Mimi

Escaping the Darkness

Chapter 1
Mimi

“Mimi, help your mother out. This dress wont zip itself up.”
I stretch the cotton on Mama's white dress and pull the zipper to the nape of her neck.
“Ouch! I said zip my dress, not my back. And what did you just call me? I am your mother!”

Here it go again; mama hearing things that aren't there. Cousin Lille gave me a leather bound journal, told me to save my talkin backs for the pages. Mama put up a fit if she hear us talk back, even if we swear we didn't do nothin'. Sometimes it's better just to pretend we have.
“Sorry I shouldn't have sa-”
“Don't bother coming home for dinner, Mimi May. There sure as heck wont be any. Not with that mouth a yours.”
She takes out her lipstick from a flowery case tucked into her vanity, applies firehouse red from one corner o' her lip to the other, and then some. Black liner is next, and I watch her line her lids with a fiery urgency.
“Tell that brother a yours to get up. It's after noon.”

The porch door slams and mama's out, stomping her black heels into the ground. She turns and waves with a smile, like nothin happened and I wonder if that means I'm gonna get dinner tonight.

Ma don't work, though she like to think we don't know. I watch from the tiny bedroom window as she draggin' them high heels across the lawn. Take but two minutes for her to duck inside Mr. Leroy's apartment. That door always opens after the first knock.

“Hey Scott, what you think she's doin' in Mr. Leroy's?”
He lets out a loud grunt and rolls onto his side. Don't like to bother nobody when they peaceful, but I'm itchin' for a conversation.
“That old man? He's lonely. I think she cooks, maybe even cleans up his space.”

That thought just don't settle well with me. Ever since Daddy left, Ma's bid her time with the neighborhood gents. She don't pay no mind to they married or not. 

Last week, just about got in a heated fit over Ma and one a her gentlemen friends.
"Mimi, where's your ma? I gotta speak to her... now!"
Old lady, Mrs. Leroy Brown, come runnin' up to the window bout scared me near death.
"Mama ain't home now. You come back, Mrs. Brown."
"You tell that mother of yours that I know damn well what she's up to. Tryin' to wreck the whole neighborhood."
Took some persistence, but she quit after I threatened to call they police, tell them she's tres-passin'.

I've been bailing my Mama out longer than Huck Finn be travelin on his adventures.  Took us some time to realize, but it weren't long before she was diagnosed with the darkness.

"If that there flower don't stop lookin my way, tryin to take my thoughts, I'll show him... show them all who they messed with."
She 'bout thirty seven when she took to talking to the flowers, the windows, the trees, and on occasion, the ice box.  Laughed a few times, till I realized she was dead on serious. She done believe they windows gonna attack.