“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.