“Mm-hmm.” Mya nodded. She bit into the ripe meat of the peach as she listened, the nectar spilling onto her chin. “Hmmm.” Her tone shifted to consideration. The phone’s cord twisted around her body as she kept dodging my attempts to take back the receiver.
“All right then, Negro. We on our way,” she finally said.
“What?”
She unraveled herself with a spin. Mya, as swiftly as she had taken the receiver, abruptly dropped it down on its hook.
We stood there in the foyer glaring at each other.
Mya took another big bite of her peach. “Well,” she said between chews, “guess we should put some clothes on.”
“Mya, that prison sits right outside of Nashville.” The distance wasn’t really the issue, but I grasped at the logistics like they were some sort of lifejacket that could save me from this plan.
“Mm-hmm,” Mya said, chewing.
“That’s three hours from here,” I said.
“Mmmm.”
“And it’s Tuesday,” I said, slow.
“Right you are. Go on.” Mya motioned with her peach.
“Right, and on Tuesdays we have school.”
“Reckon so.”
I desperately wanted to sit. My chest expanded and contracted with the long breath that left my body. “I’m going to see Derek, aren’t I?”
“You’re going to see Derek,” Mya said.
“I’m taking the Shelby,” I said.
“You’re taking the Shelby,” Mya repeated.
“And I’m skipping school.”
“We.”
“Huh?”
“We skipping school. I’m coming with you.” Mya bit into her peach and, between bites, said, “And on the drive, you can tell me what the fuck that boy did to you all them years ago.”
CHAPTER 24
August
2001
Three days. It had been three days since the sky fell. Three days since she had run out into the yard and met Joan and Mya. Joan’s history teacher carried Mya like she was a sack of potatoes in his arms. She was wailing. Neighbors came out to inspect. Heads over hedges, craning to see the daughters of that military Yankee man stumble up the drive.
Joan said nothing. Walked alongside her teacher with her sister in his arms, resigned, quiet. August stopped her at the front door. Put both hands on her niece’s shoulders, stared deep in her dark eyes, and said, “You better be a fortress for that girl in there.”
August turned off the television in the parlor. She held a cigarette in one hand, the rotary phone receiver in the other, and declared that the phone lines were likely down. They’d hear from him. She was sure.
All of August’s and Joan’s pestering could not convince Mya that she should eat something. She lay on the daybed in the quilting room and refused to do anything more than that. August expected this: The girl just likely lost her father. What August hadn’t expected were the gifts of food at her front door every night. Left by nameless angels. The doorbell would ring, and August would open it to find spiral honey ham or chicken broccoli casserole or a plate of beef ribs.
August closed her shop that week. No one in the mood to get their hair done anyway. Get dolled up to sit in front of the TV and cry? August closed the shop, and she and Joan sat in silence most of the day until Miriam came home from the hospital and rushed to Mya’s bedside. The girl would not move from her bed. August walked past the quilting room and caught sight of Miriam, still in her scrubs, stroking Mya’s hair and whispering things to her. Mya moved not.