The one to teach Patience to pray was her mother.

All that she could remember about the first time was that Shanice had seemed unsure about it even to herself, creaking and groaning as she sank onto the carpeted floor beside Patience’s bed before showing her how to put her hands together.

“You do it like this, and then you bow your head like this.” She craned her neck downwards. “Then you got to close yo’ eyes. It don’t work unless you close yo’ eyes, okay? Then you just… say what you need to say.”

Patience hadn’t liked the idea of someone in her head, but all it had taken was an optimally placed pinch for her to mimic her mother’s position.

A minute passed before she jolted. “Oh, I forgot; you need to say something like ‘Dear God’ so that He know you talking to him.”

It wasn’t her favorite thing in the world to do. In fact, she hated it. Her legs, folded beneath her, always fell asleep. There wasn’t ever a point where she was exactly sure what she was supposed to be doing, and whenever she peaked from beneath her lashes to see if her mother was finished, she seemed as lost as she was.

That was, until she realized that since her mother had introduced her to the praying, her attendance had improved until she was there before bedtime nearly every night.

Patience knew it would be alright if her mother arrived before the few working street lamps came on; she would sweep into the house and call for them from the front door. Like puppies, the two rushed and tumbled over one another to be the first at her feet. She’d forge through, her lips thinned as she went about the house. Right down to the fluff in the decorative pillows on the couch, she knew exactly where she’d left everything before she stepped out.

She’d drift through the front room, swatting at the couch as if she could knock the dirt and cigarette burn holes off of it with her hands. They were to wait in the kitchen whilst she finished her checklist, and only then did she acknowledge either of them.

“When was the last time ya’ll ate? Did yo’ daddy get ya’ll some food on the way home before he took his ass back to that barbershop?” The answer hardly ever changed.

Dinner would consist of gummy, chicken flavored ramen noodles that stuck to the bottom of their cereal bowls, clumping into unwieldy balls when they tried to scrape it into neat forkfuls like they’d seen in cartoons. She would stay only long enough to make sure they said grace, then disappeared into the kitchen to tangle herself in the cord of the landline.

Sometimes, if there was nothing to eat, she would mask this fact with cruelty. They would be herded into their room regardless of the time and she’d stand in the doorway like a gatekeeper, her hands clamped down tight onto her hips.

“Did you brush yo’ teeth? If I go in there and that toothbrush ain’t wet, we gon’ have a problem.” She had a voice like December wind.

When the question came up, it was always Isaiah that shifted his weight uncomfortably, unable to stand in place for more than twenty seconds. When their mother made a move to leave the room suddenly he was a blur of motion, squeezing past her legs in a beeline for the bathroom. Patience held her breath, the sound of the facet dribbling into the sink raising the flesh on her arms into a bumpy canvas in anticipation. It was all she could do to keep her face blank so as not to redirect her anger, rolling the loose flesh on the inside of her cheeks between her back teeth as she followed right after him. The bedroom door was shut behind her so that Patience wouldn’t be able to hear her scold him, but for all the good it did she might as well have not done it at all; the walls were so thin that she could hear the note in her tired voice regardless, sharp enough to cut the frozen hot dogs in the fridge in half.

“Boy, you think I’m stupid? You betta’ put some toothpaste on that brush and brush yo’ teeth before I do it for you. Nasty ass, I could smell yo’ breath even witcho mouth closed.”

When they returned, the blue residue around his lips told her that he had been shamed into obedience, and the scowl etched into his features told her that breakfast would be quiet the next morning. Patience would try not to sulk as they separated to their opposite sides of the room, kneeling over her bed before she could be told to do so. Clasping her hands together, she bowed her head. When she didn’t hear flesh against flesh, she assumed that Isaiah had mimicked her position without fussing.

“Gon’ head, say ya’lls prayers out loud. I wanna make sure you paying attention in Sunday school.”

This was before she learned that to earn her mother’s approval was a near impossible feat; it was something the younger version of herself craved, and so the words once more tumbled out of her mouth in nothing more than a regurgitated torrent.

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord her soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord her soul to take.

The only indication they received that they hadn’t messed up was the tiny, subtle nod she gave before immediately plunging the room into darkness, leaving the door cracked behind her in case of late-night conversation. Patience settled the ache in her heart with the knowledge that she at least knew where her mother was that night.

“I’m hungry,” Isaiah would whimper, the words so quiet that for a while, Patience wasn’t sure if they were his spoken aloud, or hers, echoing within her head.

She acted as if he hadn’t spoken, turning over carefully onto her side, flinching when the springs in the mattress groaned. A few moments passed before she felt it was safe enough to release the breath trapped within her lungs, tugging her Scooby Doo blanket over her shoulders. It was too small but it was all she had and so she curled herself into a ball, tucking her limbs in towards her chest so that none stuck out. Her stomach felt as if it were sucking in on itself, but she knew better than to complain; instead, she ate lungfuls of air until she felt full, wondering if she were to pray to God for breakfast, how he would deliver it.

She thought about Sunday school, about the unfinished bible study homework tucked into the bag she used for school during the year. Reverend Kidd spent the better half of the two-hour classes pouring over their workbooks with the two of them, but it wasn’t just because she had been given a book two grades too advanced that she didn’t understand. Patience knew it was important to nod when asked if she loved God, but most of the scriptures felt too big to grasp regardless of how many times the Reverend tried to break them down into bite sized pieces.

She traced the thin stream of butter colored light that sliced through the darkness from the hallway. Across the room, Isaiah flipped towards the wall. His mattress was newer than hers and had no complaints about his movement. She stared at what she thought was the back of his head, the nappy black mass of curls that was his hair blending into the darkness that, no matter how wide she opened her eyes, seemed to transform all of the previously bright colors of their room into muted shades of grey.

Isaiah couldn’t even be bothered to act as if he cared about what Kidd was saying; anytime she glanced away from her own workbook to his that was, for once, appropriate for his age, the margins would be full of senseless doodles and scribbling.

She wondered in silence what was going on in her little brother’s mind, if he understood too much and too little like her.

Next Chapter: 18