“What about Morehouse in Atlanta? You could go there instead. It’s probably not too late to contact them, and you could be close to Root. I know you’d like that.” Her back was turned as she filled a box with books.
“Mama, it’s too late to apply. And anyway, I’m not sure I want to be a doctor. I don’t think it’s going to make me happy.”
“Is that all? Girl, nobody’s ever happy working! That’s why it’s called a ‘job’ instead of ‘pleasure.’ But you know what would make you happy? Making a lot of money and having good credit. Buying yourself some nice things. Finally driving a new car.”
“I’ve already contacted Mecca. The deferral is only for a year, until I get myself together.”
She kept packing boxes, and on our journey back to the City she was quiet in the car. That only lasted a few days, though. Soon, she began telling me I needed to go to med school. Several times a day, she brought it up, unless Aunt Diane told her, stop haranguing her niece. She and my youngest cousin were living with us, now that my aunt and uncle were divorced. But Mama only would stay quiet for a while, before she started up again: Sure, take the year off, but be sure to contact Mecca University and let them know I would be ready to start medical school next summer. And if they told me that I had to reapply, then do that, too. Whatever it took to get my life going.
*
Over the months, to speed my progress, Mama popped her head into my room and offered daily, curt clichés: “Quitters never win” and “Put your best foot forward” and “Rise early and keep your hand on the plow.” Mornings, if the sidewalks were clear, Mama took her own advice. When the light appeared, she put on her tracksuit and took up her pepper spray. She would not miss her morning walk. Daily sunshine was important.
Sundays, she took a rest from talking about medical school, but still, she knocked on my door. “You sure you don’t want to go to Mass, baby?”
“No, I’m good.”
“But Father Dan keeps asking about you.”
“That’s nice of him. You tell him to pray for me.”
“Ailey, you better not get smart about God. You gone need Him one day.”
After church, she’d invite me to dinner at Nana’s, where everyone now collected. The stroke had come as a surprise. She’d always eaten sparingly and watched her weight, but when Coco had moved into the house to take care of Nana, she’d found the stash of Gauloises, along with the jade holder. When Coco ordered an MRI, the consulting doctor told her this hadn’t been our grandmother’s first stroke; she’d had some mini-strokes as well.
Nana needed the support of her family, my mother told me. That’s why I should come to dinner, and besides, I should meet Melissa. She was my grandmother’s caretaker, now that Miss Delores had retired. If I ever came to Sunday dinner, I could see what a nice girl she was. Melissa was real pretty. Big-boned, too, not one of them skinny types. Also, she was my sister’s girlfriend.
I’d suspected that Coco was a lesbian. To my knowledge, she’d never had a boyfriend, and back when we’d spent summers in Chicasetta, whenever boys had approached her, she’d spoken to them rudely. “You’re bugging me,” she’d say. But I acted surprised when my mother revealed her big news about what was going on with my grandmother’s at-home nurse. And I nodded when my mother warned, don’t be prejudiced about your sister’s lifestyle. Times had changed: I had to keep up.
When she recounted her discovery, Mama had emphasized she was not a snoop. She only went upstairs at Nana’s house to use the bathroom. Nana’s personal toilet was downstairs, but it was too small. My mother liked to have space to move around, and once there, she reasoned that it was totally acceptable to examine the toiletry articles inside the medicine cabinet. She wanted to see how the rest of the upstairs had changed as well, and after checking the closets and bureaus of the other bedrooms, she didn’t see any evidence that another person slept in those rooms, which seemed strange to her since it was clear Melissa slept there—there were perfumes and lotions in the bathroom, and Coco didn’t like all that. Soap and water always had been plenty for her. Mama hadn’t thought herself nosy, either, for turning the knob of the closed door of her daughter’s room, the one that had been Nana’s. On the wall of the now-white anteroom, she saw several framed photographs of Coco and Melissa embracing, among the family pictures. （My mother was pleased to see three photos of herself on the wall, too.） And when she inspected the closet of the bedroom—okay, all right, yes, at this juncture, it was a complete invasion of privacy—one half of the walk-in closet had contained female clothes too tall and wide to fit her petite daughter.