Pa didn’t go chasing after her like they do in movies. He stayed cool. “She’ll see right.” Which meant he was right and she’d come back after she cooled off.
Cecile didn’t come back.
The girls whimpered on. I whimpered with them but mine was stuck in my throat and only showed in my raised eyebrows.
“Not everything can be fixed,” Pa said.
Between sobs, Vonetta said, “But she was gonna fix it.”
“She was, Papa,” Fern said.
“Listen here,” Pa said. “I need you to hear what I’m saying even if you’re too young to understand. You can’t have everything in life that you want. Some things are meant for you. Some things just aren’t.”
What did being young have to do with—
“But what about working hard, Pa?” I said. I’m no back-talker but my mouth opened. With my sisters crying, I became one of those loudmouths that Mrs. talked about. I couldn’t stop. “Vonetta and Fern did chores. Vonetta put the savings jar and the chart together. She kept count over the money. She made sure we saved our money and didn’t spend it on everything we wanted, and we wanted things.”
Come what may, I had to speak up for my sisters.
“All of that’s good, Delphine,” my father said calmly. “But that’s what you’re supposed to do. Help out at home. Save your money. Work toward goals. Here’s the part you’re too young to understand,” he said to me especially. “You don’t get paid for that. The reward is in the doing.”
He was right about being too young to understand. How can you work hard and get nothing? I just couldn’t “yes” him because I didn’t understand and I didn’t agree. But I knew I had another point and I had to make it.
I said, “Papa, you said if we did those things you’d give us half of the money to buy the tickets. That was your word, Papa. What about keeping your word?”
My point was good. I knew I’d won. He should have “seen right” in everything I said.
He nodded and said, “I know, Delphine. I know.” Then he said nothing for a while and I knew, I just knew, he’d seen right and I had saved the day for my sisters and me.
But then he said, “If you girls get over this disappointment, you’ll get over the rest of those to come.”
And then Vonetta yelled, “I’m never doing any chores or saving, EVER!”
The silence around that was brief.
“Vonetta.” Papa was cool. So cool I stepped in front of her. “You won’t get none today but never raise your voice to me in my house. You got that?”
She sniffled and nodded, but Papa wasn’t taking no sniffling and nodding.
“What was that?”
“Yes, Papa.”
He got up. “Y’all girls cry about it tonight, but come tomorrow I don’t want to hear none of this sniffling and moaning over those finger-popping hoodlums.”
Then Fern jumped forward. “Michael is not a hoodlum!” Her fists balled at her sides.
Papa, who was at the door, turned around, and Fern jumped behind me.
We just sat on Vonetta’s bed. The three of us. We sat and cried all night.
I’m Not Muhammad
I woke up feeling worse than when my head had hit the pillow the night before. I had gone to bed knowing my uncle was a thief who would steal from his nieces. That my uncle wasn’t sick from war, but sick from drugs. I tried to sleep, but all through the night I heard moaning. It wasn’t my uncle rattling around, but Big Ma saying, “My son, my son. Give me back my son, Lord. Bring him home.”
Except for the evergreens, there wasn’t a leaf on a tree that morning. Vonetta, Fern, and I walked to school, none of us saying a word. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone when I got to the playground.
My classmates were all gathered in one oblong mob with Frieda in the center. She seemed to be doing all the talking, and it seemed odd because that wasn’t how Frieda was. Talk, talk, talking so everyone would be fixed on her. Frieda was cool and never needed a crowd around her.
Then Michael S. looked up and did a head jerk my way. Frieda and Lucy moved toward me and brought the crowd of six-three with them.
Frieda stepped closer to me and said, “Hey. Is everything all right?”
My hard night’s sleep must have shown on my face. I tried to make my expression bright but I’m no actress. I just said, “Sure.” Had it just been Frieda and me alone, I would have told her about yesterday and Uncle Darnell, but they were all there, hovering. Waiting. I said, “Everything’s okay.”
Frieda Banks, with everyone there, practically sang, “Your grandmama came by last night looking for Darnell and she was crying, Delphine. I felt so bad.”
I looked dead in Frieda’s face.
I thought, Did I hear right? Did I hear what I thought I heard? Did I hear Frieda, my friend, my friend since we were little, trying to make me feel bad in front of the class? Did Frieda just snap the Dozens at me, talking about “your grandmama”?
I was mad enough to push Frieda into Lucy and send half my class falling like bowling pins. I was mad enough, but I didn’t push her. I didn’t want to be walking the paddle mile or bringing home a third detention slip from the office. I said with the right amount of neck-rolling, “Frieda Banks, if you care so much about why my grandmother was crying, then you can go to Herkimer Street and you can ask her.”
It wasn’t snappy, but I tossed my head and walked away.
How do you ignore a person who sits directly to your right? Someone you always shared a smile or an eyeball roll with? By the end of the first period, I became an expert at ignoring my used-to-be friend, Frieda Banks. If I accidentally caught her eye, I stared past her like I was using X-ray vision to see through the wall to her right.
Frieda tried to apologize all day and sent Monique over in chorus with notes I wouldn’t read. At least she knew better than to send notes through Lucy. I only rolled my eyes while Monique sputtered Frieda’s apology. Then Frieda told Rukia to tell me she was sorry and wanted to talk but Rukia said, “You might be the mountain but I’m not Muhammad.” Only Rukia and I knew what that meant. If Muhammad won’t come to the mountain, then the mountain will have to come to Muhammad.
I could carry a chip on my shoulder for a year and a day, but by dismissal I began to feel bad. Bad on top of the bad I was already feeling over everything else going on at home. Mrs., gone. Uncle Darnell, a thief. Drug sick. Gone. My sisters crying. Big Ma moaning. And no Jackson Five concert at Madison Square Garden.
I figured I’d let Frieda off the hook when I saw her alone. But when I was walking toward her, Danny the K called out to me from down the hall, “Delphine! Delphine!” When I turned, I saw them—Danny the K and Ellis Carter, but Ellis was walking away from him, like he didn’t want to be anywhere near his friend. The K called out to me again, but now I heard him clearly. He wasn’t saying my name. He was shouting, “Dope fiend! Dope fiend!”
Quick-Fast-in-a-Hurry
Our house didn’t smell like cooked meat or vegetables when I opened the front door. Big Ma hadn’t started cooking, and she didn’t show any signs of getting started. She sat in the living room with her big Bible in her lap. She didn’t yell at Vonetta, Fern, and me to wash up, hang up our clothes, or get our lessons started like she’d been doing every day after school. We did those things anyway.
Big Ma never made quick-fast-in-a-hurry food. She made food that needed washing before it touched a knife, pot, or pan. Or she made beans that soaked overnight and simmered with neck bones for a good part of the next day. And stewed meat in heavy enamel pots, with bay leaves and carrots and potatoes that soaked up gravy. Big Ma cooked food meant to stick to your insides and keep your belly full. She cooked food that took time.
If cooking hadn’t started by two or three o’clock, we’d have to eat quick-fast-in-a-hurry, which were the meals I cooked. Franks and canned pork and beans. Fried chicken, boiled potatoes, and frozen green peas. Sometimes I made spaghetti with catsup and any kind of cut-up, leftover meat
from the night before. The few times when Big Ma was sick, Uncle Darnell brought in a pizza pie. Big Ma never liked that and always got well the next day so we wouldn’t get used to take-out food.
I said, “Big Ma, you want me to get something washed or cooking?” I spoke gently. She acted like she didn’t hear us when we came in.
She shook her head and said, “I’ll get to it in a minute.”
So I went to my room and brought my books into my sisters’ room, where we did homework. I’d rather look up and help Vonetta and Fern than have them run in and out of my room with every problem. Vonetta hadn’t been doing that lately. Once she got the hang of figuring out money she saw numbers as money to be saved for the concert. Except now there was no concert.
Fern had only two sheets of homework and both sheets looked easy. Still, she sat for a long time and wrote and erased, then wrote and erased again.
I tried to not think about losing Frieda and why she went telling everyone about Big Ma knocking on her door crying and Uncle Darnell being sick from drugs. I tried to not think about Danny the K yelling out “dope fiend.” I did my homework, but I spent more time watching my sisters do theirs. I wished I had their homework.
Keys jangled. The front door opened, then closed. We put our pens and pencils down but only Fern ran to the window.
“Too early for Papa,” I said.
“No Wildcat,” she said.
It was Darnell, I thought.
Vonetta must have thought the same thing. She jumped up and ran out of the room. She had it in her mind to shake or punch Uncle Darnell like he was Fern or me. She was going to shake him until all of the money he had taken fell out of his pockets. I didn’t tell her or Fern what was wrong with him. That he used the money up and couldn’t be giving it back.
It didn’t matter if “old” Uncle Darnell had come back to us and was holding tickets to the concert. From what I knew, drugs didn’t let go of you just like that. Not those kinds of drugs. Being sick from drugs wasn’t like being sick from a cold, although Uncle D could never seem to be rid of the cold he always had. I didn’t know much, but I knew you didn’t smoke drugs one day and leave them alone the next.
Vonetta needed to let go of seeing the Jackson Five. Pa didn’t mean for us to go to Madison Square Garden in the first place. If he did, he would have let Mrs. replace the money Uncle Darnell stole from the savings jar. I didn’t really understand the lesson Pa was trying to teach us about disappointment, but I knew he wanted us to forget all about the concert and the Jackson Five.
When we ran into the living room, we didn’t see Uncle Darnell looking sick and full of “sorrys.” It was Mrs. walking into the living room. She had come back.
Vonetta and Fern ran and jumped on her. Just like they had done with Cecile at the airport when it was time to leave Oakland. They squeezed her and begged her not to leave.
I was glad to see her too, but not as glad as they were. I had Uncle Darnell on my mind. I said, “Hey.”
She said, “Hey, Delphine.”
Big Ma sort of looked up. “You’re back, Marva?”
Mrs. said, “I’m back, Mrs. Gaither.”
We let Big Ma sit in her chair with her big Bible while we cooked. Mrs. could cook, but she was no Big Ma in the kitchen. She cooked like me. Quick-fast-in-a-hurry. I hoped my father knew that.
A week passed and Uncle Darnell hadn’t come home.
Big Ma asked Pa at Thanksgiving dinner, “Did you go looking, son?”
He said what he said yesterday: “I drove around. Went by his friends. No one seen him.”
I knew she’d ask again. She always did.
“Good riddance,” Vonetta said into her napkin. I kicked her under the table. She had it coming but said, “Cut it out, Delphine,” anyway.
“You both cut it out,” Pa said.
“Son, you’ll go and look again tomorrow?”
From across the table, Mrs. shook her head in tiny yesses, urging Pa to say he would.
Pa said, “Ma . . . he’ll come home when he’s ready.”
“What if he won’t?” Big Ma said.
I glared at Vonetta: Don’t you dare.
She glared back.
Fern said, “I saw that!”
No one paid Fern any mind.
“He’s a man,” Pa said. “He’s not a little boy. He’s got to find his own way back.”
Big Ma slammed her hand down hard on the table. “But he can’t, son. He can’t. He’s sick.”
Then Mrs. pulled Fern’s chair back and told her to get down and said, “Delphine, take them back to their room.”
We went.
“Some Thanksgiving,” Vonetta griped. “I didn’t finish eating my turkey.”
“Or the yams.”
“We’ll eat later,” I said, and made the sign for “shh.” We could hear Pa and Big Ma arguing. Then feet stomped and a door slammed.
That Thanksgiving, I was thankful that only the bedroom door slammed. And not the front door.
Every Good-bye
When I was four, my grandmother seemed like a giant.
The flowers on Big Ma’s muumuu now seemed bigger, just like the comfy chair she had been sitting in for the past seven years now seemed bigger. The nurses and doctors whispered their secrets on General Hospital while the soap opera organ played a tune full of worry. Big Ma seemed to shrink before my eyes.
The box of Oreos on the table meant she had left the house and gone to the store while we were at school. I called Vonetta and Fern to get their after-school snack. Two Oreos and a glass of milk each. They came running with their school shoes still on, said, “Hi, Big Ma,” and went straight to the Oreos and milk in the kitchen. Big Ma didn’t yell about “a pair of unbroken broncos kicking and neighing to get at a plate of cookies.” When she didn’t say a word, I went out to the living room to check on her.
Big Ma looked up at me and said, “Your uncle.” Her eyes were big and sad.
“You’ve seen Uncle Darnell?” I asked. “He’s been here?”
Vonetta must have heard Uncle’s name and came out into the living room, her hands and lips all cookied up. “He’s here?” She patted her foot. “Wait till I get my hands on him.”
“Yeah,” Fern said. “Just wait.”
“Darnell’s gone.” Big Ma spoke plain. Soft. Like nothing mattered any longer. Not the cookies. Not Vonetta’s foot-patting. “Darnell’s gone.”
I asked, “Gone? Gone where?”
Big Ma’s tears welled up. “I must have been at the store. . . .” She looked down at a piece of paper on top of her Bible. It was a sheet from my letter-writing pad, which meant Uncle Darnell had been in my room. I took the paper.
“What did he say, Delphine?” Vonetta asked. Now her hands were placed where her hips would grow in. She hadn’t stopped patting her foot.
“Yeah. Read it.”
So I read it aloud:
“‘I have to go, Ma. I’ll be all right. Kiss the girls. Everything is everything. Darnell.’”
Then Vonetta said, “I don’t want your stupid kiss, you sicko, runaway thief. Keep running for all I care.”
Color returned to Big Ma’s face. And then some. Before Fern could tag on a “surely anything,” Big Ma said, “Bring me my belt,” and Fern jumped away from Vonetta and next to me.
I said, “Big—”
“Bring me my belt.”
I looked at Vonetta. Stupid, fast-mouthed Vonetta, and there was nothing I could do to save her. I sped to Big Ma’s room. There wouldn’t be any group discussion and debate on this subject. If I’d opened my mouth or questioned Big Ma, she would have gotten up out of her chair. And if she got up, it wouldn’t be to whip Vonetta but to get me.
I opened the closet and took down the hanger that four of Big Ma’s belts swung from. The best I could do for Vonetta was to choose “Wanda, the Good Switch” over “Lightning.” We had all gotten a taste of Lightning. Me, Vonetta, and Fern. One lash was all it took before you saw lightning on a clear
day. Lightning was a maroon color gone brown. Its thin leather strap stretched from being fastened around the waist to the last hole, and was now a hardened leather with a blinding, mean snap.
Wanda, the Good Switch was newer and had a little padding to it, if you were lucky to get its softer side. I brought Wanda out to Big Ma.
A whipping didn’t come without what Big Ma calls “a wisdom.” According to Big Ma, a whipping and a wisdom went together. The wisdom is what you’re supposed to remember long after the sting of the whipping became a memory.
“Don’t—you—ever—open your mouth about your uncle, or call him out of his name!”
Don’t you ever. Three. Three lashes across the legs. Fern jumped to dodge each one, although she was far away from Wanda. But Vonetta. Poor Vonetta. Even Wanda’s goodness couldn’t save her.
When it was over, I hugged my sister, who smelled like Oreos, the saltiness of tears, and hot, crying breath.
She tried to push away from me. “Leave me alone. Leave me alone.” But I wouldn’t. I didn’t leave her alone to cry and sulk and hope for darkness to come and think bad thoughts about Big Ma and Uncle Darnell. I hugged her until she hugged me back and got all her crying out.
Dinner was quiet. Pa didn’t say anything about Darnell leaving. Big Ma didn’t say anything about Vonetta needing the whipping she got. Mrs. didn’t fill the air with talk.
Saturday morning, Big Ma had on her Second Sunday outfit. She wore no gloves. Her cheery feather slunk to half-mast and lay flat against her hat. Pa had walked her suitcases down to the Wildcat and was putting them in the trunk.
“Come on, Vonetta,” I said. “Let’s say good-bye to Big Ma.”
Vonetta crossed her arms.
“Stop acting like a baby,” I told her.
“Yeah, baby,” Fern said. “Quit it.”
Vonetta uncrossed her arms. “Don’t call me a baby, baby.”
“You’re the baby.”
“You are.”
And they kept at it but Pa was ready to go. I looked out the window. He was pumping the foot pedal, and the Wildcat was growling.