Mom is sitting at the kitchen table staring at the front door as I open it. I can tell she’s scowling, though the drooping on the right side of her face makes it look that way regardless.

Should I ignore the fact that she’s angry or try to look apologetic?

“Good evening, Ma-,” I smile moderately.

“-It’s about time you got here,” she scowls deeper before I can even set the grocery bags on the table. “Don’t put those dirty things on my table.”

“My bad,” I say quickly, pulling my arm back just in time, and setting the bags down on the floor instead. Squatting down, I start grabbing the perishables to move to the fridge as she watches my rapid motions with irritation.

“I want the ice cream now,” she demands, though the words are a bit unclear, holding her stronger arm out toward me with the palm upturned.

“You should eat dinner first, Ma,” I say, just so it’ll have been said. She snorts through her nose at me, and I hand her the carton.

“I haven’t been able to do my hair in 10 days because of you girls,” she mutters on the verge of tears as I hand her the spoon. “My scalp hurts, and my curls are all tangled up like a steel wool. That bratty sister of yours doesn’t even have the decency to say she’s not coming and you’re always too busy with whatever romance, “Honey…Butter” hogwash you’re working on.”

I should say something sympathetic. 

I turn and put the soy cheese in the fridge.

“No doubt she’s out somewhere with that good-for-nothing dad of hers, spoiling her into a good-for-nothing princess who thinks she’s too pretty and grown up to have time for her own ma...”

I start setting out her combs and lay the towel across her shoulders so I can wet and section out her hair before I wash it. 

“...and she leaves me stuck with you of all the cold-blooded, stone-hearted creatures on God’s green earth,” she shakes her head as her frown lengthens again and deepens the creases on either side of her mouth. “One daughter won’t show any love to her ma whatsoever, and the other acts like she doesn’t know what the word means. How I birthed two such unnatural, ungrateful little heathens I’ll never know. I was born under a curse. Pearl and the rest of ‘em like to talk and tell me that Heaven is always fair. Is this fair?! That bunch of stuck-up floppy-hat-wearing lady peacocks think I earned this? Essence, you’re pulling my hair.”

“I’m sorry,” I say quickly, and I try to move more carefully without sacrificing speed, but all the while she rants, I'm mouthing the rest of today's to-do list to myself.

Make dinner. Clean the bathrooms…

“I’ve earned myself something good after the life I’ve led…,” she mumbles bitterly.

She’s been insisting that for as long as I can remember.  

It was her excuse for every new boyfriend and name-brand purse, though half the trials she needed recompense for were caused by those same ‘something’s “good.”

“And yet I can’t even get basic decency from the daughters I raised. Tell me, who was the one washing her dirty laundry? Who was the one making sure her hair got washed and braided? But your sister didn’t even answer the phone when I called to wish her a happy birthday last week.”

I can’t say I blame her. 

I don’t think I wouldn’t have, though I’m no judge, if I was anything like Beth. ‘Sweet’ and ‘sensitive’ and ‘delicate.’

Or ‘pampered,’ ‘prissy,’ and ‘spoiled.’ Whatever mom wants to call her on any given day. 

Either set of pet names would be enough reasons for anyone other than me to keep their distance rather than showing up just to try to tune out mom’s mood-swinging and hissy-fits.

Maybe if I was delicate, I wouldn’t come around either.

Perhaps my ‘unnaturalness’ is mom’s blessing, though it’s always been what she hated most about me.

“Hey, you!” she calls to me suddenly, snapping her fingers, and I pause in turning to go get the spray bottle and look at her steadily.

“Haven’t I taught you to answer when people are talking to you?”

“I didn’t have anything to say.” 

That sounds glib. 

Maybe I should have added a ‘really.’

Her face contorts and she yanks the towel off her shoulder, shaking it at me irately with her left hand, though her right side is the one facing me.

“If I had two working arms I’d throw this thing at you!” She threatens.

The threat of a towel is probably hilarious, in all the most horrible ways, but I don’t doubt that she’d back it up.

I turn to retrieve the spray bottle and she does make an attempt at throwing the towel in my direction. 

It flutters unimpressively to the floor in the space between us and I crouch, pick it up, brush it off, and go to spread it back across her shoulders.

“Don’t touch me with that dirty thing,” she snaps. So I fold it up and take it to the hamper when I go for the spray bottle. 

When I return with the bottle and a clean towel, Mom is muttering under her breath.

“Unnatural, the most unnatural child that ever lived. What’s the matter with you? Why don’t you have anything to say? Is your head empty?”

I don’t reply, just part her hair as she pushes the ice cream to the side so it won’t get any loose hair in it.

“Two disrespectful listless little girls, ” she bellyaches, as I comb out the tangles, “And between you and Elizabeth, you're the worst. There’s nothing stealing your affections. You ain’t got no white daddy spoiling you rotten taking you around here, there, and everywhere. You don’t even have a man at your age. Maybe you would if you cared to try and make yourself look pretty and approachable instead of walking around with that scowl on your face like you’re married to the devil.”

That should sting.

But for all I know she’s right, despite my daily attempts to look ‘pretty’ in an attempt to pass as ‘normal.’

I can’t judge anything but statistics, numbers, and standards, and I’ll never fit those whether I try or not.

JUST gotta finish her hair. Then dinner, then the dishes, then clean up.

She’s just upset because of the stroke. Her nerves are being affected by it.

The stroke’s fault, not hers. I misuse my passive voice again.

I’m doing enough. 

I’m a good daughter as long as I care for my mother. That’s what good daughters do. Whether I can love her or not.

That doesn’t matter.

This is the next best thing. I think. Probably.

The alarm on Mom’s cell beeps, and I go to fetch her blood pressure medication from the little shelf over the television.

I’ve already grabbed it and turned back toward the kitchen when I realize the television is on and playing a children’s cartoon with princesses and school girls.

My brain lags again as I try to process that, and I turn my head slowly to see a child no older than seven years old sitting with her feet up on mom’s couch, knees to her chin, staring blankly at the TV.

Has there been someone else in the house this whole time?

Of course, she has to have been. She couldn’t have just appeared…but…

I walk a little dazedly back to the kitchen where mom is waiting impatiently for me to open the bottle.

“Ma, whose little girl is that in the living room?” I ask slowly, knowing the thoughts and memories attaching themselves to this sudden presence are unreasonable at best.

The headache is somehow worse now.

“Yet one more person who acts like she wasn’t born with any sense. Your cousin Dina...”

Mom’s voice fades in and out as I just try to process how I didn’t hear the television running. I should have noticed that someone else was here…

I touch my ear vaguely as she gulps water and her medication between breaths as she raves.

“...was just planning to ship her daughter off somewhere so she could have some ‘breathing time’ after her divorce. Like you’re allowed to just dump your duty just because you’re tired of it.”

Ahh ‘duty.’ What every little girl always wants to be called.

“But…,” I force myself to focus as Mom pauses for another drink of water, and I search for the least assertive way to ask, “The apartment complex is outside the bus route. That child’s too small to walk all the way to the closest bus stop by herself and you can’t drive her to school…”

“I was gonna ask you to drive her. There are before and after teachers at the elementary school she’s attending so she can be dropped off long before you actually have to get to work and you don’t have to worry about being late. ”

Ask me…?

Is that what we call asking?

I glance over at the living room, and though the child’s posture has barely changed, I can tell she’s listening to everything we say.

I can’t just say no.

Far be it from me to try to make her feel worse.

If that’s what people feel in situations like this…

When it’s not her fault everybody’s passing her around like a hot potato.

I can’t imagine how worthless and unwanted that must make a kid feel…being passed off on neighbors and relatives because her mother had other plans…

I try to look sweet, but I’m sure I don’t succeed, bending over to look the child in the face as she looks up in our direction now. “What’s your name, little one?”

“Ayla Deanne Graham.”

She seems scared of me, and answers like she’s in homeroom as the teacher is taking attendance, but I can’t blame her, as I try to smile genuinely and probably look like something from her worst nightmares.

“My name is Miss Essence. I’ll be taking you to school from now on, is that alright with you?”

She kind of nods but not really. 

I guess we both just know there are no better options.