What finally brings me and Granddaddy together are the fireflies. On a night quiet like whispers, I lay cross the front porch reading. Nia sits on the steps, flipping through one of her grown-up magazines that she started reading last year when she left middle school for high school. A girl dressed in a bikini laughs from the cover. The one time I snuck a peek inside, I saw a quiz with the title, “Are You a Secret Bitch?” I quickly put the magazine back on Nia’s desk, cause back then, I ain’t wanna know the answer to that question. I smile to myself at the thought of using that word on Nia the other day. Guess her magazines ain’t so worthless, after all.
Granddaddy sits in his rocking chair as usual, humming a song I never heard. I peek up at him from my book and he winks before going back to humming, a little louder. I smile, then settle back into the comfort of his voice, the comfort of the moment.
“Look,” Granddaddy whispers after a while, breaking the reverie, “you girls see that?”
Nia pops her head up, so I pop my head up. And what I see is that the whole field that used to be dark is now sprinkled with light, like flames dancing a wild routine. Nia looks for only a second, then goes back to her magazine. But not me.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Fireflies,” Granddaddy whispers. “I ain’t ever seen so many all at once.”
It surprises me that something so small can create something so big. Every time I think I see one, know exactly where it is, the light goes out. And by the time the light comes back, it’s somewhere completely different, so that the fireflies dance and disappear right before my eyes. Granddaddy says some people call ’em lightning bugs, but fireflies sounds more magical to me. My palms itch as I think bout catching one of ’em. I wanna learn the secret of their light.
I run out into the field, clasping my hands around pockets of air that once were a firefly’s hiding spot. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t catch a single bug. Seems like soon as I spot one, it magically disappears. I wonder what the trick is, the secret that these little bugs keep as they disappear into the dark. I run and trip through the chilly night air, waving my arms wildly. No matter how hard I try, I can’t figure out their secret. I hear a chuckle behind me and turn to find Granddaddy standing there, a broad smile planted on his cracked face. The first smile he ever gave me.
“Slow down,” he says softly.
He takes my small hands in his giant ones and slowly leads me toward a patch of light. With a silent flick of his wrist he uses my hands to circle a firefly, just before it escapes to the wind. I open my cupped hands careful, like I’m pulling a bow from one of them perfectly wrapped presents I get at church on Easter Sunday, then smile at the gift of light crawling between my thumb and forefinger. The firefly came to me. Just like that, I had the secret right in my hands, and suddenly, it ain’t seem so hard to catch. I look back to thank Granddaddy, but he’s already started his slow retreat to the leaning porch.
Before Daddy died, he started tryna teach me how to play cards. It was our thing, just the two of us, cause Momma and Nia ain’t like to play. The first time we played, Daddy found an old deck of cards in our kitchen junk drawer. The deck was missing a two of clubs and a jack of diamonds, but Daddy used the joker cards and an ink pen to make a whole deck. He started out by teaching me the easy games like tunk and go fish, but then we got to the good stuff. My favorite was speed, cause I loved tryna put my cards down fast enough to beat Daddy. But no matter how fast I went, I could never beat him. Til one day, Daddy whispered to me, Wanna know my secret to winning speed? I nodded so hard my eyes went dizzy. Daddy showed me the cards in his hand, all organized in perfect patterns. I set my cards up before I put a single one down, Daddy said, showing me how it worked. Sometimes, when you wanna speed up, you gotta slow down first.
I feel the gentle tug of the breeze around my arms and find myself back in the field. “Thank you,” I whisper into the wind. I pretend the words are smoke, watch as they spiral up past the stars to catch a kiss from Daddy, then back down to Granddaddy—again rocking and humming in his chair—to graze the soft place on his cheek, just above the chin. I hope, when it lands there, he knows it’s from me. I think back to my Anne book; how I figured Granddaddy was gon’ be like Marilla Cuthbert, who acted like she hated Anne when they first met. But eventually, Marilla loved Anne just as much as Matthew did. Maybe even more. Granddaddy rocks and hums, rocks and hums. Maybe one day he’ll come around, I wish, just like Marilla.
I turn and glance cross to Nia, still in her same spot. She ain’t even look up from her magazine, and I feel sad for her. I bet, if she had tried, she woulda loved the fireflies, too.
3
There’s a long crack in the ceiling I stare at every morning. I fall asleep staring at the crack. I wake up and I stare at the crack. I ain’t even sure what I like bout it, cept that it’s the only thing in the tidy room that look like it don’t belong. Everything in Granddaddy’s house is in its place all the time. That’s why I spend most days outside, where for once—with nobody else around and nothin’ else to do besides what I wanna do—I feel like I belong.
I don’t get to play outside in Detroit much, cause our dead-end street still gets lots of cars that play music so loud it beats in my chest like a second heartbeat. Ain’t much to see outside even if I did, cause all the houses on my block got dirt in the front lawn where there should be grass or plants or flowers. I used to play in the dirt, making muddy sandcastles that looked like dog poop, til one day someone drove through our neighborhood shooting bullets that nicked two trees and left a permanent hole in our neighbor’s front mailbox. After that, I stayed inside. But here in Lansing, outside is green and noiseless, and so being inside feels like choosing one scoop of ice cream when you could have a whole chocolate-sprinkled sundae.
A wind blows in from a window Nia must’ve opened. I pull the covers up around my shoulders and curl my legs til they meet my belly. It’s been three days since I first saw ’em, but I can’t stop thinking bout fireflies. My tucked body reminds me of catching that first one in my cupped hands. Since then, I been catching fireflies every night, sometimes with Granddaddy watching and sometimes on my own. Never with Nia. I watch her now cross the room, a familiar routine, as she stares at her face in the mirror, then pulls at her hair like she’s tryna stretch it longer. When it don’t stretch, she frowns.
Nia has the best hair I ever seen, curly and fluffy like a big ball of cotton candy. But she tells Momma she don’t like it, cause it’s different than the other girls’ hair. I don’t much like the girls with straight hair, though, cause they have hair so flat it just lays against their head. Nia’s hair is alive.
“Hey, Nia?” I wait for her to look back my way, but she don’t. Just keeps staring at herself in the mirror. “I like your hair,” I try again, this time at least gettin’ her attention, but only long enough for her to frown.
“I don’t,” Nia whispers, but I can’t tell if she’s talking to me or herself.
Me and Nia ain’t said nothin’ bout the fight we had, or the word I called her. Still, I can’t help but try to be close to Nia. And I wonder if she feels the same. She does sit on the porch while I’m outside now, but I ain’t sure if it’s to be close to me, or if it’s just cause she don’t wanna stay in the house with Granddaddy, who is still just as quiet and distant with Nia as ever. Either way, she sits on the porch all day with her headphones and magazines. But me, I explore.