The Stairs and Her Tears

Trigger Warning: Themes of sexual violence and death.

“Crying is between you and God at night.”

Her sobbing at night still played in my ears as clearly as a bird's chirp in the morning, but there was no denying that it was her body. I was no older than eight when I found my aunt Tesha’s body on the staircase: lifeless, melanated but somehow pale, puffy red eyes, and cracked lips. Those weren’t from death, but from the time she spent crying. She would let her tears slide off her face and onto the floor. That’s how my grandmother put it.

“You knew she had been someplace cuz the puddles she’s always leaving behind. Suppose she slipped.”

That was one of the only things my grandmother said to the police that day. So much of my memory has that childhood haziness over it, but I remember one of the officers was a white woman. Her face is blurry, but the bouncing of her yellowy blonde ponytail while we played ring around the Rosie is still clear. Those kinds of attempts to distract us, kids, didn’t work. We all fall down. Every time we got to that part of the game, our eyes would drift over to aunt Tesha.

My grandmother shed no tears over the loss of her daughter—just another angel on their journey to meet God, she must have thought. She’d often preach that my aunt would find more peace in death than in life. Life ain't for everybody, but death is. The warm embrace from God would make even the cruelest existence worth it: These were the musings of the cold woman who raised us and aunt Tesha. Her take on my aunt’s passing made us dry-eyed at the funeral. No one was strong enough to cry. I only ever let all the salt leak out alone and quietly at night.

It has been five years since the flashes of red and blue took my aunt Tesha away, but I still see her on the stairs. We all step over her every morning and night.

“Lenya, you best get started on cookin’.”

My grandmother’s yelling took me out of my restless sleep. The sun weasels its way through my curtains, and the heat burns holes into my brain. It means I have to get on with my day. No chill in the air from the fall could stop the sun from rising. I can tell from the leaf's unrelenting green shade that we are in for a record-high temperature this November.

“Lenya?” 

The name sounds kind of funny coming out of my grandmother’s mouth. She was always debating whether I really belonged to her son, Tesha’s brother, Lenny. Despite her questioning, I know I am a member of this family. I had my father’s nose, my grandmother’s ears, and Tesha’s wide, toothy grin.

“Come on, girl, the sun gonna go down while we wait on you,” my grandmother yells again.

The heat makes sweat leak out of every orifice, making my skin fuse with my bed sheets. There is no distinction between where the brown of my skin ends and where the violet of the sheets starts. And my unprotected coils became entangled with my pillowcase. I breathe in deeply, finally reaching out my weak hands to push off the sheets. A loud gasp leaves my lips, feeling how wet they are. When my eyes adjust, it is clear that the violet is dampened by sweat, tears, urine, and red. There was a small puddle of blood peeking out from beneath my legs. It sends shivers through my body, but the sight of it answers many questions. Now I know why I had random hunger pangs and nausea. I didn’t fear becoming a woman, but I did fear the way everyone else would change. I make quick work of balling up my sheets and clothes behind my door. If I finish cooking fast enough, I should be able to do the laundry before my grandmother does. I can’t have her knowing I was crying, peed the bed, and was in puberty. All brought shame.

Tesha’s calming voice echoes in my head, soothing my thoughts. She bore seven children. All of them had fathers who took something from her, all by force. However, she loved her kids. I remember her laugh, her chipped fingernails, and the way she would use them to rub oil onto our scalps. But I can't remember the last weeks of her life, only the echoes of her cries. Her light is dimmed by the darkness of the bruises that would form on her body.

As the boys stir from their slumber, they rattle the staircase, absentmindedly stepping over their mother. It’s my job to make them their meals during this break from school. At school, I learned that the bones in your neck are labeled one through seven. An injury in the first three is instant death. Tesha’s ability to breathe was cut off like a light switch. The way her upper half faced the wrong direction, coupled with her legs being sprawled out like that, made the tears she cried fall back onto her instead of the floor. She is still trying to do three things: breathe, blink, and reach out to her children. Somehow, she was still beautiful even when she was posed like that. Surely, if it were a man to have found her, he would have no problem with this position. I clench my teeth at the thought while absentmindedly grabbing my cramping uterus. Today is going to have to be a day where I just sit on the stairs next to Tesha, wiping some of the tears away. I'll blink away mine and try to swallow the lump in my throat. Or it will be a day I can’t even make it past the first step.

“What kind of girl is still wetting the bed in her teen years? Go downstairs; the boys are hungry.”

I take my eyes off Tesha to see my grandmother waving my soiled sheets around. She plops them on the floor so haphazardly that they begin to fall down the stairs. I watch with wide eyes as they roll past Tesha; the boys can see all my shame from the dining room table.

"You betrayed her.” I spit out, as my grandmother limps past me to the top of the stairs. I place my hand against her back, feeling her spine through her brown, paper-like skin. God is the only thing that can hear you crying at night, so who will hear my grandmother's weeping now?

“One little push,” I think to myself. I learned later that it was the blood of adulthood that gave me the strength to give in to the temptation to push her.