“August?” I heard Mama say. Then she started to sob.
CHAPTER 7
Miriam
1995
It took some effort, but finally Miriam managed to grab the bottle of Pappy Van Winkle off a high shelf in the kitchen. The kitchen mirrored the parlor in that it also had a high-beamed, conical alcove. But where the parlor was dark, the kitchen was bright and cream. Wood-paneled walls painted the color of buttermilk. Her father had hand-painted purple lilacs, clusters of purple lavender, and hummingbirds on the walls, too. Miriam remembered there were dates hidden in discreet black cursive among the flowers: January 1, 1863; December 7, 1941; August 14, 1945. And eye-level and hidden within a bouquet: June 6, 1943, her parents’ wedding day.
Miriam’s father had built the kitchen to resemble the intimacy of an old Italian restaurant. There was a huge butcher-block counter that took up an entire length of one wall. Pots and pans of all shapes and sizes hung from the high ceiling. The north wall was built with brick, and there, he had put the stove and the near-walk-in butcher’s fridge. Instead of a traditional kitchen table, he had built a breakfast nook complete with a U-shaped booth. A curved bench around the table held green, tufted-velvet cushions that Miriam remembered felt like sitting on air.
Miriam walked to the booth, where her sister sat on an emerald cushion, chain-smoking Kools. Miriam said nothing. She knew her sister well. An arched eyebrow or an upturned corner of the mouth was evidence enough of her judgment. But it was well past midnight. All the children asleep. What was the real harm?
Miriam poured August’s drink first. Poured a finger of the rye into her short, wide glass. Miriam eyed her own drink next, measuring a finger and then adding another ample splash. “Oh, why not?” she said, taking a seat across from her sister in the booth.
“Where’d you get this whiskey?” August asked.
Miriam winced as she sipped. “Stole it the night of the ball from the Officers’ Club.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did,” Miriam said and took another sip.
“Don’t make that a habit,” August said.
Miriam raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t I see another bottle of rye up there?”
August took a sip. “It’s for cleaning!” she snapped.
“What?” Miriam laughed, spitting out her drink.
“For when I need to clean out the men in my life,” August said. Just when the sisters were about to bicker, August would usually say something that sent Miriam into fits of hysteria, ruining any chance for a long-lasting argument. “And, you know, for cleaning out my throat,” August added.
“Girl, when’s the last time a man been up in here?”
August paused, her glass held midway to her lips. “A real one? Shit, not since our daddies.”
Miriam cackled long at that one. She set her drink on the table and held a hand up to cover her Cheshire cat grin. “You heard from Derek’s daddy?” she asked. If August could make any conversation funny, Miriam could make any moment carry the seriousness of a man’s last breath.
August almost spat out her drink. “I didn’t tell you? That nigga dead. Died in a knife fight in New Chicago. The Lord giveth, huh? Girl, you been gone a long-ass time.”
“You shouldn’t speak so of God. Or of the dead.” Miriam knew she shouldn’t be so critical of her sister when she herself, at times, doubted God. His Judgment. His irrational decisions. But Miriam was an older sister; she lived in criticism, if only because she wanted the best for her sister, wanted her life to be better in all ways from hers.
Miriam thought back to the moment she’d pulled into the long driveway of the house that afternoon. Pulled in front of a house more familiar to her than the blood running through her veins. She had made it home. On her own. Save for the grace of God and, most surprisingly, the kindness of an old white man. Miriam knew that God was a trickster. As He gave, He took. He gave her one hell of a mother, took a father. Gave her two children she’d cross the Sahara for, gave her this black eye, took her husband, her dignity. God was a duende. A sprite. He could take the form of anything He wanted. Maybe He had done so back in Sugar Tree.
Miriam saw distaste spread across her sister’s face.
“Who needs God when I got Al Green?” August said. “You know, he still preaches. Hand to God. Not five blocks away. Won’t sing nothing but gospel now, though. Ain’t that a bitch? Most beautiful voice on this earth, not five blocks ’way, and we can’t even hear him sing ‘Belle.’？”August took a sip and responded to Miriam’s judgmental raised brow with “Listen, Meer. I like believing in niggas I can at the very least see.” She held her glass of rye and motioned it in a circle. “And I haven’t seen a good man in ages.”
“If we don’t got God, Aug, who the hell do we got?” Miriam asked. She tried but could not contain the irritation in her voice. She hated that her sister did not share her faith. Miriam attended Mass because her mother did. She felt her faith was something bestowed upon her, something hereditary, something inherited, something that kept her close to her mother, who had left them all.
August laughed for a long time. Then she held up her glass. “We have this here whiskey.”
They clinked glasses.
“You always got something smart to say,” Miriam said, chuckling herself, deciding to let it go. It wasn’t like she went to Mass every Sunday herself. She wasn’t exactly in a position to preach, and she definitely didn’t have the energy to fight. At least not this one.
The dinner that night had been difficult. Without needing to discuss it, Miriam and August had sat down in the middle of the newly formed family, their bodies creating a barrier between Derek and the girls.
When Miriam had taken Joan into the bathroom, she dropped to one knee, undressed her daughter with the deftness only mothers possess, and simply held her, for a very long time, neither one of them saying a word.
At the center of the round dinner table was a tiny crystal box. Joan had been quiet throughout dinner, so Miriam opened the box and encouraged Joan with a nod to take one of the cards inside.
Joan hesitated for a second, but then took the card. Her eyes widened as she began to read the prayer written in gold on it. “？‘Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.’ Hebrews thirteen-two,” she read.
“How fitting,” August had said. “I reckon I’m cracking up several thousand angels right now. Somebody hand me my Emmy!”
Mya had let out a shrieking laugh and slapped her hand on the table, shaking the plates of lamb cooked in red wine, red buttered potatoes sprinkled with parsley, and steaming candied yams.
“My, do you even know what an Emmy is?” Joan had asked.
“Do you?” Derek snapped. It was the first time Derek had addressed Joan directly. Words chosen like a weapon. Silence was a gun. And when it went off, when it was fired, the entire table fell silent.
Miriam and August exchanged looks, then each woman’s eyes went to her respective child.
Miriam watched Joan put the card back slowly, carefully, in the glass box and close its lid. Joan then narrowed her eyes until they were mere slits set in her face. “I know more than you think,” she finally said. Then she crossed herself three times and picked up her steak knife.