“I can’t believe you haven’t ridden a tire swing before!” Bobby continues, like I ain’t even there. “We have one in our backyard. You don’t have a tire swing at home?”
I shake my head back and forth cause I can’t get no words out. It don’t seem to matter to Bobby, though, cause he hops off the seesaw, still smiling, and races over to the tire swing. Just like the one he has at home.
“Everybody ain’t got a home,” I whisper, even though he’s already gone. I sit at the bottom of the seesaw, butt to the dirt. Hear the roar of a lawn mower somewhere, and the ding-ding-ding of a fire alarm or bell or kitchen oven timer saying, Dinner’s done. Bury the hum of voices calling out to me beneath the buzz of a bee and the tiny whistle the wind makes when the swing pushes back and forth. Untie and tie my shoes. Once. Twice, then three times; still, I feel the weight of their questions pressing down on my chest.
* * *
That night, me and Nia stay up late to help Granddaddy shuck corn and clean greens. I ain’t ever done either before, but Granddaddy shows me how. I’m happy cause it helps me take my mind off what happened with Bobby and Charlotte earlier. I ain’t sure if they gon’ still wanna be my friend, now that they know I ain’t got a perfect family like they do.
“Here,” Granddaddy says, handing me an ear of corn. The corn Momma buys always comes in a can, but Granddaddy’s looks fresh from the ground, wrapped in a rough, green cover that Granddaddy calls the husk. I peel the husk and tug away the little leftover strings, then hand the corn to Nia. She breaks the cob in two, rinses it in the sink, then puts it in a glass bowl with a plastic lid.
“Do we need this?” I ask Granddaddy, pulling a big pot and lid from beneath the sink.
“No,” Granddaddy starts, “we gon’ cook that corn tomorrow, on the grill. We just gettin’ everything ready tonight.”
The greens take longer than the corn and look like giant leaves with a stem right in the middle. We start by cleaning the greens, which takes more work than I expect. First, Nia pulls the stems from the leaves. Then rips the leaves til they’re scraps of dead plant. Granddaddy fills the big kitchen sink with water and Nia dumps all the greens inside.
“Come here, Kenyatta.” Granddaddy stands right in front of the sink with Nia already on one side, so I stand on the other. “The first time I cleaned some greens, I was bout your age,” Granddaddy tells me. “My momma taught me how once, then I had to do it on my own every time after that. We ate greens every Sunday growing up, just like most of the Black folks in the South.” He begins moving his hands in the sink as he talks, making tiny chunks of greens dance and swim in the murky water.
“What do you have to do?” I ask curiously. Nia seems curious, too, as we both watch Granddaddy without blinking.
“Well, do you know where greens come from?” he asks.
“The dirt,” Nia surprises me by responding. She leans in close.
“You’re right,” Granddaddy replies, “greens grow up from the dirt just like a lot of vegetables. But greens are even different than those, cause they keep a lot of that dirt in their leaves and stems. See?” Granddaddy holds up one of the leaves that we ain’t cleaned yet. I get real close and notice patches of brown mixed in with all the green.
“Eww, it’s dirty!” I screech.
“Exactly, and that’s why we gotta clean ’em real good. Otherwise, you get you a big ol’ bowl of collard greens and it’s gon’ be nasty. Don’t matter how well you cook greens, if you don’t clean ’em well, they won’t taste right.”
Nia nods to show she understands, so I nod, too.
But then I ask, “So how do we get ’em clean?”
“Well, first we fill the sink with cold water. I already did that part.” We nod. “Then we rinse and tear the greens. You girls already did that part.” We nod and smile. “Now we got all our greens in the water, so we gon’ dip ’em and dip ’em, just like this.” As Granddaddy talks, he uses both hands to plunge the floating greens underwater. Up and down over and over so that all the greens go under, then rise back to the top.
“Can I try?” I ask, hopeful.
“Sure,” says Granddaddy, shifting away from the sink to make space for me.
I dip my hands in the icy water, much colder than I expected. The greens feel firm, but sometimes tiny bits of leaves get loose and attach to my fingers like wet tissue. I grab as many greens as I can into my small hands and dip them beneath the water. All the way to the bottom so I can feel the cold metal of the sink. Then I drag them back to the top, again and again.
“How we gon’ know when it’s done?” Nia asks. I’m surprised she’s still just watching. Not asking to do it herself or running off to the room to be alone. I sneak a small smile to myself, being sure she don’t see.
“Good question.” Granddaddy smiles. “Kenyatta, grab up as many of the greens as you can and hold ’em up against the sink.”
I do just as I’m told, gathering all the greens so that most of ’em are held tight against the sink in my clammy hands.
“Now, look at the water.” We all look and see that the water is dark like mud. “What do you see?”
“Dirt?” I ask, thinking I must be missing something.
“Dirt,” confirms Granddaddy. “We gon’ know our greens clean when ain’t no more dirt in the water. Let’s start again.” He removes the plug and drains the gloomy water from the sink. Then refills it with clean, cold water. I let the greens fall back into the water and start the process from the beginning, dipping and sinking and floating the greens. Once I’m done, we check the water again. Less brown now, but still some. We do it all again and again. That makes four sinks of clean water til we get clean greens.
We simmer the greens in a big pot of water overnight. Granddaddy says he gon’ come check on ’em while we sleep. We leave the corn wrapped tight in the fridge, cause it’s gon’ go on the grill tomorrow. Then we gotta clean up our mess. Momma always tells us that we can never leave the kitchen messy when we go to bed. Looks like she learned that lesson from Granddaddy. We wipe counters and wash dishes and empty the trash. Finally, we are done. Granddaddy turns off the lights and I follow Nia down the hall.
“Good night,” Granddaddy calls to us just as we make it to the bedroom door.
“Good night,” we say at the same exact time. Then both yell, “Jinx!” I ain’t played jinx with Nia in a while. We used to drive Momma crazy with all our loud games, but now the house is mostly quiet, with Nia doin’ her own thing and me tryna figure out mine.
“Owe me a soda,” Nia says with a smile. I don’t even fight to prove we said it at the same time. I want Nia to win.
In our little room, we get ready for bed. Nia wraps her hair; I braid mine. Tomorrow will be a good day, I think. Granddaddy says we gon’ go to a big barbecue with family and fireworks and lots of food. I’m happy not just cause we get to meet family, but cause it might get me closer to fixing Momma and Granddaddy. And even if it don’t, I bet it’s gon’ be fun to have a big, happy family like the kind I always see on TV. Maybe not perfect, but close.