I feel all over my body for any signs of a fight, but it all feels normal. I bump somethin’ hard under the covers with my leg, and I fling the quilt and sheet back to find the stick tucked in next to me like it’s my bed partner of choice.
I breathe through the rush of adrenaline and panic as I recall my last memory and the blackness that overtook me in that bar.
Lord, what the hell have I done now?
I leap out of bed and throw the door to my room open. I hurry into the livin’ room and snatch the TV remote right out of my daddy’s hand. He’s perched in his usual spot on the couch in our double-wide, pretendin’ to fix the toaster in his lap while some kinda sports show plays in the background.
“Hey, I was just about to...”
I tune him out as I flick through the channels. “Come on. Come on.” I frustratedly chant until I find what I’m lookin’ for. I stop on the channel and watch as though my life depends on it. Who knows, it just might.
My mama is in the kitchen, and she takes one look at my very rumpled appearance with a raised brow. “Well, don’t you just look like you was shot at and missed, shit at and hit.”
“Shh, Mama, I’m tryin’ to hear,” I say and then bat her hand away from my hair. She no doubt just licked her palm to smooth back a flyaway or two.
Ew.
She giggles, not fazed in the slightest by my irritation as she walks back into the kitchen, an apron tied around her figure, and her red hair blown and hairsprayed within an inch of its life.
“I’m just pickin’ your peaches, HB,” she calls. “What’s got you in such a tiff this mornin’?”
I roll my eyes at the nickname I can’t get her to stop usin’ and turn up the TV, listenin’ for anythin’ that sounds likemass slaughter in honky-tonk bar,oreight injured in unexplainable bar fight, or for my name in general. It wouldn’t be the first time I was on the news.
“I’m fixin’ grits. You want some, Love Spuds?” Mama asks Daddy.
I huff out an annoyed breath. “For the last time, Mama, that’s a name people use for a man’s balls, not a term of endearment!”
She just giggles again and waves me away. “Well, I do love his love spuds too, so what’s the real issue here?”
I give her a disgusted face, which just makes her smile even more. I totally walked right into that one. There’s no shortage of TMI when it comes to my parents and theirlovefor each other.
The news breaks for commercials, and I mute the annoyin’ and overly loud ads as I rub a hand down my face.
“You need some aspirin, HB?” Mama asks, already openin’ the bottle and forcin’ it to spill out some pills.
“Yes, ma’am,” I concede as I give my daddy the remote back. I kiss her on the cheek when she brings the pills over along with a glass of orange juice, and then plop my butt on the couch next to Daddy’s. He’s wearin’ his usual faded jeans and a worn-out T-shirt, his brown and gray beard lookin’ like it could do with a good oil and comb.
“You have another one of your tribulations, baby?” Daddy asks as he unscrews the outside panel of the toaster. He fiddles with it every day just so Mama won’t make him go get a hobby like golf or gardenin’, even though I don’t think he knows what the heck he’s doin’.
I nod, my throat gettin’ tight. “I think they’re gettin’ worse,” I finally admit, and the quiverin’ of my tone makes him put the toaster down and really take me in.
“It’s a sign of the times, Heavenly Bell,” my mama says, as though that answers that.
I once again roll my eyes at the nickname. The woman knows I have violent blackouts, and she still thinks I’m a little slice of heaven. She used to tell me all the time when I was little that an angel herself came and placed me on their stoop. They like to say they adopted a bundle straight from Heaven.
“You trust in the Lord, baby. If He thought to make you His right hand, then His right hand you’ll be, and there ain’t a thing wrong with it,” Daddy tells me, just like he’s been tellin’ me since I was little and mytribulationsfirst showed.
At first, it was small things. Tantrums when I was little, where I ended up on the playground at school not rememberin’ how I got up a tree or why Marcy Wills was cryin’ down below. My mama and daddy taught me to touch my necklace and count and breathe whenever an inklin’ of the black started creepin’ in my vision, and that worked. Sometimes.
Mama calls it my tribulations, and she’s not far off. Whenever one of my episodes hits, I bring trouble and sufferin’ with it. And worst of all, I can’t remember a damn thing.
My parents are really the ones who are angels. With all my issues they’ve dealt with over the years, I’m surprised they don’t have halos just glowin’ over their heads at this point.
“Do you know what time I got in last night?” I ask wearily.
“Don’t know,” Daddy responds, screwdriver half-heartedly tamperin’ with the innards of the toaster. “Your mama and I retreated to the bedroom early last night,” he says with a wag of his bushy gray brows.
“Ew, Daddy,” I say with a shake of my head while he belly laughs, makin’ all his years of cigarette smokin’ known in the rasp of his chuckles.
