“Give what?” I asked.
I saw Mama reach into the front pocket of her apron and pull out an envelope the color of butter pecan. She took a few steps toward me, then faltered, stumbled slightly. Caught herself on the counter, and covered her face with the envelope, sobbing into it.
“Mama?” I started to rise from my seat, but Mama held up a warning finger. She shook her curls.
“No, no. I can do this,” she said and composed herself. She wiped her tears on the back of her hand quickly and stood tall. As tall as her petite frame allowed her. But Mama seemed like a giant to me in that moment. A goddess. She straightened out the wrinkles in her apron and took two slow steps toward me. She placed the envelope on the Formica kitchen table I knew so well, slid it to me.
I caught it with my fingertips and felt the heaviness of the envelope before I saw the neat typewriter font on the front, before there appeared the pale face of Queen Elizabeth minted on British stamps that covered the thing.
Touching its corners, I thought then about all that had passed in the eight years since we arrived in Memphis. The eighteen-hour drive in a busted-out van. The screaming matches with Mama every time I opened my sketchbook. Derek. Seeing him again and being so stricken with fear that the piss just came. I remembered the night Derek was arrested. Auntie August, beside herself, muttering that a Black woman would never know the meaning of freedom. And I realized then that even my auntie could be wrong. Because I knew it now. Freedom. As God as my witness, it tasted just like one of Mama’s warm blackberry cobblers.
I didn’t need to open the envelope to see the victory within. Glory was so plainly etched on Mama’s and Mya’s and Auntie August’s faces. And then, I just knew.
Perhaps I should have known all along. Perhaps this was always in us: this gift. Maybe each of us had always carried it around, unknowingly, like a lost coin in a deep pocket. My hands likely knew what to do, the rubric inside me somehow, placed there eons ago.
I should have known. My namesake, Joan of Arc, was a prophet. I should have known…Hadn’t I slept underneath them for years?
I laughed so hard at the reveal of it all that I cried.
Because I heard Mama declare, her voice stumbling and faltering with emotion, but beating, bearing on, “August, now you go ahead and open all the chests. My, every armoire. Open them all. Joanie not running off to that London cold without us making her a proper quilt.”
To Miss Gianna Floyd— i wrote you a black fairy tale i understand if you not ready to read it yet or if your mama told you to wait a bit and that just fine this book ain’t going nowhere this book gon be right here whenever you want it
whenever you get finished playing outside in that bright beautiful world your daddy loved so much child, it’s just right to set this aside Lord knows not a soul on this earth gon blame you for being out in it— running laughing breathing
Acknowledgments
Daddy. You remember all them years back, back when we were stationed in Okinawa? That night you decided to reach for that thick, ancient black book on the shelf and read me and Kristen a poem instead of a story? You remember me gripping your wrist, asking you what on God’s earth was this? It couldn’t be a poem; that was a line from Brothers Grimm. Yes, you said. But poets can tell stories, too. You remember me asking, demanding you start over, repeat what you had just read? And you did. In a clear, ringing voice. Once upon a midnight dreary…So thank you, Pops. Because when I was all of four, you gave me a gift that would shape the rest of my life—that poets can tell stories, too. Oo-rah.
Mama. Whenever I would despair, about ready to give up, take a desk job, live out the rest of my days without poetry, it was you who would tell me to shush. “I don’t want to hear it,” you’d say. “You have a gift from God. Thank Him, then get to work.” And haven’t we both worked for this, Mama? Wasn’t it you who thrust our family’s second edition of The Great Gatsby into my fourteen-year-old hands? Wasn’t it you who sat me and Kristen down to watch The Color Purple, Waiting to Exhale? Wasn’t it you who played Anita Baker on Saturday mornings and Mahalia on Sundays? And wasn’t it you who always made sure, no matter how poor we were, no matter how meager the meal on the table, that I always had a fresh writing journal? What a mother you are. What a woman you are.
Kristen and Adam and Breonna and Andre and Turquoise and Winston and Jerell. How blessed am I to have spent my entire life as your sister. Every word of affection in this novel was inspired by all the moments of my life with y’all. I will say it again: Every human being on this earth needs a sibling like a sailor needs a compass. How y’all have been my North Stars. How I’d wander without y’all.
Aunties and Uncles and Cousins and ’em. Auntie Winnie （in her kimono）， Auntie Rita, Auntie Joyce （in heaven）， Auntie Carlis, Auntie Gayle, Auntie Betty Ann, Auntie Charlene, Auntie Rosie （in heaven）， and Cousins Tia, Larniece, Lamar, Alexis, Erica, Nicole, Xavier, Quinton, Malcolm, Lauryn, Dahlia, Sean, Vincent, Terumah, TJ, Nia, and Uncles Sput, Effrem, Errick, Thomas, and Flamingo. Y’all have showed me what it means to be a graceful, gallant Stringfellow woman. Next time we meet, let’s pour one out for Papa & Grandma.
Soumeya. My stalwart protector, my fiercest champion. Few folk have ever believed in me as much as my literary agent, Soumeya Bendimerad Roberts with HG Literary. Soumeya, you took a chance on me when I had twenty pages of this novel, a negative bank balance, and another year yet to go of my master’s thesis. I signed with you on the same day I signed my divorce papers. We soldiered through this with nothing but the belief in each other. And the beautiful, unrelenting Marine in you never wavered. You charged that hill, carried me wounded on your back up it, staked that flag. I have no idea how or why. But I’m Catholic. So, I reckon a large part of me believes wholeheartedly in miracles, and thus, in angels. Grazie mille, Soumeya.
Katy, in short, you dazzle me. I have been blessed with the most brilliant of editors, Katy Nishimoto, who took such care of both me and my words. I am in awe of you and your steadfastness with this labor of love. And though your work was tantamount, the poet in me believes fate had a hand in this. Both of our grandfathers served in World War II. Hers, in the majority Japanese 442nd Infantry Regiment, the most decorated unit of its size in military history. Mine, lynched upon his return. When I had finished the novel, I wrote Katy a note: I believe we did our grandfathers, our ancestors real proud, Katy. We did a right fine thing here. A right fine thing.
To my entire Dial family—Donna Cheng, Sabrena Khadija, Jenna Dolan, Robert Siek, Matthew Martin, Debbie Glasserman, Debbie Aroff, Avideh Bashirrad, Michelle Jasmine, Ayelet Durantt, Corina Diez, Maya Millett, and Andy Ward—thank you for taking such good care of both me and my words. Y’all have made this entire book process into an actual fairy tale for me; every edit was a step through an enchanted forest. Whitney Frick, the care, the attentiveness, the affection you have as the leader of this powerful family has always been so evident to me. You have done me, my kin, and the city of Memphis a great honor by publishing these words. So I thank you. With everything that’s in me, I thank you.
Professors—Dr. Reginald Gibbons, Dr. Juan Martinez, Dr. Julia Stern, Dr. Barnor Hesse, Dr. Darlene Clark Hine, Dr. Christine Sneed, Dr. Rachel J. Webster, Dr. Simone Muench, Dr. Chris Abani, Emeritus Poet Ed Roberson, Dr. Bartram S. Brown, and Dr. Haki Madhubuti—you are not professors, nor mentors, but family. I am forever beholden to Professor Ragy H Ibrahim Mikhaeel and Charlene S. Mitchell for their last-minute Arabic translation. I must also put in a special note of thanks to Dr. Tracy Vaughn-Manley, who taught me many things at Northwestern University, but I believe the most lasting of all was how to quilt.