And Lydia tells me, “No, baby. We left Auntie at home. That’s Dear Pearl, she’s our great-grandmother, and she’s only light skinned. Please don’t hurt her feelings.”
Mama’s getting out the car and everybody here knows everybody, but I don’t know nobody and I’m real, real mad. Then a man with white hair comes down into the driveway, and he looks white, too, but I remember what Lydia told me. I don’t want to hurt his feelings.
I say, “Are you a Black man?”
Mama says, “You should remember him, Ailey, you’re a big girl now.”
The man says, “All right, now, give the child some time.”
I say, “My name’s Ailey Pearl Garfield. My mother’s Mrs. Maybelle Lee Garfield and my father’s Dr. Geoffrey Louis Garfield.”
The man says, “My goodness! That’s a lot of information.”
He has eyes with all kinds of colors. Real strange eyes, but I think I remember him.
I say, “Is your name Uncle Root?”
He says, “What a brilliant child!”
He picks me up, and he holds me, and I feel safe, and I love him very much.
*
I’m six going on seven in the big kitchen in Chicasetta. I know everybody now. I know my granny’s Miss Rose and she lives in one house. Her sister’s Aunt Pauline and she lives in another house. Their brother’s Uncle Huck, but he only comes out of his house once a week. He has a boyfriend that he kisses on the mouth, but I’m not supposed to know that. I know their mama is Dear Pearl and her brother is Uncle Root. I know my mama’s brother is Uncle Norman. All the grown folks can tell me what to do, even if I don’t want to listen.
It must be a Saturday or maybe a Sunday, because Baybay and Boukie ain’t here. Aren’t. They come during the week and play with me. Baybay’s mama drops them off and we run and we play, but they don’t talk proper. And my mama says I have to talk better, but sometimes I forget. In the kitchen my granny is putting biscuits and grits and sausage on a plate, and Mama tells her that’s too much food. I’m already chubby.
Miss Rose says, “You leave this baby alone and let her eat in peace.” She pours coffee for Mama, but my sisters and me can’t have no coffee. Any coffee. We have hot chocolate.
Coco says, “Actually, there are stimulants in chocolate as well, similar to caffeine in the coffee.”
Mama says, “Stop talking back to grown folks. Just be grateful for the plentiful food on this table and the hands that have prepared it.”
It’s time for the grocery store, ’cause Mama ain’t gone eat folks out of house and home. Isn’t. But Coco don’t want to go to town. Doesn’t. She wants to stay with Miss Rose to help make preserves. She promises she will be well behaved and try not to be rude.
Then, we are in the station wagon, I’m sitting between Lydia and Mama. I’m full of breakfast, and my mama and sister smell real good, like grown ladies do. I’m happy listening to the radio, but then that white lady sees us at the Pig Pen. She don’t know that Lydia is with us. Doesn’t.
Lydia don’t look like none of us. Doesn’t. Daddy’s got brown eyes, but he looks like a white man. Mama’s dark like chocolate and little and pretty. She makes her hair straight with a hot comb and blue grease. I’m dark, too, but not like Mama. I got red in my skin underneath the brown like my granny. Coco’s eyes and skin match, like caramel candy. Her nose is wide like Mama’s, and she’s real short, too. Her hair’s like Mama’s, and it grows real long. Lydia’s hair is long, too, but won’t hold a curl. But in the back of her head, she’s got a kitchen. It grows in curls like mine. That’s how you can tell that she’s a Black girl. She’s got a gap in her teeth like Mama’s too. Her skin is light but not like Daddy’s. She looks like she went out in the sun and stayed a long time and got a tan. But Mama says Black folks don’t get tans. We already got some color. And Mama don’t care if folks are ignorant about her children. Doesn’t. She carried all of us in her belly and we belong to her and we should love her very much.
It’s cold in the store. When Mama pushes the cart up the aisle, the white lady waves at us. Mama waves back and says good morning, and the lady and her cart come our way. She’s old like my granny and has a pink shirt and a jean skirt. Her brown shoes are ugly. I don’t like those shoes.
The white lady says, “You are so good with children.”
Mama says, “Thank you, ma’am. I try my best with these two. There’s another one at home.”