A Little Piece of Light Read online

  In the second half of eighth grade, my classmates and I take the Secondary School Admission Test, known familiarly in New York City as the SSAT. The scores from this standardized test rank students’ academic performance in comparison to one another and give administrators at the city’s public and private high schools a basis for accepting applicants. Students who rank relatively high gain admission into the city’s best public schools, such as the Bronx High School of Science, from which students often graduate to attend top-tier universities.

  When the test scores come in several weeks after we take the exams, I learn that my scores have ranked me third among all the eighth graders in New York City. With this score, along with my performance as a runner, I receive notification that I’ve won a scholarship to St. Andrew’s School in Delaware, a prestigious boarding school with fewer than seventy-five students per class. The brochures for St. Andrew’s show a green campus that sits on the edge of a lake with grand brick architecture, bright classrooms, expansive fields for sports, and an auditorium for theater productions and music recitals. As many of my teachers react to the news of my acceptance, I quickly come to understand that St. Andrew’s is one of the best private high schools in the entire country. My music teacher praises me, telling me that with scores like this, I could have my pick of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or Brown when it comes time to apply for college.

  I receive an award from the mayor of New York City and from my school district. At home, my scholarship to St. Andrew’s is the one thing that has smoothed over my talk with the school counselor. Mother begins to tout my acceptance to her colleagues at work, who congratulate me with gifts of money, which begin to arrive in the mail. Mother delightfully keeps the funds in a neat white envelope in her bedroom. It seems as though she tallies each one as another pat on her own back for having raised me so well.

  I stand tall in her presence. I’ve made her happy. I hope that because I’ve achieved what she wanted, she’ll finally begin to see that I’m just like other kids—that I’m good enough. I’m the clone she’s spent the past seven years molding me to be. I seek a touch, a word, a sound, a hug, some stroke of tangible love from her. Instead, as my eighth grade school year winds down, she says, “I still fear you’re going to be different from the other students at St. Andrew’s, you know.”

  My scores on the SSAT prove that I’m every bit as good as the other students… but with every tutorial and critique from her, my goodness matters less. A New York newspaper even writes an article about me, referring to me as “the Golden Child.” But I don’t feel golden. I feel like garbage—like nothing. No matter what I accomplish, in the eyes of my mother, I’ll never be worthy of love or praise.

  She schedules a meeting with my math teacher, Mr. Harris. I sit in on their discussion, where Mother tells Mr. Harris that it would be beneficial to my time at St. Andrew’s if he will tutor me over the summer in advanced mathematics. “I work with her in writing and comprehension,” Mother tells Mr. Harris, “but it’s of utmost importance that Donna is up to par with her peers in calculus and trigonometry.”

  “My wife and I just had a baby,” Mr. Harris says. “If Donna will babysit for us during the summer, I can spend some time tutoring her.”

  He and Mother arrange for me to stay for several nights each week at his house. I dutifully do my laundry and pack my duffel bag, eager to spend most of my summer without the daily threat of danger and Roy’s leering. In early June, when Mr. Harris drives me outside of the city to his house in suburban New Jersey, I discover a landscaped wonderland. Decorating each green yard are trees and flowers, like the homes of the families on TV shows. Inside Mr. Harris’s house is something I’ve never seen before: carpeting. Everything about the home feels soft and comfortable, like family.

  Mr. Harris’s wife is cheerful and pretty, holding the baby as she takes a break from stirring dinner on the stove to welcome me. She shows me to their guest bedroom, where I instinctively notice that there’s a push lock on the inside of the door. When they go out for groceries, my toes make impressions in the carpet as I peek gently around the rooms, trying to absorb this feeling. What is home? I remember asking Roy when I first arrived in New York.

  This is home.

  I take immediately to their adorable infant son, and help Mrs. Harris with things around the house or answer the phone while her hands are full with the baby. In the afternoons, I sit on the edge of their community swimming pool and watch Mrs. Harris swish the baby’s torso in the shallow end. I see the love in their faces when Mrs. Harris holds him in the air while they make big smiles and squeals at each other. There’s a pang in my stomach as a memory of my mother in Jamaica bursts into my mind. Ooh, I love you, she’d say with a hug. Suddenly, I miss her terribly. “You’re never going to leave Mommy and Daddy, are you, darling?” Mrs. Harris says. The baby rests his sweet temple against his mother’s collarbone, as if to agree to the promise. Their closeness twists my heart in longing. I wish I had a mother who loved me too much to ever let me go.

  A few weeks later, in mid-July, I stay at their house while Mr. Harris takes his wife and baby out to visit relatives. They plan to take me out for pizza when they get back. As I draw a bath to rinse off the swimming pool’s chlorine from earlier in the day, the phone rings, and I turn off the bath water to run to the kitchen and answer it. “My wife and son aren’t coming home yet,” Mr. Harris tells me, “but I’ll still take you to dinner.”

  I return to the bathroom, putting on only my bra and underwear to stay cool while I blow out my hair, section by section with a brush, instead of braiding it like a child, the way Mother always insists. When I turn the hair dryer off to crack the door open for air, I’m startled to hear a little tap on the door. “It’s me,” Mr. Harris says. “I’m home.”

  I stand away from the door’s opening. “I’m getting ready!”

  “Take your time,” he says. “Did you think about where you want to go to eat?”

  “It doesn’t matter!” I’m trying to cower with my hands close to my chest, the hair dryer and the brush guarding my body.

  “I’ll let you finish.”

  Believing he’s walked away, I push the door nearly closed so that he can’t see in. I turn the hair dryer back on and wrap a towel tighter around me until I can get to my clothes in the bedroom where I stay. My hair’s good enough, I think. Let me hurry up.

  But then, the door opens. Mr. Harris stands still for a moment and then walks toward me as I freeze in place. The feel of his golf shirt against my bare back causes a thousand needles to rise up in alarm under my skin. This isn’t right!

  In the mirror, he makes eye contact with me. “You’re so pretty,” he says.

  No. No. Not Mr. Harris. In my experience of this, it’s always begun with a flattering reference to my appearance. I can never hear this as a genuine compliment, but rather as a stated intent to take advantage of me.

  Mr. Harris kisses on my neck, then my shoulder. I search for something to focus on, the way I do with the little piece of light inside Roy’s closet. When I can’t find something, I rise up out of my body and dissociate.

  When I come to, I’m in Mr. Harris’s bed. I don’t know how much time has passed, how I got here, or what has happened. When I jerk my head to get my bearings, he’s lying beside me. This man has been one of the best teachers I’ve ever had, the only man I’ve ever been able to trust. What is his wife going to say?

  This is my fault.

  “Come on,” he says. “I don’t know when she’ll be home.”

  When Mrs. Harris arrives at home, I won’t allow my eyes to meet her face. Everything that I wanted to believe about their family has been shattered. I’ve wanted a mother just like her. I wanted to believe that one day, I could have a life like hers. Mr. Harris has betrayed her, and he’s betrayed me… still, I’m the one who did this.

  A few days later, back in Boynton, I exit my bedroom to see a man leaving the apartment. “I’ll see about the paperwork,” Roy tells h
im. “Come by tomorrow.”

  When the man returns the next day, he and Roy go on the terrace to talk. I want to go out there, I think, but I don’t want to impose on two adults in conversation. When Roy breaks from their conversation to walk inside, I step onto the terrace. I don’t know this man’s name, but I recognize him from one of the apartments upstairs where he lives with his mother.

  “What’s your name?” he asks me.

  I stare at the ground. “My name is Donna.”

  “Donna, my name’s Alvin. I heard you had a scholarship.”

  “Yes,” I tell him, now slowly meeting his eyes. How did you hear? “I have a scholarship.”

  “I hear you’re good in school.” This feels good—that he recognizes me. Roy returns, and Alvin meets him in the living room to finish their conversation.

  When I see Alvin the next day, he asks me, “Hey… are you OK?”

  I look down. “Yeah.”

  “Are you sure? I’m your friend, you know. You can tell me anything. If something’s wrong, I won’t tell anyone.” I want to trust him, but after what happened with Mr. Harris, I don’t know if I can believe anyone anymore. He asks me again: “Are you OK?”

  With this prompt, my will to hide the truth collapses. “No,” I tell him. “I have to get away from here.”

  “But your scholarship—”

  “I’m tired of him touching me!”

  Alvin watches me in silence. “What do you mean he’s touching you?”

  I stop myself. I shouldn’t say any more.

  Roy enters the room and Alvin keeps his eye on me as the two of them speak. Before Alvin leaves, he turns around. “Remember what I told you,” he tells me. “You take care of yourself. OK?” I look at Roy, who’s carefully reading our interaction.

  “OK,” I tell Alvin.

  Roy says nothing when I return to Mr. Harris’s once again, feeling doomed for more abuse. Mr. Harris treats me normally in front of his wife, and he is surprisingly mindful not to cross the line or make another advance toward me. When I return to Boynton a few days later, I find not Roy in our apartment but Alvin. “Your father’s gone out to get something,” he says. “He should be back soon. Hey—how are you doing?” Tears spring to my eyes. “What’s wrong?” Alvin says.

  “I want to go away,” I whisper. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

  “I’ll take you away,” Alvin says. “I’ll help you. Tell me everything.”

  I start to tell him what Roy’s been doing, this time in greater detail. I tell him what my teacher did, and how I’m not sure if I can stand any of it even for another day. No matter where I turn for help or an escape, I can’t find anyone to trust.

  “I promise that I’m going to take you away so no one else can hurt you,” Alvin says. “I’ll protect you. Do you want to go away to school? Or do you want me to help you now?”

  After what’s happened with Mr. Harris, I don’t know what to expect from school anymore. Alvin’s offer of protection sounds real in this moment—better than any alternative. This is what I’ve got to do. “I want you to help me now.”

  “OK.”

  “When I got the scholarship,” I tell him, tears dropping down my cheeks, “everyone was so happy. I felt like I did something right.”

  “I know,” he says. “I’ve read about you. How much money do you have?”

  I shrug. “I think about three hundred dollars.”

  “We’ll need that to run away,” he says. “Save up what you can for the next week or two. Then the night before we leave, you’ll have to pack. Otherwise, act the same as you usually do. You don’t want to alert anyone that I’m taking you away to protect you.” He shows me how to turn the lock on our apartment door to make it appear locked, when it’s not really. Late at night when Roy and Mother are in bed, I practice and practice this until I have it down.

  Two weeks later, I slide the envelope from the spot where Mother has kept track of my school money. I wash my clothes and repack my suitcase, just as I do anytime I go to Mr. Harris’s. But this time—Wednesday night, August 1, 1979—I do one small thing differently: I place my bag on a chair by the apartment door. Convinced I’m just preparing to leave the following morning to babysit, neither of my parents questions it.

  At 10:30 p.m. when the apartment is silent with sleep, I slink out of bed and dress myself quickly. I hold my breath with every move, listening for any sign of stirring or suspicion. There’s nothing.

  What if this is a bad idea? I think. I don’t have to go. But it’s my faith in Alvin’s promise to not let anyone else hurt me that gives me the courage to grab my suitcase and go meet him at the spot he designated, in the back of the building at a dark area next to the parking lot.

  Outside, I can’t tell if my fear is magnifying how eerie the quiet is. When I reach our spot, Alvin’s silhouette stands waiting for me. “Did anyone hear you?”

  I shake my head no. “No one heard me.”

  “Do you have the money?”

  I hand him the envelope.

  “Come on,” he says, and we rush around the corner of the building, onto the sidewalk, and into the night.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the Port Authority.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we have to leave town. If we stay in New York, they’ll find us, and I won’t be able to protect you.”

  We walk to the train station and drop our tokens in the slot to board the number five train headed to Manhattan. On the train, a guy carrying a boombox is playing a song that I recognize:

  Ain’t no stopping us now!

  We’re on the move!

  My head bounces with the beat, and suddenly, I’m filled with courage.

  It’s close to midnight when we arrive at the Port Authority. Alvin walks to a board that lists the cities the Greyhound bus travels to. “Where do you want to go?” he asks.

  I stand before the board, daunted. “I have no idea.”

  “Close your eyes and point your finger,” he says, “and walk to the board. Wherever your finger lands, that’s where we’ll go.” I close my eyes and do as he says, our fate relying on my random tactile guess. “Walk,” he tells me. “Now open them.” When I do, my finger is pressed over Philadelphia. “Looks like we’re going to Philly,” he says. “Do you have an ID?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t have a birth certificate?”

  “No. I have citizenship papers, but my mother keeps them.”

  “Here, take this.” He gives me an ID card with his mother’s photograph on it. “If anyone asks, this is your name and you’re nineteen years old.” I look at the image of Alvin’s mother, a woman with graceful, tired eyes. Something about this doesn’t feel right. “Don’t worry,” he says, as if in response to my thoughts. “You’ll be fine with me.”

  One hour later, we’re on a bus headed ninety minutes west, to Philadelphia. My stomach has butterflies and every part of me is shaking, but I can’t tell whether I’m afraid, unsure, or even maybe a little excited. My face feels heavy with exhaustion, but adrenaline courses through me. I shouldn’t be doing this. Will my mother be angry? Will my father come at me again? Alvin has to protect me now. We arrive in Philadelphia to an early morning that’s just as muggy and serene as the city we’ve just left. Alvin locates a motel near the bus terminal, and I stand by at the check-in desk while he reserves a room with the money from my envelope. But—why is he only getting one room?

  When he unlocks the motel room door and flips on the light, my stomach flutters so severely that I think I might faint. I refuse to cross the threshold to join him in the room: it has two dim bedside lamps, a TV, a bathroom… and one bed.

  Seeing my hesitation, Alvin says, “We have to hold on to the money. Don’t worry, we’re just going to rest. It’s OK.” The feeling in my stomach swells even harder than before, but I don’t argue. I’ve never run away before; I don’t know how this works. I don’t even really know how to use money. Maybe I sho
uld hurry up and get back home before they realize I left, I think, quickly weighing it. I’m going to be in so much trouble when they find out that I tried to run away.

  “Calm down,” Alvin assures me. “Right now we’ll rest. Then tomorrow, we’ll figure out what to do.”

  His words soothe my nerves only a little while a feeling inside seems to warn me that something is very wrong. I’m fourteen years old, alone in a motel room in a strange city with a man who’s ten years older than I am. The pieces of this equation somehow don’t add up to safety and protection. But, this was my only hope. I’ve trusted Alvin all along up to now, but I start to weigh out how I might be able to defend myself. He’s the same height as me, but he’s broader. In a physical fight, we might be a match, but I’ve already seen that he has a lot of confidence in himself… and by now I certainly know that when a man really wants something from me, there’s not much I can do to make him stop.

  Alvin begins to take off his clothes. “Get ready for bed,” he instructs me. “We have to make sure they’re not looking for you.”

  I enter the bathroom to change as he directed, then I brush my teeth. I also wash up and put on a clean pair of panties and bra under my nightgown, as Mother has taught me. When I step out of the bathroom and stand at the foot of the bed, there’s a smile on Alvin’s face. “Get in,” he tells me.

  I approach the bed slowly. As I get in and begin to situate myself under the covers, he says, “Take the nightgown off.”

  I pause, motionless. “Take my nightgown off?”

  “Yeah. Why do you need to wear all that to bed?”

  “Because I’m going to bed.”

  “Take off the nightgown.” He begins to pull it over my head. My ears blaze hot with the alarm in my head, but not knowing what else to do, I slowly lie down. Alvin cups his elbow around my head on the pillow, and says, “You’re beautiful.”