Braids
Laura Goodman
By July of the year Little Girl was six, the summer sun had become no one’s friend. It seemed to perch, biding its time, just the other side of the dark hours each night as if it couldn’t wait to get back to its work of bleaching the color and much of the life out of Tresser, Missouri. Afternoons were the worst, so hot that paint was starting to peel off walls of rooms all over town, with doors swelling in their frames and refusing to open. Power lines sagged. Everywhere, rashy babies and listless toddlers gave up full-throated crying, though they still fussed and whined incessantly. Everyone complained.
Down a stretch of empty road just east of town, Little Girl lived with her mama and daddy in a rented old farmhouse on what was no longer a farm. Out there, surrounded by vacant fields she spent those long, melting days waiting for fall, knowing it would be cooler and that, in some weeks’ time, she would finally get to go to school. In town, with other children. And then maybe know a real friend. Kindergarten floated in her reckoning like a cloud bringing shade. Till then, she passed the long summer days with Mama or by herself, and tried to remember not to complain of how hard it was to wait or how hot she was. Any kind of complaining, she knew, wore on Mama, and that it could bring on something she did not want. So she knew to mostly keep quiet as she went through the waiting and the heat. Came to know to stay out of the way after lunch especially when the day was hottest and Mama was crankiest. That, she’d learned the hard way. On a steamy afternoon the week before, she’d thought to do Mama a good thing and brought a glass of ice water to where she was – laying back in the reclining chair in the front room. Wasn’t a good thing, though, because Mama’d been asleep and Little Girl’d gotten a slap for waking her. After that, with the sun climbed high in the white sky and the humidity higher, to stay out of the baking house and Mama’s way she began spending her afternoon hours under the porch, sharing the cool of the damp earth with spiders and grubs and watching for the skinny yellow dog she sometimes saw down by the road. She thought the dog might like the cool and dark under the porch too. And that if she brought him some water, they might be friends.
Today, hotter than most, Little Girl’s throat felt dry as sticks, and she badly wanted a drink of water herself. Because Mama was now taking to her bed instead of the recliner chair this time of day, the swivel fan turned on high to blow her into her nap, Little Girl judged she could make it into the kitchen and out again without bothering her. Not making a sound, she slipped in the screen door to the front room and crossed towards the kitchen, tiptoeing past the empty reclining chair, then running her fingers along the back of the couch where she and Daddy sat when he read to her. The trip, because the house still smelled like last night’s stewed cauliflower, gagged her a little and made her want to turn back, but her thirst was greater and kept her going.
Too late, Little Girl saw that Mama wasn’t asleep on her bed but was up and busy in the kitchen, where the green color of the walls gave Mama’s face a green look too. She saw newspapers spread on the floor and wondered. Then seeing the scissors Mama used to trim tomato plants on top of a folded dish towel brought it back to her, what Mama’d said that morning at breakfast about her hair. She’d said with this heat, cutting it off just made good sense. After that, she told her, Little Girl would be so much cooler.
But her hair was what Mama made into her braids each morning. How could she think she wouldn’t want them? Or be cooler somehow without them? To Little Girl, it made no sense at all.
Mama turned then, in her two hands the old wood counter stool she sat on to peel potatoes or snap a mess of green beans. “There you are.” She was smiling her nice Mama smile as she set the stool in the middle of the newspapers, then nodded towards it. “Come on, let’s get started.” She stretched out an arm, opened her hand as if Little Girl might skip in to take it.
But Little Girl didn’t trust the smile or the hand and, suddenly scared, took a step back, thinking to turn and run. Mama was quick, though, took a long step and caught her by the arm, tugged her into the kitchen and deeper into the awful smell. In one swift motion, Mama had her under the arms and swung her around to lift her onto the stool. “There,” she said as she arranged the towel around Little Girl’s shoulders like a cape and fastened it under her chin with a clothespin. “You will look so cute with short hair,” she said, nodding and patting her knee. “Just think how much cooler you’ll be, Little Girl.” Then, still smiling and as if talking to herself, Mama said, “And it will certainly make me cooler just to look at you without all that hair.”
From the hand on her knee, Little Girl looked up to see glistens of sweat on Mama’s neck shining like little stars, saw the strands of her fly-away hair pasted to the sides of her face, saw the look in her eye. Mama was set on doing this, she saw, but she had to try. She’d be brave. “I like my braids,” she told her, making herself sit still, “and they never make me hot. Honest.” Eyeing the scissors over on the table, she was trying hard not to jiggle, and told herself not to beg or cry. She knew she shouldn’t cry, Mama never liked her to. Crying is for babies and my Little Girl is no baby, was what she said when Little Girl fell and hurt herself or wanted something not allowed. And beyond that, she knew she should never, ever beg. Begging brought nothing but trouble. Mama liked her to be a big girl, a good girl who did not cry, and did not beg. So she wouldn’t do that for her braids today, she told herself, but her eyes wouldn’t go along and she felt two tears slip out and roll together down her cheeks as she watched Mama take up the scissors and turn to her.
“No, no crying now!” Mama said, and Little Girl’s stomach jumped, telling her which Mama was with her there in the kitchen today, and it wasn’t her nice one. Wasn’t the Mama who’d listen to her and hear how much she loved her braids, who’d put up the scissors and take off the towel, move the stool back to the counter. Little Girl would take up the newspapers herself, fold them up and put them back on the pile. Carry the whole pile out to the trashcan without being asked. If she was sweet and helpful and did her best to do as Mama wanted and didn’t complain, she knew sometimes Mama listened and did what she asked.
Sometimes, though she didn’t understand how they got there, she didn’t even have to try, and Mama was as nice as could be. Those were the best times. Like when Mama held her hand in a swinging, friendly way when they walked together through the automatic door into Huber’s Market. Inside, sometimes she even let her pick out a candy bar or a box of animal crackers she could carry the rest of the day by its string. But not all the time was Mama nice, Little Girl knew, because not all the time was she good.
“And, Lordy, just think,” Mama said, her heavy hand still on Little Girl’s knee as she raised the scissors, “we won’t have to fool with all that braiding of a morning,”
Little Girl knew for sure now Mama wasn’t listening this time. No animal crackers, no nice Mama today. She closed her eyes on that, breathed in, opened them again to take a last wild look around the green kitchen, then, with a mighty force, kicked out to send the scissors flying from Mama’s hand.
Their eyes locked in the time it took the scissors to get to the floor.
On the first bounce, Little Girl saw Mama’s face darken, going the red of a gone tomato they’d missed in the garden. She stood straight, her arms flat down her sides, fingers flapping like bird wings at the ends of her hands. “Oh Little Girl,” she growled, “you should not have done that.”
Little Girl’s stomach seized. Mama’s voice told her and the fingers showed her what she’d done was going to get her, but she didn’t want her hair cut off. Didn’t want to lose her braids. No, she would not be cooler with them gone, she’d be sad. And lost. “Please,” she managed to whisper, “please.” Like twins, her two braids went everywhere with her, were as close to friends as she had, plus she was sure they were magic. They could easily turn her into an Indian girl who lived by a blue lake and rode a pinto pony. Or, if Daddy’d read to her from her favorite book the night before, the next morning her friends made her into her own Missouri Pippi Longstocking, monkey and all. Besides their good magic, which she could call up any time she wanted, what she loved even more about her braids was how thick they were. Their good weight, she believed, helped keep her from being lifted off the ground and sent flying, like Dorothy in her Kansas storm. Tornados, she knew, came when it was hot, Mama too.
“I know, Mama, that was bad. I was bad.” She watched as the flapping wings balled up into fists. “But please don’t take off my braids.”
Mama, breathing hard and counting under her breath, now stooped to pick up the scissors, then, hugging them to her chest, turned to face her. “Little Girl.” Her voice had gone low and scary, the voice that always made Little Girl think of the strange purring of an angry lion about to pounce she’d watched once on a TV show.
In her low, angry lion’s purr Mama kept saying it, just that. “Little Girl. Little Girl.”
Not Helen, though that’s what she wanted to hear. Wasn’t going to hear it now. Not at home. Helen was what the ladies in the nursery room at church had kept saying, confusing her till she figured out they were talking to her. Good morning, Helen, they would say. Come here, Helen. Oh, Helen, play nice with the others. Look, here’s your mommy now, Helen. Sometime last year, when she was no longer left in the nursery room but instead went to Sunday school with the older children and when Mrs. Cantey also called her Helen, she realized she had two names, a church name and a home name. Helen was her church name, and Little Girl was what Mama and Daddy called her at home, saying it in different ways. Some of the ways she liked, some she did not. The good ones were like hearing honey, sweet in her ears, nice Mama’s Little Girls and Daddy’s always happy-to-see-you Little Girls. The others came from the other Mama,
Mama who was not so nice. Those Little Girls hurt her ears and made her stomach tight. Especially the angry lion’s.
“Mama.” Shaking now, Little Girl took hold of her braids in her two hands, felt their weight, their friendliness. “Please Mama, I love them.” She tightened her hands to protect them, and to feel their strength. “They…they make me strong in the world.” Against you, she thought, but knew not to say.
“What a silly thing to say, Little Girl.” Mama shook her head and leaned back against the table, looking at her, squeezing the scissors tight in both her hands now. “Especially coming from someone who’s been so bad.”
Little Girl did not believe she was all the way bad, and she knew her braids were not bad at all. She squirmed down off the stool and turned to run, but Mama was quick and grabbed up one of her braids. “No you don’t!” Mama pulled her back, spun her around. “Oh no you do not!” Red in the face and sweating, Mama loomed over her, her breathing fast and rough. Little Girl felt sweat bubble on her scalp, then run out of her hair and down her forehead into her eyes. Mama, the smell, the kitchen, everything around her blurred and, caught, she didn’t know what to do now. More than anything she wanted to be back under the porch with the spiders who made no noise, who never bothered her. Maybe catch sight of the stray dog. She wished Daddy through the door, but she knew it wasn’t time for the work whistle to blow in town, knew it wasn’t time for him to come.
Mama still had her by the hair, yanked on the braid. That’s how she knew how mad she was, mad as that angry lion on TV. But Little Girl was mad too now, about as mad as Mama, maybe more.
Facing into the kitchen again now, she saw Mama’d either have to let go her braid or put down the scissors to get them back into her cutting hand. If she could get her to put them down, then maybe she’d have a chance. All she could think to do was maybe try some sweet talk. She remembered last Sunday in the gathering hall at church Mama and Mrs. Brown talking and hearing Mrs. Brown say how precious Mama’s little Helen was and wasn’t she such a good girl. What was the secret, she’d wanted to know, to raising such a good child. Standing there tucked into Mama’s side and looking up into Mrs. Brown’s smiling face, Little Girl’d felt the hand come down onto her shoulder as Mama told Mrs. Brown that, yes, her Helen was very good. Because, she’d said, her hand heavier, she knows to obey her mother. “They’ve got to mind you,” Mama said. Mrs. Brown had patted her big baby belly then and said she hoped to raise a child every bit as sweet and good as Mama’s Helen.
“Okay, Mama,” Little Girl said in her nicest voice, taking a step towards her. “I’ll mind you. I’ll sit still. I’ll be good.”
Mama looked into her face, holding on another few seconds, then let go the braid. “That’s my good girl.” She switched the scissors to her cutting hand, pointed to the stool and said, “Hop back up now.”
Little Girl’s stomach hurt, she was afraid, but she felt even madder than afraid, and so she’d try. She got herself back up onto the stool. “I’m so sorry, Mama,” she told her in her sweetest voice. The kitchen had gotten a million degrees hotter, and Little Girl thought she saw the green paint dripping down the wall over by to the stove. Dripping with sweat herself and shaking a little like she was cold, the only thing Little Girl could think of was being out of there, away from Mama, the scissors, the sickening smell of cauliflower. “I’ll obey you.”
“Yes you certainly will.” Mama’s eyes looked a little wild now, flat and hard and slick grey-brown like the color of the rocks Daddy’d brought home from the quarry last week. He was going to make a walkway with them, he’d told her, from the kitchen door to the old barn where the car lived. The way Mama wanted him to. She’d heard nice Mama ask him to do that for her, but that Mama was nowhere in the house this afternoon.
Riding safe against her back, Little Girl felt her two braids and their strength. She knew the scissors were in Mama’s hand, but she knew not to look at them now, knew not to move. Everything had gone quiet and still in the kitchen. Out the kitchen window, she saw no leaves moving in the trees, and she knew it was too hot for birds to chirp or bugs to buzz. Too hot everywhere, but not for braids. “Mama, if you don’t cut my hair, I promise to not complain ever again about being hot.” This was her prettiest, her nicest voice. “Never one single time.” She was thinking of church and Mrs. Brown again. “I’ll mind you, I will, I promise.” Little Girl believed in her heart she could do that, that it would give her braids a chance. “I’ll be sweet. I’ll carry your fan to you whenever you say.” She saw that Mama’s house-dress stuck to her the same way her own shirt was sticking to her. She saw, too, that Mama was listening about the fan, saw her sink back a little. Still she didn’t move. “I’ll go get it for you right now?”
Mama laid the scissors on the table, then rubbed off the sweat from her face with her arm. “Yes, do. Go bring me that fan.”
“Yes, ma’am, I will.” Hope mixing now with her fear, Little Girl slipped off the stool.
Her braids bounced against her back as she headed fast out of the kitchen and through the front room’s wallpaper flowers, across the scratchy rug in her bare feet, towards Mama and Daddy’s bedroom and the fan. Passing the front door, the outside, the shade, the coolness and safety of the under-porch called to her, and she slowed down to look out. As she paused there she caught sight of the yellow dog out at the edge of the yard, laying under the wilted bush next to the mailbox. He was panting so hard his bony sides pumped up and down. She saw that his eyes bulged out and that his tongue was hanging way out the side of his mouth into the dirt. She didn’t know where that dog belonged, but she wished he could belong to her. They’d be friends. He could be Missouri Pipi’s monkey. Seeing him down and panting the way he was, she wondered that maybe dogs could die from being hot and thirsty and thought to take him out some water. And maybe get him to come into the shade under the porch with her. But then she thought, while that would be doing the dog a good thing, she knew it would not be doing herself a good thing. She reached back for a braid, pulled it around her shoulder, stroked it, and knew she had to choose. It could all go wrong, she saw, for her braids, for herself, and maybe for the yellow dog too. So she turned away from the screen door, the outside and the poor, panting dog and went on into Mama and Daddy’s bedroom. Better, she decided, to keep going for the fan, better to try to save what had a chance of being saved.
Over the years Laura Goodman's short fiction has appeared in a number of journals, reviews and anthologies, among them: Cream City Review, South Dakota Review, Other Voices, Worchester Review, Hard Love, etc. Recent stories have appeared in Fiction Southeast (two), the Arkansas Review, Flash Fiction, the Westchester Review and the Magnolia Review. A novella is forthcoming in Propertius Press’s next anthology. She lives and writes in Boulder, Colorado.