Her voice was perky as she exclaimed she’d brought me a blueberry muffin and a sandwich. I followed her out to the car and watched her wrangle Veronica into the car seat and tell her yes, she still had to sit there. “Please be nice for Mommy. Don’t be naughty.” Before she turned on the ignition, Aunt Diane told me my mother had flown to Georgia.
“But don’t worry, we’ll be staying with you. Won’t that be nice? Just like a big slumber party!”
“When is Mama coming back?”
“I don’t know, darling.” She smiled and handed me the paper lunch sack. “Have a great day! I’ll see you this afternoon.”
My aunt stayed in Coco’s room with Veronica, while Malcolm slept on the living room couch. My father spent more time at the hospital, only coming home to sleep or change clothes. He’d leave with paper sacks filled with Aunt Diane’s blueberry muffins or banana bread.
Every evening, my uncle came by for dinner, which meant some kind of soup and a big green salad, because my aunt didn’t believe in stuffing the body at night. Uncle Lawrence would sit with Aunt Diane on the couch, though when he tried to get her to go down to the basement with him—because he had something very important he wanted to talk about with her—she pushed his shoulder impatiently. She asked him couldn’t he control himself for a few days? Did everything have to be about him and his needs?
I didn’t sleep well while Mama was away, waking in the dark. The long-haired lady from my dreams was back. She took my hand and led me to a small clearing surrounded by trees, where she pointed to a grassy spot. I sat beside her. Unlike years past, I couldn’t see her face, though, and she no longer urged me to make water. We only sat together on the grass.
Every night at nine, Mama called to tell me she and Lydia were fine, though she couldn’t put my sister on the phone. After a minute or two, she would tell me she didn’t want to run up the bill, so she wouldn’t hold me, but she loved me and please be good for my aunt. Don’t cause any trouble. When Mama hung up the phone, I’d call Coco’s dorm room at Yale, uncaring of long-distance charges.
“So what the fuck is going on?” Coco asked. “She still hasn’t told you? Daddy neither?”
“Uh-uh,” I said. “I barely see him, and every time she calls, she just says she’s all right, Lydia’s all right. That’s it.”
“This is some certified bullshit. Did you ask Auntie what’s going on?”
“Like she’d ever tell me, if Mama won’t. All she does is give me pancakes or muffins.”
“At least you get a good breakfast. I know you hungry from all that soup and salad.”
“Well, Auntie is a white lady, so she can’t make collard greens.”
“You better not let Auntie hear she’s white. She thinks she’s an honorary sister.”
We laughed, and then Coco turned serious again. “Shit. I knew that dude was some fucking trouble when I saw him.”
“How’d you know?”
“I had a dream about him.”
“You sound like Mama.”
“It is what it is. Okay, let me go. I gotta test tomorrow.”
It was an early Sunday afternoon in May when my mother returned. Outside, the chill in the morning air finally was gone and the rosebushes in our tiny front yard were no longer sullen and bare but budding into promise. My aunt and I sat on the couch in the living room, watching Meet the Press. Malcolm sat in the armchair, holding his sleeping sister on his lap. She was napping too late, which meant she’d be up all night looking to play and acting ugly when her mother insisted it was bedtime.
The key jiggled in the front door, and my mother stepped inside. Seconds later, Lydia followed. Mama’s greeting was casual, as if she hadn’t been gone for two months, but everyone else in the room cried their surprise. The noise woke Veronica, who began to clap her hands and laugh. I rushed to the foyer, hugging my big sister. When I put my arms around her, she was so skinny her bones dug into me.
I craned my neck, looking into the foyer.
“Where’s Dante? Did he not come with y’all?”
Neither of them answered, and when I asked my question again, Mama told me act civilized and let folks get in the door. Don’t be bum-rushing. They’d just come off the road and she had to call our people. They needed to know my sister and she had arrived safely, and then she had to call my father.
She squeezed my aunt around the waist.
“Diane, you can call your man first, though.”