Secret Lives

          But Dreema couldn’t let go of her childhood. There were too many memories with too many questions. “My future as a woman depends on how I live with my past.”

          She clasped her hands in her lap. “There’s a man in my life now. I think I could have a future with him, but I’m not sure I know how. My fear is that the chaotic life I had with my mother might affect any long-term relationship we may have. That’s the reason I’m so anxious to know everything about her.”

The air was close and Dreema felt the room shrink. Her cheekbones tingled as she stared down her past. She thought back to how different parts of the neighborhood looked. There were blocks that were definitely going upscale and other areas that were hoping for new tenants, those who paid their own rent and on time. Rehab had not yet come to Ruth’s block. The fact that she was in the same apartment in the same building was amazing. The worn furniture was different but it too had seen better days.

“I want the life I only dreamed about growing up in this neighborhood. The question I ask myself again and again, is, will I ever have that chance.”

“As long as you’re above ground and breathing you can.”

“But I need to get rid of the old garbage.”

“What garbage?”

“Unsettling memories of this neighborhood, these streets, even the smells,” Dreema replied impatiently. “The smell of fried chicken and everything fried hangs in the air.”

Ruth, whose patience was always on a short leash for people who had no reason to whine, put her iron down and drew a weary breath, “The only way the people on these streets know about the kind of life you live is by staring at the shows on black TV stations. It costs a ton of money just to move around your neighborhood. And the smells, well, you’ve overcome them. You eat the same bacon in Manhattan that we eat here and they smell the same when fried. Maybe you don’t eat bacon anymore.”

Fully chastened, Dreema shook her head. “I wasn’t criticizing anything. I need to close doors so then I can go through new ones.”

It was more than ten years after she left home that Dreema first tried to learn the reasons behind her mother’s strange behavior. Her actions were often inconsistent and Dreema never knew why. At times her mother was sharp and seemed to know how to navigate the rivers of life, but then they wouldn’t have enough food and during her earliest years, often no place to stay.

Her godmother, Ruth, who knew her mother from the time they were girls, could fill in all the blanks of her mother’s life. So she’d sought more information from her. Sitting in Ruth’s kitchen, she now pushed for answers. Ruth was still overweight, had difficulty standing and way too much stuff in this tiny apartment. She must weigh close to three hundred pounds now and with the strong smell of grease, she must still be frying everything, Dreema thought as she watched Ruth press the collar of a blouse. Dreema remembered her mother saying Ruth didn’t have a man of her own, so she made food her man. Eating made her feel good.

Dreema had always known her mother was cunning, She could find a way when disaster was just around the corner. Her mother, unlike most of the women around them, seemed to live her life in the same beat, with or without a man. Sometimes Dreema thought they would be better off if her mom had a man to rely on, sometimes. There never was anyone until Sonny. That was a big piece of the puzzle.

During the time he lived with them he was kind and supportive of her mother’s efforts to be a parent. Then one day he just went away and never came back. When she saw him again, her mother was long dead, never having told her why he left. He appeared at her graduation. After the ceremony, their time together was brief. Her excitement with graduation and impending college didn’t leave time to question his whereabouts.

“Your mother really cared for Sonny,” Ruth told her. “She met him in the Laundromat. She put her clothes in the dryer then left to run an errand. When she came back he’d folded all her laundry and placed everything neatly in a plastic bag. There was a note pinned to it, which read, ‘I’d like to do more for you.’ Even I was impressed. I told her to at least check him out.”

“And he did so much