Reportage

I shoved the bagel into my mouth. It stuck to my throat, making me thirsty, but I put another piece in and chewed. The onion flakes crunched into my teeth. I love onion bagels, but they’re so hard to find where I live. 

I’m not sure why they have them further south than in Douglasville, despite my store having every variety of powdery protein bars you could ever not want. Perhaps people just don’t like starting their breakfast with onion breath. Either way I bit into another piece, trying to distinguish the taste of sweet cream butter from the twang of onions. The room was almost dark and my free hand tapped absently at the laptop keyboard.

My mother was in the other room of her small, one bedroom, low income apartment. The bedroom door was wide open, but except for the light drizzling in from the barely open blinds in the living room, the house was dark and quiet. Except for my mother praying.

I sat on the couch in choked silence, half-listening, half-afraid to. My mother prays every morning, and when I visit her, she excuses herself not long after waking up to “start her day off with her Father.” I wait, preoccupying myself, trying to be respectful.

This time however, it was just me and her. My sister was back in Douglasville and I was here by myself. Her husband stepped out and I waited in the darkened living room with my breakfast, though I have no idea what I was waiting for. Her voice poured into the tiny room, rising and falling like deep breaths full of prayer. I half-listened, not out of disinterest but because I almost feel like I’m intruding when I hear her. I could hear her voice inflect again, begging, pleading. “Let her know You.” She begged, and I swallowed the last of my bagel—hard. I had no idea why, why “her” and “she” could mean so much, but I felt like she was praying for me. Perhaps it was guilt that set in, or shame. Not that I have no religion, or that I don’t know the Lord, but just the idea of my mother on her knees in a room where I could not dare see her. I was really, really thirsty.

I walked as silently as I could into the kitchen. My mother sniffled, crying with her prayer. I set my burgundy plate down on the counter, using my fingers to pad the drop. Then I opened the fridge and grabbed a Yoohoo and silently weaseled back to the couch. She was almost crying now, praising and pleading, and I sat on the couch, trying to push her voice out, trying to think. It felt intimate. I felt wrong. Who was I to intrude on her conversation? Her business. I set my head back on the couch and closed my eyes. My mother’s voice fell and I tried not to remember any words, tried to respect her privacy. I wondered if I was supposed to go in the room with her, fall in my knees and agree with her. I was ashamed that I hadn’t done it already, and scared that I didn’t know what would happen if I would. Would it seem in genuine? Disrespectful? Would I interrupt her midstream?

I sipped the Yoohoo and continued waiting, the laptop screen reflecting light off my face. Still unsure of what to wait for. My mother was sobbing now, her voice intelligible only to her, and perhaps God. Her voice lifted and bounced. I sat there in silence, letting her voice flood into the living room, and squeezing out the nagging at my ear.