“Who cares if you’re a good girl, Ailey? Or nice or moral or whatever? I know I don’t. If there’s anything I learned from what happened to Lydia, it’s that you never know the hour or the day.”
“You sound like Miss Rose.”
“She’s right.”
“You don’t understand, Coco. You’re the perfect one. You’ve always been that way.”
“Ailey, I’m a dyke! I sleep with women!” She leaned over the table. Lowered her voice and chuckled. “Let me stop being so loud before these white folks call the police. But yeah, I hid that shit for years, thinking about, what is Mama gone say if she finds out I’m a lesbian? I knew Daddy wouldn’t care, but you know how religious she is. So I was scared of my personal life. Even scared of the dark. You know that until about a year ago, I couldn’t even sleep with the lights off? I could cut somebody’s chest wide open, hold their heart in my hand, and not even tremble. But I couldn’t lie in my own bed and sleep in the dark. Does that shit sound perfect to you?”
“I guess not.”
“But I just had to say, fuck it. I gave Gandee the first part of my life. I’m not gone give him the rest.”
Coco inched her hand toward the middle of the table. Then some more, until she covered my fingers. We didn’t say anything for a while, until I told her, all right, now, let’s not get mushy. Too late, she said. She smiled and held my hand some more.
*
The next morning, the ritual started off familiarly. I woke earlier than the rest of the house. But unlike times past, my mother had not beat me to the kitchen. The kitchen was dark and there was no breakfast on the table, no pot full of fresh-brewed coffee in the machine. I took my time fitting my bags into the trunk of the car, but she did not meet me outside, clutching her housecoat. I was on my own as I drove off.
On the interstate, I was afraid, though I had the credit card Uncle Root had ordered in my name, with a line of five hundred dollars. A calling card, too, with fifty dollars’ worth of minutes. I’d memorized the journey south, but it was dark, and before the dawn cracked, I put in a CD and sang along with Chaka Khan. She assured me that I was a woman. Anything I wanted to do, I could.
I stopped for a long lunch, ordering twice as much food since I hadn’t eaten breakfast. I drank a pot of coffee. Hours later, in Gaffney, I heard my dead sister’s voice.
“It’s the Peach Butt!” Lydia said.
There was no one in the car but us, so I spoke to her out loud: “I know! We’re almost to the Georgia state line.”
“Don’t forget to stop for a watermelon for Miss Rose. And be sure to thump it on the side. You know she can’t stand bad fruit.”
When I pulled into my granny’s driveway, I tooted the horn. Then I struggled out of the car with the watermelon. Miss Rose and Uncle Root stood and waved. The old man didn’t hop down, but his step was still spry, and he held my granny’s hand as she huffed down the steps.
My mother remained on the porch in the rocking chair: somehow, she had beaten me to Chicasetta. At dinner, she didn’t say much, and when her brother stopped by, he gave me only a quick hug, before telling me, he’d heard I wasn’t working.
“Ailey, you can’t be living up on people,” Uncle Norman said. “If you ain’t got no husband and no children, you need to be working. Post office always hiring. That’s a good job, too. Benefits and everything. But you need to go to med school. That’s what you need. It’s some good credit in doctoring.”
Mama nodded along, unbothered that she was joining with her brother to shame me. She was my mother. She was supposed to be on my side, but the way her head bobbed, she seemed to have forgotten that.
The old man balled his paper napkin and placed it on the table. He grunted as he rose. His joints were so angry, he told us. He could feel his age today.
“Sugarfoot, can you walk me to my pecan tree? It’s still light, but I might need a young shoulder to rest on. I don’t want to trip on anything.”
Uncle Root walked slowly through the house, but when we closed the screen door and walked down the porch steps, he strode ahead. Stop dawdling, he called. I was too young to be so slow. At the pecan tree, he told his story, which had changed. This time, Jinx Franklin had punched him first, before Uncle Root pushed him to the ground.
The next morning, my mother called the old man’s house, and I told her he and I had plans. I’d call her later in the week, but the next morning, she called again. I told her I didn’t have time to see her. I stopped answering the old man’s phone when it rang, and when he called my name, saying my mother was on the phone, I’d tell him I was reading.