Chapter Text
Jamie knows by the age of five that her mother fears her. It’s not hard to see, but she can’t understand why.
When Jamie’s not even one year old, she screams and throws a bowl of mushed peas into the wall across the room. Her mom backs away from her so quickly and hides behind the counter. She doesn’t come up until Jamie is hiccupping and sobbing with snot running down her face because ‘Momma gone, where she go, Momma!’.
Jamie is three when she wants to stay up past her bedtime because it’s her birthday tomorrow, and tomorrow is in a few hours (Momma had told her this earlier in the night so it must have been true). Momma’s voice is stern when tells her to go back up to bed for the third time. Jamie tries to argue her position, she’s almost four (almost a grown-up), she can stay up a little later, but Momma doesn’t budge an inch. In anger, Jamie stomps her foot and the reverb knocks Momma back down onto the couch. The hardwood floor is cracked, and Momma is shaking as she stares at Jamie. Before she can get up, Jamie runs back to bed. The floor is uncracked in the morning.
Currently, Jamie is five and sits in the car seat as her mom drives her home from ballet practice. Jamie hates ballet, not because it’s hard but because it’s boring and she is the only student in the huge gym. Every Tuesday afternoon at four after they finish up numbers for the day, Momma takes her to the big gymnasium and Ms. Catherine stands there in her pretty pink leotard and hair in a slick bun. Ms. Catherine never smiles, even when Jamie does her awesome plies that she practices at home. And Jamie knows they're awesome because she had Momma help her with them. Still Ms. Catherine stares at her. Ms. Catherine probably can’t smile, poor lady.
Jamie pouts as she watches the buildings pass by, pretending in her mind that a man is jumping from roof to roof to keep up with the car.
“How was ballet, Jay bird?” Momma asks from the front seat as she lowers the knob to her piano music. Momma always listens to piano music, or songs with the same person singing them for a while.
“Okay… Ms. Catherine didn’t smile again. Even when I told her the knock-knock joke about the pumpkin.”
“Really? That one’s hilarious, Ms. Catherine maybe just doesn’t have a funny bone.”
“Yeah… why am I the only one in ballet class?”
Momma doesn’t answer for a while, her eyes on the road. That’s very important.
“Well, maybe you’re so good at ballet that if you joined a ballet class with other little girls, they would get jealous.” Momma’s voice goes quieter as she talks.
“I’m not that special.”
Momma’s hands tighten on the steering wheel.
“Do you not want to do ballet anymore?”
“I don’t know,” Jamie says into her shirt, not looking up even though she knows Momma is looking at her through the mirror.
“Jamie? What’s wrong? Do you not like Ms. Catherine, we can try a different ballet teacher?”
“I don’t wanna do ballet, I don’t wanna- I just-” Jamie’s eyes burn and she hastily rubs at them. She doesn’t wanna cry, she doesn’t know why she’s sad, she just doesn’t know. But she can’t cry. Babies cry and she’s not a baby anymore, she’s five and shouldn’t cry! She’s a big girl. And big girls don’t cry!
“JJ?” She hears her mother’s voice like Momma is talking through a tube. The car is stopped. Jamie sees familiar looking houses through her window. They are home.
“I just wanna friend, I don’t wanna not do ballet anymore but I wanna friend too. Since Vanessa moved, there's nobody else here my age. And there's nobody else in ballet either. I want someone else in ballet so Ms. Catherine isn’t always looking at me like I’m gonna break something! I don’t like the gym, it’s too big and sometimes when Ms. Catherine says things that make me sad or mad her voice just bounces around the room and it hurts my ears and- and-”
Jamie can’t hold it in anymore, her eyes are burning and her chest is tight and her cheeks are wet. Her car door opens.
“Jamie, look at me.” Jamie does so, and watches as Momma’s face goes white. A scared face.
Jamie blinks up at her with hot eyes that hurt her head a little.
Momma’s heart is pounding as she pulls Jamie into a hug, tucking Jamie’s face into her chest. Jamie wraps her arms gently around Momma, last time she hugged Momma tight Momma had bandages on her chest for weeks.
“I’ll see what I can do, Jay bird.” Momma whispers into Jamie’s brown hair. “It’s okay to feel sad.”
Momma holds her for a long while and continues talking into her hair.
Jamie sniffles and cries some more into Momma’s shirt, the quick bu-bumps are loud in her ears and her eyes are cooling down.
“I love you, Momma.”
It doesn’t matter if Momma is terrified of her, she is all Jamie has and Jamie loves her.
“I love you too.”
Two weeks later, Momma tells her that some new kids moved into the neighborhood and are outside playing soccer.