Lydia missed those folks, the children or grandchildren of migrants from the country towns only an hour or two away from Atlanta, but which they referred to as if those places were in faraway lands where English wasn’t spoken. They struggled on a daily basis to make rent and buy groceries, so they took their fun on the weekends, playing cards with their friends in their small dining rooms. When you passed their doors, you could hear the blues or the rap music thumping. On Sundays, it was gospel music, before they emerged in church finery, headed off to praise the Lord. To receive the Word that would sustain them throughout the week while they labored at their minimum-wage jobs. They didn’t have enough money to worry about the bourgeoisie matters that occupied the large, comfortable house where Lydia lived now with her baby sister and her parents. When her grandmother came to Sunday dinner, Nana wasn’t filled up with the Holy Spirit, because nobody got happy and shouted during a Catholic Mass. Maybe that was Nana’s problem: she hadn’t made the acquaintance of a colored people’s god.
*
Mama had been full of apologies since Lydia and she had driven up from Georgia. She was sorry she hadn’t kept a closer watch on Lydia, that Tony Crawford had taken advantage of her daughter. She was sorry that she hadn’t paid more attention to Lydia’s reading. She was sorry she hadn’t caught her daughter’s difficulties, that it had taken a school counselor to inform Mama that her daughter wasn’t lazy. That, in fact, Lydia was a brilliant child with a near-photographic memory; however, Lydia also had a mild learning disability, and thus, it would require more time for Lydia to absorb information. So her mother needed to make sure that she was patient and sit with Lydia, so that she could compete her homework.
These apologies were useless to Lydia, because her mother wasn’t apologizing for the right offense. Lydia didn’t blame her mother for her learning disability. Her great-grandmother had the same problem, and the counselor had told Lydia that sometimes, these issues were inherited, like high blood pressure, or the tendency toward diabetes. And she didn’t blame Mama for what had happened with Tony Crawford. That was on him. He had gone behind every adult’s back to cajole Lydia into meeting him at the creek. Even if Tony had lied to himself that Lydia had been a willing participant, he should have left her alone. Fifteen going on sixteen was still a child.
What Lydia blamed her mother for was the thing that had been right in front of her all those years: Gandee’s abuse. It hadn’t happened once. It had happened at least a hundred times over the years, and somehow, her mother hadn’t thought to notice. But Mama had been too enamored of Gandee’s status, his high education and good grammar, to be able to see who Gandee really had been. She couldn’t understand that a man like him—a doctor dressed in suits and ties and who spoke with a perfect, bleached-to-whiteness accent—could have been capable of hurting little girls. Such a fact couldn’t even occupy a hidden place in Mama’s skull. It could not even penetrate the bone. Yet because Dante had been from a bad neighborhood, her mother could make him a villain.
Dr. Fairland had urged Lydia to have the conversation with her mother, to confess what Gandee had done. Maybe the past could be reconciled, she’d said, but Lydia wasn’t willing to step on that darkened road. She’d already disappointed her mother. Even if Lydia carried hurt, she didn’t want to hand her mother even more.
And she was better now. She’d gotten past her addiction. It was time to move on, to look ahead. To try to be normal again, to find that place where Dante had led her. To try to find some joy, and she was so happy when Mama finally relented and let her leave the house one October evening for a party Niecy had invited her to. The onus wasn’t on Lydia to convince her mother: Coco surprised everyone by catching the bus down from New Haven. The family was back together. All the daughters under one roof, and Mama was happy, too. She told Lydia, maybe being around young folks would bring the color back to her cheeks, but she had to take her sister as chaperone.
The party wasn’t at Niecy’s house, but at another soror’s, one from Howard. Out in the country, where the rich folks lived. There were signs placed along the long driveway, leading to the house, but it wasn’t hard to find their way. People were outside. The music was blasting. Lydia parked on the lawn, far from the house.
“I’ll just stay here in the car,” Coco said.
“But you’re supposed to be watching over me.”
“I am. So don’t do anything stupid, and don’t get in trouble. Oh yeah, and go with God.” She rolled up the window.