listening for sara
fiction by may livere
It was on a Monday night. I stood by myself, in the shadows, partly hidden by the comforting cover of darkness. There was a lamppost nearby, casting a misty glow from its dim fluorescent bulb. I longed to lean my back against it, to feel its coolness against my body. But I did not dare. I had to stay hidden and alert, my eyes constantly scanning the empty highway for potential customers. And cops. Always on the look out for their annoying patrol cars. A night in the cold was better than a night in a police cell.
Guessing, it must have been past midnight. I had lost count of time. It was no use keeping it anyway because I instinctively knew when it was time to leave. Three years on the job had taught me that. Three years of the same thing, night after night of one endless episode, punctuated by glimpses of daylight.
I shuffled my feet, precariously balanced in murderous six-inch stilettos. The chilly night air bit right through my stockings, leaving my legs numb. I was tired. And sore between my legs. I could still smell his onion breath on me. He had been huge and heavy with a peculiar smell of raw meat. Felt like it too, rolling all over me and pumping his way to damnation.
I paced back and forth, keeping to the shadows. It was a bad night, all I needed was one more customer and I would be done. There were around three of us. On a good night, we would have been ten or more. Friday was a good night. The one closest to me was leaning against a wall, her outline barely visible in the black of night. In the light her hair would be purple, the brightest shade of purple I had ever seen on someone's hair. She was the youngest of us and hooked to dope. The kind of person I would never want my daughter to become. She said she was nineteen, but I knew it was a lie. She had to be sixteen if not fifteen, I could see it in her eyes, the same way I saw the drugs. I was least concerned about her, the one I was most interested in was the other one, the new one.
She stood on the other side of the road, brightly illuminated by a street light directly above her. She was tall and striking, with a certain elegance about her. She did not belong in our crowd or in the streets. I wondered what had brought her here. There was always a story behind it. Each of us had a story to tell, sometimes we twisted it and lied, but there was always a story.
For the two weeks she had joined us, she had mostly kept to herself, hardly ever associating with any of us. She glanced in my direction and our eyes locked briefly before looking away. That is the way she was, selfish even with eye contact.
I rubbed my hands together in a futile attempt to keep warm. Celia flashed through my mind. She was home alone, in our cramped apartment pretending to be asleep, though we both knew she was awake waiting for me to return. She would be turning six in a few weeks' time. Maybe I would buy her a Barbie doll, or a mini tea set, or a puppy…a kitten probably. The neighbor's cat had given birth and Celia could not get over the meowy kittens. I was not sure. I lit a cigarette and shifted my weight from the right foot to the left. The purple haired one coughed from the darkness, miserable little coughs. As miserable as the empty road stretched out before us.
“Light?”
I looked up startled. I had not seen her cross the street. I clamped my cigarette between my lips and rummaged through my handbag for a lighter. She stooped and lit her cigarette from mine, disregarding my efforts to find her a lighter.
“Thanks,” she murmured, towering above me.
As I was closing my handbag, something slipped out and fluttered down to the pavement. I knew what it was…a photo of Celia. I always had it with me. I picked it up. The tall one leaned closer.
“My daughter,” I offered.
She reached for it.
“Her name is Celia.”
“She's pretty.”
“Yeah, just like her grandmother…grew up hearing just how pretty my ma was.”
“Is she with her?”
“No, Celia stays with me.”
She handed me my photo. We stood together in companionable silence, enjoying our cigarettes and hoping for customers. I was curious about her. She did not belong here, not like the purple haired one, or the rest, or me. She intrigued me. I wanted to know about her, ask her questions but I held back. Celia often told me I asked too many questions.
I broke the silence,“ I'm Jennifer, but they all call me Jenni.”
“Alice.”
She stood directly under the streetlight. My mother and daughter were pretty, but Alice was a different kind of pretty. She was what some people would call, arresting. The kind of face you looked at twice and never forgot for the rest of your life.
“Where are you from?” I asked not sure whether I should have asked in the first place.
“Down South.”
Silence took over again. There was a sudden thump behind us. I turned around, the purple haired one had rolled to the ground. I could make out her dim form lying on the pavement.
“What's with her?” Alice asked.
“Dope. She'll snap out of it.”
The on going silence again and furtive glances at each other when we thought the other was not looking.
“I'm leaving tomorrow, going north,” Alice said.
I puffed on my cigarette, she did not look like the kind to stay in one place for long.
“You can join me if you like.”
That took me by surprise. I searched her eyes for some kind of explanation. All I saw was open honesty. “Are you serious!” I asked.
“I'm all alone, spring's coming up. There's no better place to be than on the road.”
“There's nothing up North”. I could not believe I was even considering it.
Alice laughed. A short laugh that sounded like my mother's crystals when they broke. She reached out and touched my hair, “There's lots of flowers and trees and rivers and mountain air…and lazy afternoons.”
She made it sound sweet, like spring blossoms…spring blossoms on a virgin.
And that was all it took to get me on the road with a stranger. Her honest eyes, the kind that made you want to trust her without knowing why. And the sweetness of lazy afternoons and flowers, I could not remember what it felt like to lounge away days, watching clouds pass. The last time I had run off with a stranger, got me Celia to show for it. And my mother viciously kicking me out for it. I never forgave her for it, never would.
The next day we started off for the North. Celia, Alice and I. With the heady feeling of driving off into the rising sun without any particular destination in mind. We took turns driving the caravan, Alice's caravan. It was an old make, the kind that rattled on bumpy roads and had things going off on their own. Like the wipers suddenly purring against the windscreen without being turned on. Celia thought it was incredibly funny. I was still trying to figure out what I was doing with a total stranger in her caravan and dragging Celia along too. My mother had always told me I was naïve to a point of sheer foolishness, and as I sat there beside Alice with Celia between us, I could not help but think maybe she had been right.
Alice and Celia sung, for the most part of the morning. Sometimes I joined in, most times I did not. It was beautiful to just sit there, one arm around Celia's warm, tiny body, listening to her sing jingle bells though it was seven months to Christmas. The late-morning sun was on Alice's hair, falling gently on it and making it glow at the edges. It was beautiful and black and plentiful. There was very little conversation between us, in fact she much preferred talking to my daughter than she did to me.
“Why me?” I asked when they had paused in their singing.
Alice took her eyes off the road, long enough to throw me a puzzled stare.
“Why did you ask me to accompany you?”
Celia did not start off on another nursery rhyme as though sensing this was important.
“You looked like you needed a break,” Alice said, hands firmly on the wheel.
I laughed, a bit too shrilly than I would have liked, “And you go picking up poor, helpless sluts that look like they need a break^#033”
“I am one too you know, and everyone needs a break sometime.”
Celia turned to me haughty look on her face, “Mom, don't ruin this.”
Alice laughed her crystal-breaking laugh, I did not. I did not think it was funny.
“Lighten up! It is only a trip, no need to trip,” Alice added.
They resumed their singing. I looked at the landscape rolling by. She had been right about one thing though, it was absolutely beautiful. There were wild flowers everywhere, blues, purples, reds, yellows. And fields and fields of endless green grass. It reminded of home. Not my apartment, home, my mother's home. Five years, now almost six. Sometimes I wondered if my mother ever wondered what my daughter looked like. If she would be glad to know that Celia looked just like her, a carbon copy. Or maybe she was still ashamed of what I had done, bringing the family name to ruin.
We stopped for lunch at a little out-of-the-way restaurant beside the highway. A meal of French fries and soda, that is what Celia wanted. And ice cream too for her afterwards, courtesy of Alice. I could have been non-existent as far as Alice was concerned.
We got back on the road soon after, with me behind the wheel. Celia fell asleep on Alice's lap. I turned on the radio to cover up the gnawing silence between Alice and I.
“You remind me of her.”
The words were spoken so softly, I barely heard them.
“Who^#063”
“Sara.”
“Small and petite, with that naïve look,” she added.
“I hate that word…my mother could not get over it.”
Alice smiled, a sad tiny smile that barely touched her lips, “She was my twin sister.”
I detected something wrong in her voice, a hopelessness, “Did something happen to her?”
“Yeah. She's dead now.”
“Oh! I am sorry.” I did not know what else to say.
“My old man killed her…chased her away when he found out she was pregnant. She died trying to get rid of the baby.”
“You two must have been close,” I fumbled for words, the right words, and ended up with an obvious truth.
Alice looked outside the window, her eyes settling on something that only she could see. “You know something Jenni, I travel these roads searching for her. Year in, year out. Looking for a sign, anything, to show me that she's still with me you know.”
There was misery in her voice, a misery that made me feel hopeless and lost. I took my eyes off the road and briefly glanced at Celia sound asleep. I could have been Sara. Was her at some point, pregnant and lost, looking for somewhere to sleep, something to eat…only I did not take the fated turn, I decided to have my baby.
Alice tore her eyes off the landscape and looked at me. There were tears in them. “That night I saw you and you were her. And Celia, the baby I never got a chance to hold and love. Maybe it is a sign, maybe it is not.”
I was lost for words, so I just drove on. Everything was falling into place now. I somewhat understood why she had taken to Celia and not me, she blamed her sister for her death and I was a representation of her.
Alice reached out and touched my hair, letting it linger in her fingers. “This is the last trip I am taking up North. I am letting it go. It is what she would have wanted.”
“I am sorry,” I said, the words coming out in a whisper. Alice did not talk about it again, and I made a huge effort not to bring it up. We spent the night in a cheap motel and were off again early the next morning, with Celia and Alice singing their hearts out. I looked at the fields trying to find Sara and listening for her voice in the gentle breeze on my face, the smell of wild flowers wafting in through the rolled down window, Celia's jovial laughter…Sara was everywhere and nowhere. It was all in the signs. I had never met her but felt as though I had known her all my life. Maybe one day I would tell Celia about her, and about her auntie Alice.
On Celia's birthday, we chased butterflies and searched for bunnies. It was the best birthday present I could ever give my daughter. Maybe one day when she would have forgotten about this trip, I would remind her, and me, about her Auntie Alice. And of Sara's soft whispers in the wind.
about the author
May Livere is an undergraduate student, majoring in Communications with an emphasis in Film and Television Production. She started writing at age five, almost as soon as she could hold a pen. May lives lives with her family in a small factory town called Athi-river. She is twenty one years old.
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