There was nothing but boredom, walking beside Nana at the department store, but Lydia was relieved. That it was a day that Gandee wouldn’t probe her with his fingers and teach her how to touch and kiss him or make her look at pictures of men and women doing the thing her parents had done to bring her into the world.
When the new baby was born, Mama was even more tired. She argued with Daddy, shouting, every time she turned around this dingy-ass apartment, there was nothing but children pulling on her. Was this all that she could expect in life? He was the one who’d wanted to have a third child. This hadn’t been her idea. She was supposed to be an educated woman; she wanted to do something more with her life. Lydia found this out by eavesdropping on her parents talking, and one evening, when she was supposed to be in bed, she learned that her father had killing on his mind as well.
Her mother was complaining about the long hours Daddy worked, but he assured Mama he wasn’t cheating on her. He wouldn’t do that to her. He swore on everything he had. Daddy was only working for his family. He was trying to save for them to get a house. And he never thought he’d love anybody as much as he did his children.
“Woman, I don’t know what I would do if a man hurt my girls. I’d murder him and go to the electric chair.”
“How can you even joke about that? You know my brother died on the chain gang.”
“I’m not. I’m serious.”
“I’m not asking you to kill nobody. All I want is for you to help me with these kids. I’m tired, Geoff. If it wasn’t for Diane coming to babysit, I couldn’t even go the grocery store. Do you know I have to take the baby with me to the bathroom?”
“I’m sorry, woman. I’ll try to do better.”
Those years were tense, insecure, for a little girl, as Lydia considered what death meant. What Gandee had said, what her daddy said, and what telling of her pain would mean. No, not pain. Pain wasn’t a big enough word. Lydia had no vocabulary to capture what was happening to her. She only wanted it to stop. Once, when Lydia was seven and her new baby sister had started to crawl, Lydia had tried to find the words to tell her mama what her grandfather was doing, even though she didn’t want him to kill everybody in her family. That Gandee wasn’t like Mr. Rogers on the television, who was kind and calm and made Lydia feel safe. Like he was the real relative and not Gandee, even though Mr. Rogers was a white man. She loved Mr. Rogers, and she knew he loved her back, even though they had never met. She wished he could come visit her and tell her what to do, and she knew Mr. Rogers would never make her get naked in the tub. He was her friend, and his love made her strong enough to go into the kitchen that day to tell her mama what Gandee had been doing.
Her mother was at the stove, stirring a pot of greens. It smelled funny in the kitchen, but that funny smell meant that dinner would be good: Lydia loved her mother’s greens.
“Mama?”
“Yes, baby?”
Her mother looked over her shoulder, and her face was streaked with water.
“Why you crying?”
Her mother let go of the spoon and wiped her face. “It’s all right, baby. Grown ladies get sad sometimes. You understand, don’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am . . . Mama?”
“Yes, baby. What is it?” Her mother sighed. She had picked up the spoon again. In her other arm, she bounced Lydia’s baby sister, Ailey. Ailey was always crying. She seemed sad, too, and Lydia set aside her own feelings. The despair of her mother and her baby sister added up to more sadness than Lydia could contain, and her courage left her. She couldn’t hear Mr. Rogers in her head anymore. And so Lydia set aside her own feelings and asked to hold her baby sister, who was fat, with many rolls. Mama quickly handed her over, saying Lydia was her good girl. Her good little helper, and Lydia balanced the baby on her bony hip. She carried Ailey into the living room and sat with her. She put her nose at the top of Ailey’s head. It smelled good. Like peace or something near to it.
From then on, Lydia liked to hold her baby sister on her thin thighs. Rocking, until the baby’s crying stopped. Her first word was to Lydia, as she grabbed hair: Mama. Lydia held on, dirging her way through the fall and winter and spring. Then in the summer, Mama’s father died, and Daddy drove them down to Chicasetta in his Cadillac because Mama wanted to see her father in his casket before they put him in the ground. In Chicasetta, everyone was crying, but Lydia wasn’t sad. She hadn’t ever met Grandpa Hosea, and there was quiet down south, peace like the perfume of her baby sister’s curls.