I looked down at the table; no one was supposed to tell my grandmother that my big sister had disappeared.
Mama gathered the empty plates, scraping them into a bowl, a girlhood habit she retained from helping her father slop the hogs. She headed to the kitchen as my father announced he hated to break up a great evening, but he had patient files to read; he would call Nana a taxi.
When Nana lifted her face for a farewell kiss, Daddy ignored her. He walked toward the kitchen and met my mother, who was coming back out with pie. When he kissed her cheek, she closed her eyes and smiled, but later that night she let him have it.
“Miss Claire raised boys,” she said. “What the hell does she know about my parenting skills?”
I couldn’t see from my hiding space in the hall, but I expected my mother was rolling her hair, that my father was sitting at the bedside taking off his wing tips. No slip-ons for him, because one never knew when a crack fiend would hit him over the head at that clinic where he volunteered. They could try to steal his shoes, but the double knot would trick them.
“Baby, ignore her. You see she doesn’t upset me. You know why? Because I don’t even pay attention. You have to learn to flip the ‘I can’t hear Claire’ switch on.”
He cursed—he was fighting with a knot.
“That’s easy for you to say,” Mama said. “She doesn’t blame you for anything that goes wrong. No, this whole Lydia mess is my fault. It’s bad enough your mother has been turning my baby girl against me since she was a toddler. Thank the Lord I still have Coco.”
“Belle.”
“Oh, so now I’m crazy.” Her voice turned loud and drawled. “So when Miss Claire tells Ailey to wear a hat outside, she don’t mean, Don’t get as dark as your own damned mama. Tell me I’m lying. Go ’head and say it.”
“Woman, did I call you a crazy liar? Don’t you put that on me.” He would be holding his hand palm down, his placating gesture. “We both know Claire Prejean Garfield is mean as a stomped-on rattlesnake. That’s why I married me a sweet girl.”
“Don’t you try to jolly me along, Geoff! I’m so tired of your damned mother! I did the best I could to raise Lydia, and she was a good girl until she met that nigger. I tried to tell you about that boy, but no, you couldn’t take my side.”
“I only said Dante seemed nice enough. I mean, he had bad table manners, but was that really the end of the world?”
“I told you, I had a dream about him! And my dreams are never wrong. Remember when I used to have those dreams about you, back in the day?”
“Woman, please don’t throw that up in my face. That was nearly twenty years ago.”
“I’m just reminding you, don’t make fun of my dreams.”
“I’m not. You’re not the only one who’s worried. Lydia’s my daughter, too.”
“But you didn’t carry her in your body. I did.”
*
It was past midnight, well past the hour when phone calls were allowed in a southern Black woman’s house, but there was repeated ringing. Silence and the phone rang again. It was March, but the nights were still cold and I hopped across the freezing wood floor to answer the phone.
“Garfield residence.”
“Baby sister? Is that you?”
“Lydia?! Where are you—”
The phone was snatched from my hand. Before my mother spoke into the receiver, she pointed to my room. Go back to bed. I left my door open, and she closed it firmly. But I put my ear to the door and heard her murmuring on the hall phone. I couldn’t make out the words, but I could tell when she’d hung up. Minutes later, I tiptoed back down the hallway until I reached my parents’ open doorway. My mother’s suitcase was open on the bed.
“I thought I told you to go back to bed,” she said.
“What did Lydia say?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you later.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Do you want me to tuck you in?”
“No, I’m too big.” But I let her follow me into my room. She spread the comforter back over me up to my chin. Was that better? I nodded, and she told me, no matter how big I got, I’d always be her baby girl.
In the morning, Mama was absent from the kitchen, as was my breakfast. I walked to the refrigerator and opened it, pulling out a package of cheddar cheese and an apple. I told myself this was good. I didn’t have to go to school, and I could eat whatever I wanted, but then my aunt walked into the kitchen, leading Veronica by the hand. She’d already dropped off Malcolm and had come back to get me. This was Aunt Diane’s late morning working at the counseling center.