Woman on the Edge of Time

She went into the bathroom after Dolly left and stayed there as long as she dared. Stalls without doors. In spite of the stink, it was a place to be almost alone, precious in the hospital. How could she scream at Dolly? What use? Dolly chose to believe Geraldo, and if she tried to shake that belief, Dolly would only turn from her. Then Dolly would not help her to get out, would not bring her clothing and the small necessities that could make the passing hollow days a little more bearable. She judged her niece for choosing Geraldo over her unborn baby and over herself; but hadn’t she chosen to mourn for Claud almost to death?

Outside, did rain slick First Avenue? Was the sun bleeding through a murky overcast? Was it a rare blue day when the buildings stood crisp against the sky? Here it was time for meds. Here it was time to line up for a paper cup of mouthwash. Here it was time to line up for all starch meals. Here it was time to line up for more meds. Here it was time to sit and sit and sit. Here it was time to greet a familiar black face from the last time.

“Yeah, I was brought in three, four days ago,” Connie told her. “Been here long?”

“My caseworker brought me in Monday. Same as last time. You too?”

Connie bowed her head. “Yeah, it was my caseworker.”

Here it was time to sit facing a social worker, Miss Ferguson, who looked at the records spread out on her desk rather than at her. Miss Ferguson sat tightly and occasionally she glanced toward the door.

“You don’t have to be nervous about me,” Connie said. “I didn’t do what Geraldo the pimp said. I didn’t hit my niece. I wouldn’t hurt one hair on her head. Him, I hit, that’s the truth. I only hit him because he was beating her up.”

“Was that how it was with your daughter?” Miss Ferguson had light brown hair curled at the ends. She wore granny glasses and a pale blue pants suit. A pimple had broken out on the end of her nose that her right hand kept stealing up to touch.

“It isn’t the same this time! It isn’t!”

“How can we help you if you won’t let us?” Miss Ferguson glanced at her wristwatch, shuffling the papers in the folder. Her folder. “Three years ago you were admitted to Bellevue on the joint recommendation of a social worker from the Bureau of Child Welfare, your caseworker from welfare, and your parole officer. You were then hospitalized at Rockover State for eight months.”

“They said I was sick and I agreed. Someone close to me had died, and I didn’t want to live.”

“You have a history of child abuse—”

“Once! I was sick!”

“Your parental rights were terminated. Your daughter Angelina Ramos was put out for adoption.”

“I should never have agreed to that! I didn’t understand what was happening! I thought they were just going to take care of her.”

“It was the clinical judgment of the court psychiatrist that your daughter would be better off with foster parents.” The pimple was growing as she watched. Miss Ferguson kept feeling it gingerly, poking it while pretending not to.

“They were wrong to take my daughter!” She saw Miss Ferguson frown. “Imagine—your daughter. I hurt her once. That was a terrible thing to do, I know it. But to punish me for it the rest of my life!”

The social worker was giving her that human-to-cockroach look. Most people hit kids. But if you were on welfare and on probation and the whole social-pigeonholing establishment had the right to trek regularly through your kitchen looking in the closets and under the bed, counting the bedbugs and your shoes, you had better not hit your kid once. The abused and neglected child, they had called Angelina officially. She had been mean to Angie, she had spent those months after she got the news about Claud’s death gulping downs, drinking bad red wine. A couple of times she had shot speed. She had thought nothing could hurt her anymore—until she lost Angelina. Maybe you always have more to lose until, like Claud, they took your life too.

“The acquaintance who died—that would be your … The black handicapped pickpocket whose assistant you were.”

Her face slammed shut. They trapped you into saying something and then they’d bring out their interpretations that made your life over. To make your life into a pattern of disease. Couldn’t even say blind. “Handicapped.” He wasn’t. He was a fine saxophone player. He was a talented pickpocket and he brought home good things for her and her baby. He had been as good to Angie as if she had been his own baby daughter. He had been good to her too, a loving man. The sweetest man she had ever had. As if Claud could be summed up in their rotten records, either the sweetness or the pain of him, his badass fury. They had killed him too. In prison he had taken part in a medical experiment for the money and hoping to shorten his time. They had injected him with hepatitis and the disease had run its course and he had died. Her probation officer, Briggs, would not let her go to the funeral. That bastard—did he think they would plot together, him from his closed coffin?