Free The Doctor's Tale by Claire Applewhite Page B

her gold tooth gleamed beneath the florescent lights. “Lemme tell you ‘bout what happened at D’Yan’s place today.”
    The two women stood at either end of the cramped dinette, amidst boxes of Pampers and baby formula. Cans of stale beer, remnants of stained napkins, and an empty pizza box littered the kitchen table. Though few words had been said, much had already been heard.
    “You got no right, Mama.” D’Yan glared at her mother. She’d been drinking, sure, but she wasn’t drunk—not yet. Like bullets from a machine gun, her words sprayed into the space between stone coldand dead mean. “He can’t live here with me. Not like this.” She shook her head. “Not like this.” Her fist pounded the table like a hammer on a nail. “I want a life, too!”
    “You want a life? You?” Mary’s strong arms cradled the slumbering baby while she spoke. “What about your son? Even if you don’t want him, I do. He’s my blood too, girl, don’t forget. ‘An he belongs with his own people. Got no business with strangers.”
    “He be fine. He was all set up to go home with those rich people. They told me…”
    “Ha! Rich folks gonna raise your boy, are they? You didn’t hear what I heard, girl. You didn’t see what I saw with my own eyes. Those rich folks don’t want your baby.”
    “You’re making all this up, to make me feel bad—but, it won’t work. I know better.”
    “I know one thing. No family of mine gettin’ tossed from one foster house to the next, and the next, and the next, girl. You know’s well as I do what goes on in those places.”
    “But, they told me—”
    “Who told you what? That skinny white woman sitting out in front? You trust what she says? She lied to you, D’Yan. Those ‘doption people done took your baby and sold him to the first people wrote them a big fat check.”
    “I don’t believe you.” D’Yan’s chin quivered.
    “Five thousand dollars, God’s truth. Like your boy was a diamond ring or a car. Didn’t even do a credit check.”
    “If they sold him, why’s he here? Here with you? How’d you get him, huh? You lyin’ to me Mama?”
    “Those rich people didn’t want a black baby. The ‘doption folks lied to them too. An they done kept their money anyways. They thieves in there, I’m telling you. If it wasn’t for Maypo, I…”
    “Maypo? Now, I know you lyin’. You lyin’ or this is all a big joke.”
    “I’m not kidding. He works there. Or he did work there, anyway.”
    “When did he get out?”
    “Out? Outta what?”
    “Outta jail, Mama. He was in for armed robbery.”
    “Lots of folks in for that, sooner or later.”
    “Bet the adoption folks don’t know about that or he wouldn’t a been working there. I thought they did background checks.”
    “Well, like I said, they didn’t do any such thing for these white folks come to buy your baby. They ask you any questions?”
    D’Yan hung her head. The greasy battery clock on the plaster wall measured their lives in ticks and tocks. “Naw.” Her face contorted into a mask of misery. “I’m sorry, Mama,” she said. Rivulets of tears spilled down her thin cheeks. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know. She kept telling me I was doing the right thing. That white lady, she kept saying it, just over an’ over.” Her slumped shoulders trembled with grief. “I didn’t mean to hurt nobody.”
    “You can’t trust white folks, D’Yan. Ever. An’ something else, too. You got to show your boy how to deal with the world. It’s different for us, D’Yan. Always been that way. Always will be.”
    “Whut you mean?”
    “I mean they treat our people different, and you know it.”
    “Who?”
    “White folks. Police. Lies they done tell us. Even some black folks forget who they are and where they come from. If we don’t stick together, if we don’t raise our own and teach ‘em how to survive, then Lord help us, maybe we’re making our own sorry life. We’ll live the way other people think we