge of silver light, which I took for a crescent. I waited for the moon to appear, but it never did. Maybe that edge was all there was left of the moon, I thought, covering my head with a pillow. Maybe the moon had burned out.

The next morning, Otis woke me up with a basketball!

“Will you shut up?” I groaned, rolling over. Yucky drool was in the corner of my mouth.

“This is for you,” he said, directing a hoop shot toward the trash can. “It’s your birthday present.”

“Why didn’t you give it to me yesterday?” I asked, wiping my face with the back of my hand.

“I didn’t have it yesterday,” Otis said, looping the room. “My buddy gave it to me this morning, when I took back the television.”

“Your buddy sure has a lot of stuff,” I commented in a groggy voice.

Otis winked. “He knows what he’s doing.”

I sat up on my elbow and sighed. The place looked like it had been bombed. Vegetables and grocery bags were strewn everywhere. “Did Ma call while I was asleep?” I asked hopefully.

“Too early,” said Otis. He threw the ball and I ducked. “Get you some breakfast before I get out of here.”

“Speak good English,” I snapped at him.

“I’ll speak the way I want,” Otis snapped back. “You’re not my mother.”

“And you’re not my father!”

“Got that right,” Otis muttered, picking the ball up off the floor.

“So, what do we do?” I asked, throwing my legs across the side of the bed.

“About what?”

“About Ma—what do you think? What’s wrong with you, Otis?” I griped. “You act like nothing happened. This is serious.”

“I know that,” he said, leaning against the door. “That’s why I’m taking care of business. The best way we can help Ma is to work hard and be strong.”

“Sounds good,” I admitted. “I just wish I knew how she’s doing.”

“Call the hospital,” he said. “There’s the phone.”

I stared at the telephone. “But Ma said that she would call us.”

“So what?” he said with a shrug. “Give it a try. Tell her we’re worried about her.”

“What number should I call?” I asked, crossing to the telephone.

“Call Ma’s work number,” Otis suggested. “Maybe Sylvia will be there and tell you how to get in touch with her.”

“Maybe you should call,” I said, getting cold feet. Suppose something really bad had happened?

“You’re the one who can’t wait to talk to Ma,” Otis said stubbornly. “You do it.”

I dialed Ma’s work number. A familiar voice answered.

“Admitting. Sylvia Coleman speaking.”

“Hi, Sylvia. It’s Haley Moon.”

There was a pause. I drew in a breath.

“How are you?” asked Sylvia.

“We’re okay. I’m calling about my mother. Did you see her?”

“I peeked in on her this morning. I heard that she was upstairs when I came in today,” said Sylvia. I glanced at Otis, who by this time was standing next to me.

“Is she okay?”

“She’s in good hands,” said Sylvia.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Someone in the office wangled her a private room,” Sylvia said. “I’ll look up the number.”

“Ma has a telephone number of her own,” I whispered to Otis. “Get something to write with.”

Otis found a pen on the cluttered table and tore off a piece of brown paper bag. When Sylvia came back on the line, I wrote down the number.

“Thanks, Sylvia.”

“Are you kids okay over there? Is somebody with you?”

“We have our neighbor, Mrs. Brown,” I replied. “Her daughter used to baby-sit me.”

“Nice to have neighbors like that,” said Sylvia. “I’ll reassure your ma when I see her that you kids are doing just fine.”

“I think I’ll call Ma myself now,” I said. “Thanks for everything, Sylvia.”

I clicked down the phone.

“Feel better?” asked Otis.

I nodded. “Let’s call her now,” I said eagerly.

Otis lowered his eyes. “You go ahead. I don’t want to talk to her.”

“How come?”

“I just don’t,” Otis said firmly.

I tried Ma’s number. The phone rang and rang. “Maybe she’s still asleep,” I said nervously. She answered just as I was about to give up.

“Hello?” Her voice was so soft that I hardly recognized it.

“Ma? It’s me!” I heard a sniff on the other end of the line.

“You said that you were going to call us last night. I was worried,” I went on.

“I was going to call you, precious,” she said in a slightly stronger voice. “You and Otis doing all right?”

“We’re fine,” I assured her.

“Did you sleep at Mrs. Brown’s?”

“I’m allergic to cats, Ma. Don’t tell me you forgot, too?”

There was a long pause.

“What did the doctor say?” I jumped in. “When are you coming home?”

She sighed. “Could be a few weeks.”

A wave of panic washed over me. A few weeks! I had figured she’d only be gone a couple of days. “Aren’t there some pills you can take?”

“He has me on something,” she said flatly. Then her voice rose. “Promise you’ll listen to Mrs. Brown.”

“Okay,” I said. “Can we visit?”

She drew in a breath. “Yes. You’re old enough.”

“When are visiting hours?” I asked.

“Three o’ clock, I think.” She sighed. “Put your brother on.”

I turned around to look for Otis. But he was gone.

“I—I can’t find him,” I stuttered. “I’m going to come and see you. Okay?”

She burst into tears. “I have to go, sweetheart. Be strong.”

I was still holding the receiver when Otis walked back into the room.

“Where were you?” I asked. “She wanted to speak to you.”

“In the bathroom,” he said with a shrug. “How does she sound?”

I hung my head. “Still upset. She didn’t even say good-bye to me. The doctor did give her some pills,” I added hopefully. “We can go see her at three o’ clock.”

“Not me,” said Otis. “I’ve got work to do.”

“You’re not going to visit Ma?” I was dumbfounded. “Suppose she wants to see you?”

“I don’t care,” Otis said, setting his jaw. “I don’t want to see my mother acting stupid like that, crying over a stupid squash.”

“I don’t understand you, Otis,” I complained.

“The best thing we can do for Ma is to clean this place up,” he said, pointing to the mess in the apartment. “And I have to work. Who knows how much money she has in the bank?”

“She hid some of the bills,” I said in a worried voice.

“See what I mean?” said Otis. “We got to let the doctor take care of Ma. We got to take care of us.”

“You talk as if she’s going to be there forever,” I snapped.

“How long did she say it would be?” he asked.

“Maybe a few weeks,” I sighed. “She’s still crying like she was last night. But I’m going to visit her anyway.”

“That’s your business,” said Otis, folding his arms across his chest. “She told us to leave her alone, remember?”

“She didn’t mean that,” I said with a sigh.

“You got to hold on to yourself, Haley,” he said, jutting out his chin. “Know what I mean?”

I shrugged. “Not really, but that’s okay. Maybe I can get Nirvana to go with me.”

“Good idea,” said Otis.

I stared at the burned cake on the counter. “Where should we start around here?”

“Toss that first,” said Otis. “Why do we need a burned cake when there’s enough food here to feed an army?”

I dumped the cake into the trash can. Spying the butternut squash in the sink, I ruthlessly scooped it up.

“This definitely goes out,” I said grimly.

“Amen,” said Otis.

We put all the vegetables that we could fit into the refrigerator and stacked up the rest in a corner. We lined the walls with the extra canned food.

“Now, breakfast,” my brother ordered.

I shook my head. “I’m totally
un
hungry after putting all this food away.”

“The sight of it makes me want to puke,” he agreed. “Maybe Nirvana’s grandmother could make you some eggs or something.”

“I’m not starting the day with hives,” I said, stalking across the room. I grabbed some fresh clothes out of the dresser.

“See you later, then,” he said. “I’ve got to meet Reggie.”

“Where’s he live?” I asked.

“Across the street,” Otis muttered. “Dill knows him. His apartment is on the same floor.”

I smiled. “He must be nice if Dill knows him.”

“Reggie doesn’t hang with that loser Dill. Reggie has it together.” He gave me a wink. “Hang tough, Haley. If Ma sees you acting like a wimp, it’ll just make things worse for her.”

“I’ll do my best,” I promised. My brother left. The eggplants were out of the tub, so I took a quick bath and then put on my clothes, overalls and a nice T-shirt. I thought of wearing my new blue pajama top beneath the overalls, but I knew that Ma wouldn’t like that. “Hang tough,” I repeated to myself, combing my hair in the mirror. I fastened it back with a big clip. I spied Ma’s Cinnamon Doll lipstick and put some on. Now that I was thirteen, I figured that I could wear makeup. I wanted to look halfway decent when I went to visit Ma at the hospital. But before I did that, I had time to go see the singing teacher. More than ever, I wanted that yard job. Otis and I had enough food, but what about the bills, the ones Ma hadn’t paid? I tucked my wallet into one of my pockets and stuck my thesaurus into the other one. After fishing my key out of the jeans I’d worn the day before, I walked out and locked the apartment behind me. An instant after I stepped into the hallway, the door to the Browns’ place flew open.

“Where are you going?” Mrs. Brown asked, wedging forward slowly.

“I have to see about a job,” I said, jamming the key into my pocket next to my wallet. “Then I have to see Ma.”

“I thought that you and Otis would go to church with me this morning,” she said. She rested her weight on one leg and then on the other. “Nirvana is coming. She’s just in the bathtub.”

“I can’t go today,” I said. “And Otis is working.”

Mrs. Brown raised an eyebrow. “On Sunday?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, I’ll do what I can for you kids,” said Mrs. Brown. She smiled. She had the kind of smile that any minute could turn into a frown. “But you have to remember that my legs are bad, so I can’t run around keeping up with you. The only time I go out is on Sunday to church, and then I take a cab. I raised my only child already, Haley,” she added. “I have all I can handle with Nirvana.”

She paused. “Did you speak with your mother yet?”

“This morning,” I told her. “I was hoping that Nirvana could go with me to the hospital later on.”

“I need Nirvana myself,” said Mrs. Brown. “She has to stay with me after church at the lunch for the Women’s Auxiliary. Maybe you should give your mother a little time, anyway.”

“I want to see her,” I insisted.

“Well, your big brother can go with you. You and Otis know where the hospital is.”

I nodded. “We can make it on our own,” I murmured. “No problem.”

Two cats edged out on either side of her legs. Mrs. Brown bent down and carefully scooped them up.