Making Manna
By: Eric Lotke
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Libby Thompson is just fourteen years old when she flees her abusive home with her newborn son, Angel. Now they must build a life for themselves on hard work and low wages, dealing with police who are sometimes helpful-but not always-and a drug dealer who is full of surprises. As Angel gets older, he begins asking questions about his family, and Libby's tenuous peace threatens to crumble. Can a son without a father and a young woman without a past make something beautiful out of a lifetime of secrets? Making Manna explores the depths of betrayal, and the human capacity to love, flourish, and forgive in the face of heartbreaking odds.
The
kindergarten classroom is bright with color. Sunny windows with
rainbow curtains look over a grassy playground. The floor is carpeted
in blue, scattered with yellow throw rugs and purple pillows. In the
center is a cluster of red tables with little green chairs; on each
table sits a stack of paper, and jars with pencils, crayons, and
little scissors with rounded points.
Angel
stands by himself in the corner. His clothes are all new to him, but
every one of them came used from Goodwill and the Salvation Army. The
room is filled with kids, but nobody seems to notice Angel standing
quietly.
Two
girls in matching red Elmo sweaters greet each other with a hug, and
chatter excitedly about a playgroup called LittleKinz. Two boys in
Redskins jerseys dare each other to jump into the deep end of the
pool when they get home. One tells the other that his parents can’t
use their opera tickets on Saturday. “My mom said to tell your mom
that you can have them if you want.”
The
only African American child is in the center of a little crowd,
dressed in bright pink from top to bottom. She wears a pink shirt
covered by a pink vest, pink pants with pink socks and shoes, and a
pink hat with a pink feather. “We made the biggest dog fort!” she
is telling the other kids. She and her sister found “every blanket
and towel in the house” and hung them over the sofas and chairs in
the living room until the “the whole room was full.” They crawled
around in the space underneath and made space for all their “stuffy
dogs” so each one had a room of her own.
“We
played in it all day,” she says. “But then the maids cleaned it
up. That ruined it.”
Eventually
the teacher moves to the front of the room. “Come on up, boys and
girls. Welcome to kindergarten. I’m Ms. Milton and I’ll be your
teacher. We’re going to spend the whole year together!” Ms.
Milton is wearing blue jeans and a green blouse with flowers, and her
hair is entirely silver-gray.
“Who
here knows how to write his name?”
Almost
every hand in the class goes up. Angel’s doesn’t.
“That’s
wonderful!” Ms. Milton cries. “I thought you looked smart!” She
ushers them toward the tables and sets them to work making name tags
for themselves. “There are stickers and crayons,” she explains.
“You can decorate them anyway you like.”
Angel
stays where he is, rooted in place at the edge of the hurly-burly,
while Ms. Milton bustles around setting the kids up and passing out
the supplies.
“Done
already?” she says to the African American girl in pink. She peels
the back of the sticker that now says Veronica West and places
it in the center of her shirt. “Everyone else do like Veronica,”
she says. “Peel off your sticker and put it on when you’re done.
You can keep drawing until everyone is finished.”
Another
girl raises her hand. “I’m done,” she says.
“Peel
your sticker and put it on,” Ms. Milton replies.
She
turns and all but stumbles on Angel, standing silently in his space.
“What have we here?” she asks.
Angel
straightens his back and stands tall. “My name is Angel Thompson,”
he says. “I don’t know how to write my name.”
Ms.
Milton seems almost embarrassed that she hadn’t seen him earlier.
“Then we’ll teach you,” she says with a smile. “That’s what
we’re here for.” She waves toward a teachers’ aide who Angel
only now notices, also standing quietly to one side of the room. She
brings Angel to a special table by himself, not far from the others,
but clearly separate.
By
the end of the morning, Angel is pretty good at writing his name and
knows a lot of other letters besides. The teachers’ aide, Miss
Stephanie, spends most of her time with Angel, though occasionally
another child comes over for a few minutes’ attention. For lunch he
eats the sandwich his mom made for him, peanut butter and jelly, with
two Hershey’s kisses on the side. “That’s what my mom always
made for me,” she’d said.
The
activity after lunch is drawing. The children are again shown to the
desks with the papers and crayons, and invited to draw pictures of
their families.
“Can
I draw my dog?” asks Veronica West.
“Your
dog, your cat, your house. Anything you want,” says Ms. Milton.
“But start with your family.”
Angel
is placed into the tables with the other children, but near an edge,
and Miss Stephanie gives him special attention.
This
at least is familiar to Angel. Miss Josephine’s day care had
crayons and papers—though not as many colors—and Monet loves to
draw at home. With encouragement from Miss Stephanie, Angel draws
three stick figures in a row.
“Who’s
the tall one?” Miss Stephanie asks. She’s pretty tall herself,
with long black hair and eyeglasses in a big round circle. She wears
blue overalls over a yellow turtleneck.
“That’s
my mom.”
“Which
one is you?”
Angel
points to the smallest stick figure, drawn in the same pink crayon as
his mother. “That’s me,” he says. “My name is Angel.” He
points to his nametag and his face lights up in a smile. Then he
reaches back for the crayons and for a minute it’s as if Miss
Stephanie doesn’t exist. He leans close over his drawing, all his
attention on the little figure at the end of the row. Carefully,
deliberately, he retraces the lines and redraws the figure. Then
letter by letter, he spells out his name under the drawing. He looks
back up at Miss Stephanie, and points back and forth between the
picture and the word. “Angel,” he says. “That’s me!”
“That’s
you, all right,” Miss Stephanie cheers. She reaches down for a hug
and a pat. “You’re the Angel.” The she points to the third
figure, midway in height between Angel and his mom. “Is that your
dad?” she asks.
Angel
looks at her like she asked which one is the elephant. The question
makes no sense. “I don’t have a dad,” he says.
“Surely,
you have a dad somewhere,” protests Miss Stephanie. “Are your
parents divorced?”
Angel
stays silent.
“Does
he live in a different state?”
“Mom
says he died in a car accident,” Angel explains at last. “With my
mom’s parents too. It’s just the three of us that’s left.” He
pauses as if he’s going to have more to say, but then nothing
follows, and he looks blankly down to the page.
“So
who is this?” Miss Stephanie asks, her finger is still on the third
figure. “Your older brother?”
“She’s
my sister.”
“Why
is she drawn in brown?” Angel and his mom are stick figures drawn
in pink crayon, but his sister is brown.
“Because
she looks like her.” He points toward Veronica West. “She says to
tell the truth when I draw.”
Lights
are starting to go off in Miss Stephanie’s eyes, as if she is
starting to understand. She looks carefully at Angel, who clearly has
no African blood in his veins. “Do you and your sister have the
same mom?” she asks.
“No,”
says Angel. “She has her own separate mommy.”
“The
same dad?”
“Nope,”
Angel replies. “She has her own daddy too. His name is Zeb. She
tells me that I met him once. But I was a baby. I don’t remember
it.”
Now
Miss Stephanie is again looking confused. “If you have a different
mom and a different dad, what makes her your sister?”
“She’s
not legally my sister,” with an emphasis that suggests he’s
heard it said this way before. “She’s in a different foster
family but she lives with us.”
“Why’s
that?”
“She
likes us better. We’re nicer than the foster family. I met them a
couple of times. They have lots of foster kids and my mom—my real
mom—says they only do it for the money.”
All
this time Miss Stephanie had been standing up over Angel, and leaning
down toward him. Now she gets down on her knees so she’s nearer his
height. “What’s your sister’s name?”
“Monet.
Like the artist.”
Miss
Stephanie smiles. “Does she like to draw?”
“She
loves it! Especially with colors. We draw all the time.” He leans
in close, takes advantage of her proximity to whisper confidentially
in her ear, “She’s in sixth grade.” Then he gathers himself to
say something difficult, and minding his diction, he concludes,
“She’s in Sidney Lanier Middle School.”
“Good
work,” says Miss Stephanie, beaming. “That’s great. I was an
intern at Sidney Lanier.”
Angel
looks brightly back at her. “Her bus leaves at 7:10, a whole hour
before mine.”
“Thanks
for telling me,” says Miss Stephanie. “Do you know where Monet’s
parents are? Her real parents?” She smiles as she echoes his
way of saying it.
“Yes.”
“Where
are they?”
Angel
slows down and straightens up to tackle something difficult again.
“The Virginia Department of Corrections,” he says. He pauses to
make sure he got it right.
Miss
Stephanie stands up and steps away.
“Mom
is in Fluvanna and Dad’s in Nottoway,” Angel concludes with a
triumphant smile, naming the prison where each is held. He got it all
right.
And
just in time, too. Because at that moment, Ms. Milton calls
everyone’s attention back to the center of the room. “Time to
pack up,” she says. “All done drawing. Now it’s quiet time.”
Miss
Stephanie and Ms. Milton shepherd the kids to a giant double-door
closet, filled with rolled-up soft mats, one for each kid. The two
boys in Redskins jerseys have a little push scuffle about who goes
first, but it is quickly broken up, and soon enough each child has
unrolled a mat and is lying quietly on the floor. Angel picks a spot
on the edge, between Miss Stephanie’s desk and the window. He
doesn’t sleep, but he lies quietly listening to the sounds. Some
kids are reading, and turning pages in their books. Other kids are
breathing in a way that makes Angel think they’re asleep. Outside
he hears birds. They sound like the same ones he has at home,
sometimes singing at random, and sometimes in response as if they’re
talking to each other. A teacher quickly hushes any children who
talk.
What
seems like a few minutes later, a church in the distance chimes one
o’clock. Ms. Milton starts to circle the room. “Wakey, wakey,”
she says. “Time to roll.” She and Miss Stephanie supervise the
kids standing up to roll their mats and use the bathroom. Angel is
the first one with his mat rolled and returned to the closet. He
helps some other kids roll their mats and work out the tricky elastic
bands that hold them shut.
“Thank
you very much,” says a blonde haired girl in a blue tank top.
“You’re
welcome,” Angel replies.
Veronica
West has her mat rolled but can’t get the elastics to stay in
place. “Want a hand?” says Angel, scooting in beside her.
She
looks at him like he’s holding a gun to her head. “I can do it,”
she declares. The elastic snaps loose again and the mat starts to
unroll. She scowls at him. “Look what you made me do!”
Angel
reaches down to arrest the mat. “Hold it like this,” he suggests.
“Like
as if you know,” says Veronica West, as she rips the mat away from
him and sets it down to start anew a few steps away.
Angel
leaves her be and stands quietly to the side until all the mats have
been put away. Veronica West is last, until Miss Stephanie takes her
mat away, fixes the elastics and replaces it gently into the closet.
“Story
time,” says Ms. Milton. “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.”
She holds in the air a giant book, with a picture of a little blond
girl and a family of bears on the cover.
Some
children shout out in enthusiasm. “Hooray!” Angel hears, and from
behind him, “My favorite!”
Other
kids aren’t so happy. “Not again,” says one of the boys in a
Redskins jersey. His friend grumbles but Angel can’t make out the
words.
Angel
himself doesn’t know the story of Goldilocks and the Three
Bears. Indeed, he doesn’t know many stories at all . . . though
he knows he likes them. The other kids all push around Ms. Milton,
and she directs them to sit around her in a loose circle. Angel soon
finds himself on the outside edge.
Ms.
Milton opens the book so it stretches across her lap. He’s never
seen a book so large in his life. Miss Josephine had a scattering of
books, though none nearly so big, and she rarely read them.
“Once
upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks,” begins Ms.
Milton. She holds up the book so everyone can see the giant picture
of the pretty blond girl.
“She
went for a walk in the forest.” Again she holds up the book to show
the pictures. Trees in the sunshine, a deer in the shade and birds
flying above.
“Pretty
soon, she came upon a house.” Ms. Milton holds up the picture of a
wooden cottage. “She knocked and, when no one answered, she walked
right in.”
The
audience murmurs in anticipation. Angel, too, senses the
possibilities.
Showing
the pictures as she goes, Ms. Milton tells the class how Goldilocks
explores the house. One bowl of porridge is too hot and one too cold,
but the third is perfect so she eats it all up. One chair is too big
and one is too small, and the small one breaks when she tries to
squeeze in. Then at last Goldilocks comes to the beds. One is too
hard and one is too soft. But the third bed is just right. She lies
down to take a nap.
“Don’t
do it!” cries one of the Redskins boys. Other kids laugh.
“Stay
awake,” warns another.
But
Goldilocks can’t hear them. Soon she falls asleep in the bed.
Angel
leans forward in anticipation.
Soon
the owners of the home come back, and they’re bears! Ms. Milton
holds up the pictures for all to see. A big scary papa bear, a
friendly momma bear, and a cute little baby bear. A family of bears
who live in the woods. Before long they find the chairs that didn’t
fit and the smallest one that broke. They find the porridge that
Goldilocks tasted and the perfect one she’d finished off. Each
discovery makes them angrier than the last. Eventually, they find her
upstairs in their bed.
Goldilocks
wakes up in horror at the three hairy beasts . . . “and runs
straight out the door and into the forest, crying mommy, mommy, mommy
all the way home.”
The
kids all cheer. Ms. Milton holds the giant book aloft, pages open to
Goldilocks tearing through the woods with the bears chasing behind.
One
girl echoes, “Mommy, mommy, mommy all the way home.”
Another
cries out, “Run faster!”
Ms.
Milton lets them celebrate awhile, then encourages them onwards.
“How’d you like it?” she asks the class.
The
children respond with more cheers.
“Do
you think she made it home?”
Again
more cheers.
“Does
anyone have any questions?”
At
first the room is silent. The children don’t seem to know quite
what to say. Eventually Veronica West raises her hand.
“What’s
on your mind, Miss Veronica West?” Ms. Milton inquires.
“I
want to know if bears can have dogs.”
“I
didn’t see any in the story . . . but yes, I suppose they can. I
don’t see why not.”
The
blonde girl in the blue tank top who Angel helped with her mat raises
her hand.
Ms.
Milton singles her out. “What’s your name?”
“Tammy
Atford.”
“What’s
your question, Tammy Atford?”
“Does
she get in trouble?”
“What
do you think?”
“I
bet she does.”
“Then
I bet you’re right. Seems like she didn’t even make the bed!”
All
the kids laugh. Ms. Milton keeps the conversation moving on along
those lines, calling on every child by name and sometimes asking them
to repeat their names for all to hear. Some kids are worried about
the broken chair and want her to say she’s sorry. All of them hope
she gets home safely. Angel doesn’t say a word. But he’s sitting
in a place with a good view of the book and he studies the artwork on
the cover, especially the red cardinal in the tree.
“Is
there anything else?” Ms. Milton asks at last. Does anyone have
anything else to say or ask?” The room is silent while she looks
around.
Finally,
Angel sits up straight and raises his hand. Ms. Milton sees him
immediately and leans his way in encouragement. “What’s on your
mind, little Angel?”
“My
name is Angel Thompson,” he says.
“Thank
you, Angel. What’s on your mind?”
He
gathers himself to speak deliberately. “It’s about the porridge,”
he says. “That’s like oatmeal, right?”
“Yes,
porridge is like oatmeal.” She makes a gesture as if stirring and
eating from a bowl in her hand. “Is there something you’d like to
say about the porridge?”
“Why
doesn’t she mix it?”
Ms.
Milton looks at him in confusion. “Mix it?”
“One
bowl is too hot. One is too cold. She could mix them. Put too hot and
too cold together. Then she’d have more porridge that’s all just
right.”
Ms.
Milton’s eyes open wide in comprehension. Mix the porridge, of
course!
Angel
forges ahead boldly. “She could still eat the bowl that’s just
right. But if she’s hungry she can eat even more.”
Now
all of the kids seemed to understand. A positive murmur fills the
room. He catches some words behind him. “Mix the porridge, mix the
temperature!” Someone else says “hot and cold together” while a
different voice says “more to eat!”
Veronica
West’s voice rises above the hubbub. “She’d get fat.”
“Not
from one bowl of oatmeal,” protests Angel. “And she seems to be
hungry.” He finishes with words he’s heard many times around the
house. “You never know where your next meal is coming from.”
The
kids fall silent and look at him in surprise. They don’t seem to
have heard that before.
“But
she still needs to pay for it,” he concludes. He looks deeply
troubled, like he’s solved one problem but raised another. “I
don’t know how she can do that.” He turns to Ms. Milton for
answers. “Does she have any money? Does her mom work at night?”
Still
Angel is the only one talking. The room is silent while Angel waits
for an answer, but at that moment the school bell rings. The kids all
jump up like they know what it means, though Angel waits for Ms.
Milton to make the announcement. “All done for the day. See you
tomorrow!”
Eric Lotke has spent his career driving change in the prison system. He’s spent time providing legal counsel
Who is your
favorite author? Favorite book?
I don’t really have
favorites. My tastes are diverse and changing. I enjoy biographies by
Doris Kearns Goodwin and political science by Jacob Hacker.
The best novel I read
lately was The Master Butchers Singing Club
by Louise Erdrich. It’s copyright 2002 but the setting is America
post WWI and the characters are timeless. Men
We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward was a highlight of
2015 and I expect it to last a while. It’s the memoir of an African
American woman in low-income America. All of the men important in her
life disappear over a couple of years — shot, drugged, suicide or
jailed. But somehow the police who happily patrol the neighborhood
every night with searchlights can’t manage even to arrest the drunk
white driver who kills her brother.
I’ve also been delighted
to re-read John Green’s The Fault in Our
Stars. The first time was on my daughter’s
recommendation. The second time was voluntary after seeing
the movie.
What inspired you
to write Making Manna?
Trigger warning. This
story has a really bad beginning.
Twenty years ago I was
working on a death penalty case. The young man on death row was the
product of an incestuous rape. I wrote those words in his social
history — “product of an incestuous rape.” The phrase was so
distasteful that I horrified even myself. The case came and went but
those words stuck with me.
Years later, I wanted to
write something hopeful and uplifting. The world is a mess. I wanted
to say something nice.
So I went back to that
kid. I started there but gave him a different ending. I took the
worst beginning I could imagine and turned it into something
positive.
What was your
favorite part about writing the book?
This was really
interesting. When I wrote a scene that was happy and light, I was in
a better mood at bedtime. When I wrote a scene that was dark or
dreary, I wasn’t as joyful in real life. Putting myself into the
mood to create the scene expanded beyond the page.
I suppose it went the
other way, too. One weekend I had a lot of time to write and I was
looking forward writing the scene that came next. I expected it to be
happy and triumphant. As it turned out, I was a little blue that
weekend. Maybe I had a cold, something was wrong at work or the kids
were annoying. Whatever. I don’t recall. But I remember being a
little down as I started … and it is quite clear that this
fundamentally happy scene has a melancholy undertow. I always wonder
if that undertow was inherent in the material and it would have been
there anyway, or if it reflects my temper over the weekend.
In any case, I quite like
the complexity and I never sought to iron it out.
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Blog tour hashtag: #MakingManna
Thanks for the post, Book Junkie. I hope you enjoy Making Manna! Have a great day ... and keep in touch.
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