Karma

State of Grace, chapter 10

Photo by Zhisheng Deng on Unsplash

"Karma,” her mother screamed at Grace’s back as the seventeen-year old slogged down decaying steps of the baby shit colored trailer. “Go on, little girl! Run away! After all I’ve sacrificed to keep a roof over your head. Put clothes on your back. Food on the table! Go ahead. Abandon me! Just like your lazy-ass father. He lied and cheated and… Karma!” Lorraine screamed then recited snippets of her favorite bible verses. Or, rather, attempted to. “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you! You will be destroyed because you only care for yourself! Karma, young lady! Look it up! Karma." The rickety screen door slammed three times, then swung back open. “Karma bit that man right in the ass. Like it’s gonna bite you. Go ask the bum about karma! Oh, wait, you can’t because he’s dead!” Lorraine broke into hysterical laughter .

Grace heard the lock snap into place, a signal there was no turning back. No matter, Grace had what she needed. Tucked into her backpack: clean underwear, half a dozen shirts, two pairs of jeans, toiletries. And no bras. Grace stopped wearing them the summer before senior year which was another source of Lorraine’s anger, commenting that only whores ran around with “jiggling jugs.” Grace bit her lip to avoid calling her mother out for being a hypocrite.

“Karma!” Lorraine screamed at her daughter’s back through the locked screen door. It would be the last thing Grace heard her mother say.

Right about the same time the principal handed Grace her diploma, Lorraine learned of her daughter’s graduation.

For weeks Grace had drummed it into her mother’s head that graduation was Saturday, June 21st. She even circled the date on the Coca-Cola wall calendar. But this morning, June 14th, Lorraine dragged herself out of bed and down to Nick's Market. A vase of roses sat next to the register, each tied with a blue and gold ribbon that read “Congratulations Grad!” on one end and June 14, 1969 on the other. Lorraine handed Nick a dollar and a quarter to pay for a pack of Salems, a loaf of Wonder bread, half a dozen eggs, and a can of Campbell’s Tomato Soup. The two commiserated over the fact that the price of cigarettes had skyrocketed. Lorraine said she was seriously thinking about quitting and they had a good laugh. Nick handed her eight cents change and she thanked him. As she turned to leave, she spotted the roses.

Two hours later, Grace stepped into the living-dining-kitchen room, graduation gear folded neatly in her satchel. Lorraine was sunk into the tweed couch, cigarette in one hand and in the other, her Arnold Palmer with a splash of vodka. Grace dropped her gear on the counter next to the graduation rose.

"Why are you ashamed of me, Grace?"

“I’m not,” Grace lied.

“Why wasn’t I at your graduation?”

Why? Because she feared Lorraine might show up drunk? Or dress in the loud clothes she thinks make her look young? Or trip over parents in pastel coordinates and grab on to some man’s thigh to steady herself, simpering her thanks. Or flirt with every man who didn’t have a breathing thing stuck up his nose? Should Grace admit how it made her cringe when Lorraine bragged to their neighbors that this or that guy presumed she and Grace were sisters?

Does she confess to the embarrassment of seeing her mother’s gigantic breasts nearly fall out of her scooped-neck fuchsia blouse? Dread having to remind her mother of the no smoking rule? Her frustration seeing the unlit Salem Menthol hanging from Lorraine’s mouth as she counted the minutes before she could sneak off and light it? What about when Lorraine jumped up from her chair to hoot “Go Gracie Mae!” when the principal called out Grace’s name at Coaches’ Awards Night?

“Why, Mom?” Grace sighed. "Why would I be ashamed of you?"

"You tell me. It didn't occur to you it would break my heart when I learned I’d been excluded from the most important event in your life?”

"It was a stupid ceremony. I wasn't even sure about going." That part was true.

"You know, the one thing my mother — may she rest in peace,” Lorraine crossed herself. “She taught me that all it takes is one tiny lie and then it's a hop, skip and a jump to a stab in the back." Lorraine picked up the calendar lying next to her on the couch and threw it at Grace. It landed at her feet with June 1969 face up. Next Saturday’s date, circled in red, stared up at her accusing.

"I’m sorry I hurt you,” Grace said. She meant it. She loved her mother deeply, but she also couldn’t stand her. Lorraine was a good person whose bad habits often smothered her best parts. Lorraine told Grace she loved her nearly every day. She never hit her, never locked her out of the house or sent her to bed without supper as some of the moms in the park did to their own kids. Lorraine never took away the TV or Grace’s radio, though sometimes threatened to do so. Lorraine read to her daughter every night until she turned thirteen and announced she was too old for fairy tales.

Lorraine attended every one of Grace’s swim meets, teacher meetings, plays. She volunteered as Brownie Troop Leader and chaperoned summer camp Grace’s first year. She slept in a musty old tent with five sweaty eight year olds, swatting mosquitoes, breathing damp flannel pants and filthy sock air, and hardly complained. And the winter she got the flu, Lorraine called into work sick because she refused to leave Grace’s side.

But Lorraine yelled. A lot. Especially when she was drinking which, lately, was more and more often.

Grace moved down the trailer’s narrow hall with the fake wood that led to the dungeon that was her bedroom. And packed.

Less than an hour later Grace left, a denim satchel stuffed with art supplies and food to last three days. She was almost at the sidewalk when the trailer door banged open. Something hit her back. Teddy. The stuffed Moose she curled up with every night. The stuffed moose she cried into when she learned David asked that slut, MJ, to junior prom. The stuffed moose she threw up on when she had the flu. The stuffed moose who was a Christmas gift from a father she barely remembered. The father who stopped sending checks when Grace was nine and who Lorraine cursed every time GMP shut off their electricity. Lorraine ranted for hours—well, maybe not hours but on and on until Grace could barely keep her eyes open. At some point in her diatribes, Lorraine would switch subjects, finding something about Grace that irritated her. “Why didn’t you do the dishes,” she’d scream even when it wasn’t Grace’s turn. “Stop leaving your wet towels on the bathroom floor!” “Turn that damn radio down or I throw it in the trash can!”

“And that damn stuffed animal,” Lorraine screamed. “It’s a MOOSE, for Christ’s sake! Not a teddy bear!” Lorraine would grab him from Grace’s arms and shake him in her face. “See? Antlers, big nose, floppy ears. M-O-O-S-E! MOOSE! Are you retarded?” And she’d chuck Teddy across the room. “Stupid! Why the hell did that bum buy a god damn stuffed animal when he didn’t have the funds to send us a check? Don’t blame me when there’s no light for you to read your trashy books, or power to cook dinner…”. And Lorraine ranted on and on. And on.

Grace was furious with herself for not grabbing Teddy on the way out. He was her best friend, her confidant. Her baby. But she was nearly a woman and had to stop thinking like a child. Teddy was not flesh and blood. He was an inanimate object. Period. It was time that she, Grace, grew up. She would absolutely not turn back and retrieve him. She couldn’t risk seeing her mother standing there. She couldn’t risk seeing sadness or pain in her mother’s eyes. She couldn’t risk weakening her resolve to leave. So Teddy lay there under the beating down sun. Slumped, head on the dirt and gravel driveway, feet trailing the border of his family’s weed dotted lawn. Later Grace would wonder if her mother brought him into the trailer or if Teddy simply withered away in the dirt and trash that was their front yard. Maybe, Grace hoped, Teddy’d end up with a neighbor kid.

As it happened, Teddy lay abandoned in the dirt for two days. On the third, Lorraine left the trailer to walk the half mile to Nick’s for cigarettes. She passed the dried up and withered mound of faded fur and kicked poor Teddy. He went flying and landed next to the trailer steps. When she arrived home an hour later she kicked the furry mound again, sending it underneath their baby shit double-wide. Twelve days later, when she got news of her daughter, Lorraine stumbled out of the trailer, crawled through filth, crab grass, trailer stink, and a section of torn screen that lacerated her arms in order to retrieve the orphaned Teddy.