Patina

“I would’ve smashed each and every one of them cups on the floor. And I would’ve smashed more of them two years later when my mother had two toes cut off her right foot. And six months after that, when she had that whole foot cut off. And six months after that–three years ago–when my mother had both her legs chopped off, which, I’m telling you, would’ve left the whole stupid cabinet empty. Broken mugs everywhere. Nothing left to drink from. But I didn’t. Instead, I just swallowed it all. And wished this was all some kind of invisible, pretend…something. But it wasn’t.”

Patty explains the anger she feels after her father’s passing and mother’s leg amputations. This passage also shows the origins of Patty swallowing her emotions rather than expressing or processing them.

“I was waiting for them to ask. Waiting for them to be normal. Or at least treat me normal.”

Because of the responsibilities she takes on at home, and because of the events of her past, Patty feels like she doesn’t fit in at her wealthy charter school. Patty tries to make small talk with her group project partners about their weekends, but she is disappointed when they do not reciprocate. To Patty, their insensitivity is just another sign that she doesn’t belong.

“Now this baton represents the energy of our team. When we’re passing it from one person to the next, the team’s energy stays, like you said, normal. But if anyone decides that they don’t want to pass it, they don’t want to take part in it, well then, that energy is knocked off balance and your teammates are left empty-handed. Weakened.”

Coach introduces an important lesson to Patty that will have lasting implications in the text. He uses the baton as a symbol for the team’s energy and to teach Patty that her attitude affects others. This is one of the central lessons that Patty learns over the course of the text as she competes as a member of the 4 x 800 relay team, and it introduces the theme “Depending on Others.”

“I had to adjust. Started taking bigger steps in hopes of steering clear of those floppers. And it worked, but then she adjusted to my adjustment and still caught my big toe. Argh!”

Patty and her relay teammates practice moving in sync by learning to waltz. Patty and her partner initially struggle, but the beginnings of working together as a team appear as Patty learns to adjust her movements to her partner’s. This moment develops the theme “The Importance of Depending on Others,” as Patty must work with her partner in order to progress.

“All I know is it just seemed like something somewhere (um… legs don’t got souls, right?) was telling me to do it. Pushing me to do it. Not just for me. But for dad. And for Ma. And for Maddy, who (bonus!) I suddenly–thankfully–had an answer for. Pinky promise and all.” 

Patty explains more details about the origins of her interest in running. She feels responsible for running to keep her promise to Maddy, to feel connected to her father, and to honor her mother. Running becomes Patty’s answer to all these expectations she places on herself.

“I was so mad. So mad. White mother? I’m the daughter of Bev Jones. And she don’t make no junk.”

Patty is angry when Krystal says that Patty must be so stuck up because she has a white mother. Patty doesn’t necessarily think that her having a white mother is an insult, but she is insulted by the erasure of her biological mother, Ma. Patty repeats the phrase “she don’t make no junk” when she needs to remember where she came from and what her roots are to draw inner strength.

“This temper ain’t a new temper. Breaking invisible teacups. Smashing them everywhere. No, this ain’t new. I just be keeping it pushed down, all the way down in my legs. See, there was this weird period between my dad’s passing and my mother losing her legs that my mom always calls ‘the funky zone’ because I was acting, well…funky. Temper on a billion. As soon as somebody started with me–even if they looked like they wanted to start–I would finish it.”

Patty explains that her inner anger comes from the trauma she sustained in childhood. She uses the phrase “funky zone” to describe the unresolved anger that gnaws at her because she was never able to fully process what happened to her. There is evidence throughout the text that Patty is still navigating this “funky zone.”

“You know how you can tell if a person is looking at you, or looking at you? Yea, there was none of that extra sting in her eyes. She was just…looking at me. Like she was trying to see me.”

This is an important moment after her fight with Krystal in which Patty feels seen and understood. Despite their differences, Patty and her relay teammates come together with the common goal of running well in the relay. To do this, they try to work in sync both on and off the track.

“It just never hit me that I don’t really talk about my actual dad. Not even to Cotton. Not to nobody. And so this simple question about whether or not my dad still makes beats tightened the skin around my bones.”

Patty has a strong reaction to Becca asking a question about her father that implies he is still alive. This causes Patty to come to the uncomfortable realization that she never talks about her biological father, or the fact that he has died, and that this has implications for the way that Patty has (or hasn’t) processed the hard experiences of her past. The author uses figurative language, “tightened the skin around my bones,” to reveal the tension Patty feels.

“Actually, if I’m being honest, I don’t really remember talking to Momly about anything. At least not about her. Didn’t realize that until that moment.”

Patty is surprised to learn about Momly’s past, and just how much she and Momly have in common. Patty realizes that in her determination to be strong and to keep her family functioning, Patty has forgotten the ways Momly also helps their family function, too. Patty’s growing awareness of those around her signifies that she’s coming out of survival mode and is beginning to mature.

“Light work compared to what my mother had me doing, but it was all I needed to make me feel like I was honoring her, y’know, and like I wasn’t completely taking a handout.” 

Momly explains her past and the adult responsibilities she took on as a child. Momly’s past parallels Patty’s own experiences, and helps Patty to not only understand Momly better, but to see the ways Momly tries to support Patty. Momly and Patty share a predilection for self-sacrifice.

“Folks who try to do everything are usually avoiding one thing.”

Momly offers this quote as a lesson to Patty. Momly shows that she understands why Patty feels responsible for so many things beyond her age, but that she doesn’t have to, or that doing so won’t change her past or life circumstances. Patty tries to do everything for herself without ever asking for help or support from others, and in doing so she not only risks breaking under the pressure but never really healing from the traumas of her past.

“My heart lurched at diagnosis. There’s ‘die’ in that word.”

Patty has an aversion to words like dialysis and diagnosis because they have the word “die” in them. This is another way Patty’s past trauma continues to affect her and resurfaces in moments of stress or tension, such as when Momly and Maddy are in a car accident. She clearly fears losing the people she loves, and that fear is constantly present.

“But I knew Maddy. I could look in her face and see that she wasn’t so sure that things were going to be fine.”

Because of her age, Maddy relates to the events of her and Patty’s shared past differently from Patty. This quote is an example of how Maddy’s own childhood trauma manifests. While another six-year-old might be comforted by the promise that “everything is going to be okay,” Maddy knows enough, even at her young age, to know that this is not always the case.

“These things I hadn’t really thought about because Momly always just…did them. Which I also never…really…thought about.”

After Momly’s car accident, Patty realizes how much Momly has done for her and her family. Momly doesn’t do everything perfectly, but her quiet presence while in the hospital causes a hole in Patty’s family that before now Patty didn’t understand. She’s beginning to realize that she already depends on others—one of the novel’s major themes.

“But he clearly had no idea who I was. Patina Jones. No junk. Frida in a suit. Mary J. Blige in track shoes.”

Patty thinks this in reaction to a male teammate questioning her running abilities. Though Patty learns how to function as a team member, she still is fiercely competitive and invokes the images of strong women and role models Frida Kahlo and Mary J. Blige to illustrate her confidence.

“Relay is about everyone pulling their weight. But sometimes, there has to be one person to just take over. Take the inside lane, and go for blood. Make a decision, because sometimes, there won’t be a leader there to tell you. There won’t be a coach or a forerunner or a roadmap. Sometimes, you just gotta make a decision, take a turn and see what happens. If you trust yourself, nine times outta ten, you’ll get to where you’re supposed to be.”

Patty proves herself to have leadership abilities when she leads her relay teammates back to the park. Patty trusts herself to take a risk in this scene, something that she doesn’t always feel empowered to do. This quote shows Patty’s realization that strong leadership also has a function in teamwork—while she must depend on others, they may also depend on her.

“See, I told Coach that if Lu and Ghost had to run, then so did I. That as a newbie, we also have to win and lose together, hold each other up.”

Lu, Ghost, and Sunny are Patty’s fellow track team newbies. Their relationship is not the central focus of the text, but the three boys act as a steady support system for Patty throughout the text. They are the only members of the track team that Patty feels she can truly be herself with and that understand her. She is the most vulnerable version of herself when she is with them, and they are the same with her.

“But what was I supposed to say? I mean, I was fine because I had to be.” 

Patty feels the pressure to keep everything together and to never allow her emotions to take over. When her uncle asks if everything is okay, Patty admits to herself that she is not, but that she doesn’t feel that being anything other than okay is a viable possibility. Patty feels that others rely on her, and she cannot be vulnerable.

“Keep it together. Come on, Patty. Keep it together. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t help but think about my life without my little sister, without Momly. My life without my mother, or uncle. And even though I was grateful for all of them, I wondered how my life would be different if my dad had just…woke up. Why couldn’t he have just woke up? If he was here, I could just be… regular. But I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t say nothing. So I just nodded at my uncle, who was now wiping tears from his own cheeks, and swallowed my pretend cupcake. And then, it all burst out of me. All those stupid tears I’d been cramming back finally broke loose. I cried me a flood.” 

This passage holds the emotional climax of the text, in which Patty finally gives in to her emotions and no longer tries to put on a strong or brave face. In doing so, Patty uncovers a new kind of strength in vulnerability and admitting that she struggles with her past traumas. She acknowledges that she has a strong family support system, but that she can still mourn the loss of her childhood. This scene shows that Patty does not always need to be strong or brave to earn love or find acceptance, and that it is okay for her to not always be okay.

“It’s basically saying that their bravery should be honored. That they did what they had to do, and they did it together, even though it seemed almost impossible to win.” 

Patty responds to a teacher’s question in English class about the poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” The poem is a metaphor not only for Patty’s relay team, who had to overcome their interpersonal obstacles to succeed, but also for Patty’s family. Her family has been through enormous strife and struggle, most recently Maddy and Momly’s car accident, but their connections to each other remain intact, as does their support for one another.

“He thought it would be good for her leg, but turned out what it was really good for was her confidence. And I kept thinking about that, not just in class, but for the rest of the day–that that’s kinda what running was to me. A way to shut people up. A way to…I guess, sometimes even shut myself up. Just turn it all off. Leave everything, all the hurting stuff, the unregular stuff that seemed so regular to me, in the dust.”

This passage signals a shift in Patty’s relationship to running. For much of the narrative, Patty uses running to honor her family and at times running is even a source of stress for her when she feels she isn’t performing well. When she thinks about the context of Frida Kahlo using sports to bolster her confidence, Patty realizes that running has become that for her. She doesn’t have to win every event, and running isn’t the only way she can honor her family. Running in these lines becomes something that Patty derives inner strength from.

“These people. They were my constellation, or however Becca was saying it. The dots all connected.”

Patty spends much of the text concerned with the idea that she doesn’t belong or doesn’t fit in. At the end of the book, she is surrounded by people who love her and support her, and she recognizes that even when she feels isolated, she is part of a larger system of connections. She recalls seeing the constellations on the ceiling in Becca’s bedroom and feels that even though she may not always fit in in every room, she has a solid system of support behind her.