Almost as soon as they found Uncle Bird, they started hearing faint, urgent sounds through the ringing in their ears. The screech of metal; stone breaking. Screams of people trapped inside the building. The fierce roar of fire engulfing both plane and building, peppered with the noise of metal snapping, stone falling.
That’s when they realized that people were running out of the building and that those people were burning. Daddy said he could smell it—charred hair and seared flesh.
I saw Daddy wipe his eyes with the back of his hand, whereas I had just let mine flow, the taste of my tears turning my coffee salty. We had started weeping at the same time some hours before. How similar we were…I was his daughter whether I wanted to be or not.
He took a sip of his coffee, and I realized his hands were shaking slightly. He looked more exhausted now than he had when he first walked in.
Early dawn light made the kitchen glow a pale blue. It had taken the length of the night to tell his story. I heard birds outside start to sing.
I looked at Mama. Her arms were crossed tightly in front of her again.
Uncle Bird passed a lit cigarette to Auntie August, who accepted. They had stood like that the entire time, their shoulders touching lightly.
Daddy cleared his throat. “I said ‘oo-rah’ and ran toward the broken wall, the one people were running out from. We all did. But there was nothing we could do. The heat alone. The heat from it. I. I can’t. There aren’t words. It was so hot. And the people. The people were on fire, Meer.” He pounded a fist on the kitchen table, and it made me jump.
“It was just like that night in that barbershop.” I didn’t know what he was talking about; my mother’s face remained impassive. “Meer, the nights we fought. That one Easter night. Or the night of the Marine Corps Ball. The hospital…” he said when my mother stayed silent, turning to me for the first time since he’d begun his story.
I started and pushed back in my seat without meaning to.
“I had to come here. Had to see you. I was sick of all the death, don’t you see? Everywhere I go, there’s a war.”
No one said anything. I heard Wolf whimper to be petted. She had sat and slept underneath my father’s feet the whole of the night.
Daddy reached down to stroke one of her ears.
“I need to get ready for school,” I said, my voice croaking slightly. I had stopped crying but was still emotional, overcome with the new feeling of love I had for my father.
Daddy jerked his head up from his coffee. He gave me a puzzled look. “It’s Saturday, isn’t it?” he said.
Mama threw her chin up. “Joanie takes college art classes now,” she said, dragging out the word college.
“We been fighting our own battles here,” Auntie August added.
“And we been winning,” Mama said.
Silence fell again, Daddy looking down at his coffee mug to avoid their fierce glares, Uncle Bird’s eyes trained on the ceiling.
“Yeah, you have,” he said, resignation in his voice. “You’ve done one hell of a job, Meer.”
Mama scoffed, swiveled her upturned chin away from Daddy.
After a minute, I heard the sound of soft feet padding across the floor.
Mya always had perfect timing. She appeared in the kitchen. She had on a long calico nightgown and was rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and yawning. She walked right past us at the table. If she saw Uncle Bird standing next to Auntie August, her body gave no sign of acknowledgment—unlike her, especially in the mornings. She usually had more energy than Wolf at the crack of dawn. But now, Mya was still awash in her sorrow, her despair at having no news from Daddy. She went to the fridge, opened it, pulled out a pint of orange juice, turned from us, and set it on the counter.
I heard Daddy laugh. “Meer, didn’t we raise our girls to say ‘good morning’ to family?”
I saw Mya’s shoulders flex and pause. Her back suddenly stiffened. I saw that she had let the orange juice overflow. She had been pouring herself a glass, and now the juice was running from the counter and dripping onto the floor.
“Here, niece, let me.” My uncle Bird gracefully, gently, took the orange juice from Mya’s hands.
“Am I dreaming?” Mya whispered. She turned her head sharply to Uncle Bird, and he shook his in response.
I saw a sigh leave her body. Saw my sister steady herself, turn from the counter, walk to the kitchen table, and take the crystal box in its center. Her face was glowing, her smile wide and beaming. Mya’s face made the blue morning light coming through the kitchen windows look pale in comparison.
She opened the crystal box and read aloud the scripture printed there. “See, God has come to save me. I will trust in Him and not be afraid. Isaiah twelve-two,” she said. Then she walked straight to our father and collapsed into his arms, leaning the side of her head into his chest.
I never knew a smile could be another, better thing until I saw Mya’s face. Never knew it could be the sun itself, stretching on and on, warming us all.
CHAPTER 27
August
2001
She woke to “Clair de Lune.” Under the piles of quilts stacked on top of her, August heard the unmistakable knell of the old piano in the parlor. Disoriented, she remembered—Jax and Bird had arrived three nights before. August had given up her bed to Jax and slept with her sister when he refused to take Derek’s room. It was the first time in years the house had been full of men.
Fall morning light illuminated her room. It had been her mother’s. Wood-paneled, the ceiling mounted to a high point, octagonal witch’s hat in the center. The walls of the room were covered in collages: Papa Myron had collected contemporary Black art that her mother had loved. Prints of Allen Stringfellows and Romare Beardens made the room come alive in a wash of vibrant colors. The paintings were all of Black folk going to church, sitting at the hair salon, simply living. August caught Joan in her room often, staring up at the prints. She tried not to scold. They were something to behold.
Since Derek’s trial, getting out of bed had become a daily battle. Sadness would not overtake her so much as cynicism. It would come in waves. At first, a small, malicious thought would creep into her head as she swept cut hair from her shop floor: You going to die alone. She’d shake her head to try and push the thought away, but then she’d hear: Just like Mama. Alone in your garden. She’d stop sweeping. Let the broom fall to the floor with a small thud. It was as if her appetite for everything—for doing hair, for cooking, for singing in her shop—had left her, and all seemed so tasteless. What was the point of anything? What did it matter if she got out of bed? If she ate that day? If she sang? Fried up green tomatoes? She had been up the morning D gunned down two human beings. Her being up or staying in bed couldn’t stop the chaos inside or outside her house.
August propped herself up on her elbows and yawned wide. She reached for her kimono—the only damn thing her baby daddy ever gave her—and she was off to investigate who was playing her mother’s piano, the piano that hadn’t been touched in years.
The melody was hypnotizing. August walked through the house and wondered how everyone else could sleep through this. Each individual note sounded so light and yet carried so much weight. The song seemed to envelop the house within its melody because August’s footsteps on the hardwood creaked in time and in tune with the music coming from the parlor.