*
For Easter, Pat coaxed me down the interstate to meet his parents at St. Anthony’s in the West End, their family parish. He didn’t need to play on my guilt, though. I wanted to meet them.
He and I slipped into the pew at nine forty-five for the morning Mass, and I put my purse on the pew to save two extra seats. I told him, we should have come the night before for vigil, because the holiday sinners crowded out the regulars on Sunday. Look at that line for Communion. When we returned to our pew, I was supposed to kneel like my mother had taught me. I should think on the goodness of the Lord, but I cheated by half sitting on my haunches. I ran through my calculus homework. My eyes were closed when I heard Pat’s whispered greeting to his parents, and I kept my head bowed, wanting to impress them. When I finished my fake prayers, they were sitting on Pat’s other side.
After Mass, we lingered in the pew until the church emptied. I leaned over Pat and shook the soft hand of Mrs. Lindsay, who wore a paisley blouse tucked into a black skirt.
Clothed in a blue linen suit, Pat’s father was a handsome man, though much fairer than his son. His pate was bald, the sides cut low. Though his remaining hair was curly, not straight, Mr. Lindsay was a dead ringer for my grandfather, when Gandee had been a much younger man. My breath caught. In my spotty memory, I saw the picture, framed in silver and hanging on Nana’s red-painted wall.
“Young lady, it’s so good to meet you,” Mr. Lindsay said.
I couldn’t speak, as Pat’s father held my hand. I smiled and nodded at Gandee’s brown eyes ringed with Gandee’s salt-and-pepper lashes. I thought of those times with my grandfather in the bathtub, his showing me how to touch his red penis, how to put my small mouth on it. My heart trotted as I tried to swallow. It was the Communion wafer. It wouldn’t go down.
“This boy has nothing but praise about you,” Mr. Lindsay said. “And now I can see why.”
“Yes, sir.” That was all I could manage, but everyone laughed, before Pat’s parents left the church to walk to a lot down the street, where the latecomers parked.
It was a long drive on the interstate, out toward Cobb County, where the Lindsays now lived in a McMansion. They’d finally given up their smaller house off Cascade, where they knew everybody. They’d loved southwest Atlanta. They’d raised their children there, and the schools couldn’t be beat, but they were getting older now, and southwest was turning bad. So now they were surrounded by wealthy white folks who didn’t speak or invite them to Saturday barbecues, but on the plus side, they didn’t have to worry about some crack fiend breaking into their basement.
Pat’s older sister, Collette, was in the living room. Her husband was with his parents at their Baptist church. Collette was a plump, shorter version of Pat. In her arms, a sleeping baby girl in a lace bonnet, white satin dress and shoes to match. The other child, a toddler in a pastel blue Easter suit, white shirt, and bow tie, ran around like a lunatic.
“Look how pretty you made them,” Mrs. Lindsay said. “Why didn’t y’all come to Mass?”
Collette shifted the sleeping baby.
“Mama, you know I can’t take that boy to church. I can barely get him in the car seat. Stop now, R.J.! Before you get dizzy.”
Her little boy ignored her, spinning in circles. Then he tired of that and tugged at my boyfriend’s cuff until he was lifted and turned upside down several times. When his uncle put him down, R.J. began to shriek. He wanted to be picked up again.
“Not now,” Pat said. “And quit that noise. You embarrassing me in front of my company.”
“Don’t be mean,” I said. “He’s just a little boy.”
I kneeled down and held out my arms.
“He doesn’t like strangers,” Collette said, moments before R.J. moved into my arms. When he kissed my cheek, there were approving sounds. A check mark for me in the “pro” column.
“Well, I’ll be dog,” Mr. Lindsay said.
“I told y’all she was sweet,” Pat said.
I sat R.J. on my thighs and cut my food into tiny bits and fed him, glad for the distraction, that he ate my dinner when I couldn’t. But then he fell asleep in my arms, and when Mrs. Lindsay took him upstairs to the guest room, I had no shield, nothing to defend me from the attention of Pat’s father. I moved my chair closer to Pat and continually drank water to wet my closing throat. I cut the one slice of Easter ham I’d asked for, using my excellent table manners to move the meat around the plate.