Tomorrow I Will Do Better

I fell in love with my son Adam the minute I heard the doctor, while I was sitting on that cold examining table, saying that I, Lydia Darlene Finch, at the age of 17 and a half, was going to be a mama. My own mama, Evelyn Finch, said knowing I was in love with Adam was different from knowing I would be able to take care of him. 

Mama always had a way of spoiling a perfect promising idea with facts. 

 When I was little, I had an army of dolls. Some had one leg, some one eye, some one arm. I loved them all equally. I preferred my dolls to sweaty old cousin DeeDee, who was in diapers when I was six. Me being an only child, she was my main practice on a real live baby. I never dropped her once, and if she ever said otherwise, well that was her stirring the pot just like nosy Aunt Annie.  

Adam’s daddy was a man who came to Blytheville with the fall carnival and left with it just the same. I told Mama and Daddy I was going to the fair with friends. Lee and I came to know each other biblically in the house of mirrors after the carnival shut down for the night. I kept my eyes closed, but he was nice, and far gentler than a man twice my size had a right to be. I never saw him again. 

 When I told my parents, Mama cried and Daddy’s eyes teared up, but he walked outside before he did any more than that. “You’ve ruined your life, Lydia Darlene.” 

Like I said, mama and her proclamations. This time, I looked at her and said, “he’s going to be the best part of me.” 

Mama put her hands on her hips and shook her head. 

I opened my mouth again: “One true thing about me, mama, and you can take this to the bank: I love him already more than my own life.”  

As my belly grew, I talked to my boy daily. I had drunk beer the first few months before I knew I was pregnant, and I broke down and told mama, and she prayed and prayed that Adam would be healthy. One day, when I was lying in bed because my back hurt too much, mama reached over and rubbed my belly and talked to Adam, and he began kicking so hard. It was like my belly was a drum, and he was sending a message in morse code. Mama gasped, cried, and grabbed my hands, and things were different between my mama and me after that.  

For a while.  

When Adam was born, I held him in my arms, and the first thing I thought to say was “we meet at last,” and Adam cooed as if he too, was tired of the wait. 

 I had set up a small place paid for by HUD, and Mama and Daddy paid for the essentials to get me comfortable while I finished my GED. Mama watched Adam during the day while I took classes and worked part time at the diner. 

I drank a little when Adam was with her. Only then. 

He was a good baby, crying little, and easily occupied his mind by studying the world around him. It came to me again, that he was too smart already, and how I would ever be able to raise him, I did not know.  

Mama would fuss sometimes about how I held Adam, how I fed Adam, how I rocked Adam. I would count the seconds until she left, and Adam would stare at me, touch my face wet with tears, and pat his hand there, comforting me.  

As he grew, he fussed more and did not seem to want to listen to me and would look at my mama if she were in the room, as if she were the authority of all things steady and right. 

I wanted nothing more than to get a good enough job to go to Fayetteville or Fort Smith, far enough away that no one would follow. “It is you and me against the world” I would sing to Adam, and he would make his baby sing song voice and snuggle against my chest. 

Gary, a man from the GED class, was a few years older and could buy beer whenever I wanted. Which was not that often. We only drank once Adam was asleep, anyway. I made it clear there would be nothing else because I did not want to get involved. Adam and I were leaving as soon as I saved the money.  

Mama came and hollered when she found out I got fired from the diner for being too late. It was not my fault the station wagon was a clunker, and I slept through the alarm a few times. She kept Adam while I worked at the dollar store during the day, which was a better paying job, anyway. The manager was a man named Billy and if I kept the top two buttons of my blouse undone, he never complained if I was late a few minutes. 

Not at first. 

Mama came into the store once and saw me that way, Adam at four months old in his carrier. “I raised you better, Lydia Darlene. You need to come back to Jesus.” 

Jesus and I had not talked in a long time. I figured He had all but forgotten about me, which was fine.  

Or so I told myself. 

The more time Adam spent with Mama, the more Adam fussed when he was alone with me. Once mama came on my day off and woke me up in the middle of the afternoon. When she saw the rash on Adam’s bottom and how wet his diaper was, she cried and shook her head and cradled Adam in her arms. He stopped fussing. 

“Every baby cries, mama. You are looking at me like I am the worst person in the world. “I said to her. She cried harder. I do not think she knew that I had taken a pill Gary had given me that morning. I certainly was not going to tell her. 

I had just gotten Adam’s baby pictures back from the photographer. The job at the dollar store helped me pay for them, and a nice new outfit for him. I showed mama the pictures as Adam slept. Mama nodded and patted Adam’s back, but when she looked at me, her eyes held a sadness I had only ever seen when daddy died two months before. 

Good thing she did not know the electric bill almost got turned off because I used the bill money to pay for the outfit and pictures. Thank God for the Salvation Army paying the bill. 

Adam woke up as mama left, crying softly. “Who’s my best boy?” I asked as I rocked him, singing softly. He snuggled me, and I felt loved again. 

A few days later, I had plans to meet Gary at Piggly Wiggly. He just got a new job at the steel mill and wanted to celebrate. He would buy a case of beer and cigarettes for me. Mama did not know about either, or she was not going to, if I could help it. It was hot for the first of November. I pulled right up to the front of the store and looked in the back. Adam was sleeping. I would only be in the store for a few minutes. I would be back. I would crack the windows. 

He would be okay. I was coming back. I was not leaving him. He was the best part of me, and everyone knows a person cannot survive when their best part is gone. I cracked the windows, I think, and told myself, I will go to the express line. Ten minutes, tops. 

But then Gary did not show, and I saw someone I knew, and I thought I would just get the cigarettes, since I cannot buy the beer on my own. And then shouting outside was something I will never forget. 

I ran to the front and saw the police car near my car, and I ran outside as the officer popped the lock and reached in to take Adam. “That is my car. That is my baby. Stop!”  

I ran to him, hit him, but Adam screamed, and my hand slapped Adam's leg instead. I only remember the other police officer holding me back as the first officer took Adam to the patrol car as mama pulled up. 

“Lydia Darlene. What have you done? “She cried, as she went to comfort Adam. 

“I was coming back; I was not leaving him. I was in the store for 10 minutes,” I said. 

The store manager came out. “You were in there a lot longer than that, lady.” 

The pill Gary had given me made me foggy. It was not my fault. I would not hurt Adam. Never. Never.  

The police officer was reading me my rights as mama put Adam in her car. “Mama, do not take him. Mama!” I screamed.  

“How long was he in the car, Lydia? “Mama was crying hard. 

Five minutes. It was five minutes. Mama shook her head at me and got in her car and drove away. 

“Mama! “I screamed again from the back of the patrol car.  Adam was leaving me. I felt the kind of pain I would imagine a human can only feel if they are being torn asunder.

I took a breath. Panicking never did a bit of good and often made things worse. Sometimes advice mama gave me was something to remember.

I will explain it better tomorrow, I thought as the patrol car drove in the opposite direction of Mama and the best part of me. I will make the judge understand that it was just a difficult day. Tomorrow, I will make it right and Adam will come home with me.  

Tomorrow I will do better.