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  Cookie’s chair scooted in closer. It was like Cookie wanted to sniff out the mystery her mother sang around in cautious, soothing tones.

  Gayle cut eyes at her cousin, catching her in the act. Cookie seemed to retract in shame.

  Reject.

  “I know Ruth Bell spoke to you before putting you on the plane. I’m sure she told you what we will and will not have in our house.”

  “Yeah, awright,” Gayle said. “Go on. Hit me with it.”

  Miss Auntie raised an eyebrow. The phrase hit me was set aside, but noted.

  “Everyone has a job,” her aunt began. “Yours will be helping with the housework and caring for Great when Cookie is out. We are always in motion—be it for school, work, the church, or the community. We’re always moving and doing. Cookie has youth fellowship and choir practice, and she volunteers at the soup kitchen. During the school year she’s even busier.”

  Gayle shot Cookie a glance. Don’t go blushing. Look at you.

  “Things must get done around the house.”

  “Seems like yawl been managing all this time without me.”

  “And now we’ll manage a little better,” her aunt rejoined, hot on the tail of Gayle’s remark. “Understand me, sweetie. I love your mother like a sister, but these are the only terms on which your uncle will have you here—kept busy. You see, we don’t have the kind of goings on you’re used to. We’re a family. Everyone’s actions impact on everyone else.”

  Gayle knew that impact word. It meant to hit hard. She half-smiled, rolled her eyes to the ceiling, and thought, I’m shaking.

  “If you decide to go to school come fall, you’ll make baby-sitting arrangements with someone in the church. Cookie will take you around.”

  “Whatchoo mean if I decide? I don’t have to go to school? You not making me?”

  “That’s your choice.”

  Gayle caught Cookie’s face agog with disbelief.

  Miss Auntie caroled just as nicely, “You have enough education in your lap. If you don’t want to be bothered with school, no sense sending you out there for trouble.”

  “Oh, snap! I can’t wait to tell Mama I ain’t going to school. She’ll flip. She’s always on me for schooling and doing homework and being somebody.”

  “Why, Miss Gayle, you are somebody. You’re Emanuel’s mother. As for homework, you’ll have plenty, so you need not concern yourself about school if you are not inclined.”

  Gayle mimicked silently, If you are not inclined, loving the haughtiness that was so “Miss Auntie.”

  “Mama!” Cookie blurted out.

  Miss Auntie held her hand up flat and lowered her head, meaning “Hush, child.” “Your free time must be spent productively. We will not have any hanging about town—that is, if you find your way into town.

  “Dinner is our time for togetherness. We do not bring friction to the table and there is no back talk here. I won’t always be able to jump between you and your uncle Luther if you’re foolish enough to try him.

  “I’m not expecting you to be involved in trouble of any kind. This is not that kind of house, Miss Gayle. And furthermore, I don’t expect any boys to know more than your name, who your people are, and where you live.

  “Now, being Ruth Bell’s girl, I suspect you can cook, so you will help out in the kitchen and with the laundry. If any of this is not agreeable, speak up now.”

  “Yawl wanna work me to death, see that I have no fun.”

  “You won’t be doing any more than anyone else here. We all work around the house. And on Sundays, we come together with our congregation to worship and share in the spirit of the Lord.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about. I need some fun. Fun. You know, fun. Who gon’ watch the baby when I go out?”

  Her aunt smiled. “Why, Miss Gayle, he is your little bundle of fun. You will take him with you.”

  José took his cue and squealed in his mother’s ear.

  “I think it stinks,” she wailed, then stuck the pacifier in his mouth. “I don’t wanna stay here.”

  “Call your mother and tell her so. But know this before you start dialing: She’s not laying out any money for your return. Now if you wish to earn your way back, that’s your choice. Like every choice in life, it will cost you.”

  “I’ll hitch.”

  Miss Auntie smiled again, the smile that told Gayle the ammo was ready. “Why, Miss Gayle, don’t you know what happens to young ladies caught hitching with their babies?”

  Cookie came this close to asking “What?”

  Gayle had an idea and decided to spare herself the lecture about being stopped by the police, branded an unfit mother, having her baby ripped from her arms, and being thrown in the pokey with hard women.

  “Okay,” Gayle said. “What about social services?”

  “Excuse me, sweetie?”

  Miss Auntie was just being cute. She had that smile on her face. This was worse than being stomped on by Mama. Mama she could try to hit back.

  “All I need is to go down to welfare. I can save from my monthly allotment and earn my ticket that way.”

  Miss Auntie gave Gayle a pitying look. “Sweetie, welfare isn’t a way of life,” she said softly. “Welfare is for poor souls who have no way and no family. You have an abundance of family, love, and support.”

  “Oh yeah. I’m still hurting from all that love and support Uncle Luther gave me at the airport.”

  Miss Auntie couldn’t refute it. The child was half-raised and ignorant, but not stupid. “Your uncle will come around” is all that she offered.

  “It’s not fair. I didn’t do nothing to no one, and yawl treat me like a slave and a criminal. On top of it, I’m s’posed to praise the Lord for being stuck here.”

  “Cousin, don’t cry,” Cookie said. “You know we love you.”

  “Cry? Me? Do I look like I’m crying? I just want out.”

  “All right, all right,” Miss Auntie said. “I’m sorry you feel this way, but you’ll come around. This is our home, not a place of punishment. In time we’ll grow into each other. We’re family. Family. Now, we’ve had a long day and we’re all starving. Let’s set the table.”

  “You can use the strainer to make the baby’s food,” Cookie offered. “It’s in this drawer.”

  Gayle glared at Cookie. I was not crying. I don’t cry.

  Miss Auntie stretched out her arms until Gayle lifted José toward her. She took him and smiled, appreciating Gayle’s inability to just hand over her baby.

  “Isn’t it great having a baby in the house?” Cookie gushed.

  Miss Auntie held him up and said in a far-off way, “This house could use some life,” like she was talking to herself.

  Gayle sat with empty arms, rolling her eyes while the two went on crediting family members she never heard of for her baby’s eyes, his puffy cheeks, his coloring, his determination. It was like she had had nothing to do with it at all.

  6

  “TRAY’S READY,” COOKIE SAID. “You’ll just love Great, and she’s anxious to meet you and the baby. We haven’t had a baby in the house since me.”

  With José heavy and sleepy in her arms from creamed chicken and sweet potatoes, Gayle followed her cousin up the stairs. She counted twenty-eight steps and rested on the top step. “Whew!” she cried, rubbing the small of her back. “Why yawl need all these rooms? This house is too big.”

  “It was a plantation,” Cookie said.

  “Oh yeah? What yawl plant besides dead people in the front yard?”

  “Cousin Gayle, you are just too much.” Cookie laughed. “I know you’ve had the Civil War and slavery in school.”

  “I know about slavery, all right,” she said. “I’m the house slave, remember? That is, till I break free.”

  “Cousin, you are too funny for words. Too funny.”

  “Hee haw.”

  Cookie pushed open the door to Great’s room with her shoulder. She peered in then whispered, “She’s sleeping. C’mon in.”r />
  Gayle tiptoed up to the door and looked inside before entering. She held José so tight he squirmed and patted her face. The thought of being with a person who could stiffen and die at any moment horrified and disgusted her. She went in expecting to smell and see death.

  There was a faint mixture of lilac and disinfectant in the air. Everything in the room was old-fashioned—or as Miss Auntie would say, “authentic.” The furniture, the yellowed crocheted doilies, the wallpaper. Old. The woman lying in the bed was so old she ran out of age. She wasn’t so much wrinkly as her once bright skin cast ginger shadows along her fallen cheeks. Her long white hair was braided up like a child’s in too many plaits. Cookie must have done that, Gayle surmised. It looked like the sort of thing only Cookie would think of.

  “Great. Great. You sleep?”

  Her great-grandmother’s eyes were still shut and her face placid when she responded, “You mean Great, you dead?”

  “Well?” Cookie teased.

  “Stop yo’ fooling,” she said, pausing between each word. Then her eyes opened and went straight to Gayle. “Who that?”

  Cookie meant to bring Gayle forward but ended up pushing her, as Gayle seemed stuck to the floor.

  “Ruthie,” the woman said. “Come here, baby.”

  “Great-grandmama, that’s not Ruth Bell. That’s her daughter, Gayle Ann Whitaker, and this is her baby boy, Emanuel.”

  Gayle recoiled at her name said long and correctly instead of simply “Gayo” with the l silent. She gave Cookie an evil look, letting her know she didn’t appreciate that “Emanuel” thing.

  Great propped herself up with some effort and strained to see the baby. “Luther,” she called out.

  “Daddy downstairs. This is Gayle Ann’s baby, Emanuel,” Cookie said. She whispered to Gayle, “Great forgets sometimes, or her mind’s in the past. Don’t take it personally if she never gets to know you.”

  “Trust me, I won’t,” Gayle said. “And his first name is José, not Emanuel.”

  “Oh, I know ’bout you. You the one like to taste the breeze high up ’cross the crease your backside. D’ain nothing new. Come here so I can see you.”

  Cookie’s eyes bugged out. Slack jawed, Gayle stood unaffected until the picture hit her all at once. Her face tightened. That faded prune said she knew about Gayle throwing her booty up in the air for Tom, Dick, and Harry.

  “Yo, look, Granny—”

  “Daddy preached a powerful sermon this morning!” Cookie jumped in. “Sister Taylor fell out! But you know Sister Taylor . . .” Cookie started spooning Great creamed sweet potatoes, wiping beneath her lip like she would a baby.

  Great wouldn’t leave well enough alone. She kept staring at Gayle’s face hard with eyes that sang, “Oh yeah, I know about you.”

  Gayle tapped her foot and shifted José’s weight, thinking, She lucky she old and she family. You can’t be jumping in someone’s face throwing out their business like that.

  “Doesn’t the baby favor Grandpa’s baby picture?” Cookie said to Gayle. “Grandpa was Great’s son. Go look. Right up on the bureau.”

  Gayle dragged her feet to the bureau to see the resemblance, but also to avoid the woman’s eyes. “Which one?” Gayle asked. “They all got the same face.”

  “Um-hm,” Great agreed. “All them Luthers.”

  “Now, look at Daddy’s baby picture. He and José could be twins.”

  “Don’t wish that face on my child,” Gayle cried. “Your daddy’s one evil-looking man.”

  “Daddy evil looking?”

  “Could scare the bark off a tree,” Great said.

  “Right!” Gayle signified. That old woman snatched it clean off her tongue.

  Cookie stuck another spoonful in Great’s mouth, wiped around her chin, and gave her water.

  Great gulped the water hard. “Sure would like a taste before I die.”

  “Great, you know Daddy don’t allow no spirits in the house,” Cookie said.

  “Not spirits,” Great said. “Just the old family recipe.”

  “Old family liquor,” Cookie said, like she was correcting a child. “Drink this water. It’s good for you.”

  Great made a face only Gayle could appreciate. The woman they said was going to glory wasn’t going no time soon. She still had life in her. They were just killing her, doing her like a child and boring her to death. No wonder she snappy and full of nerve. All she want is a sip of her old family recipe.

  Sure enough. Cookie ran her mouth about church things and neighbors and the weather until Great’s lids gave out. They left the room as quietly as they had entered. Gayle put José in the wooden box they called a crib and laid the drab quilt over him. They sat on the bed that had belonged to Mama.

  “I don’t see what the big deal is. She gonna die soon anyway. Might as well give her what she wants.”

  “Let her meet Jesus with peach liquor on her breath?”

  “Meet Jesus? Cookie, be serious.” Gayle laughed.

  Cookie was genuinely mortified.

  “Cousin Gayle, don’t you want to be saved?”

  “Hell, no,” Gayle declared. “Save what? We living to be living. Not to be saving.”

  “Cousin, you wouldn’t say that if you heard Daddy preach salvation. Daddy can preach.”

  “Puh-leez. I can’t even stay awake in church Christmas and Easter. Only days I go. But you know, José was the best-dressed baby in church on Easter. Yup.”

  “Cousin, you’ll love church here. Daddy is so inspiring. I couldn’t wait to be saved after hearing one of Daddy’s sermons on salvation, but Daddy and Mama made me wait until I was fourteen. They said, ‘Be a child while you are a child. Once you take salvation you’re responsible for your rights and wrongs.’ Well, my fourteenth birthday fell on a Sunday, so you know what I wished for.”

  Uncle Luther wasn’t the only preacher in the family. Cookie was going for some hallelujahs. Could she get a witness?

  “I’da held out for a gift,” Gayle said.

  “You know, Cousin, salvation is the greatest gift of all. There’s nothing like it on this earth. Your body just surrenders to the spirit. Some people fall out. I couldn’t stop crying when I got saved. I was so happy.”

  “You cried,” Gayle deadpanned.

  “Everybody cries.”

  “Not me.”

  “What about when you had the baby?”

  “Not one tear.”

  “It must have hurt like nothing you ever felt before. I know you cried.”

  They folded their legs. Cookie was pitched forward, angled for listening. Gayle fixed for telling. This was what she was missing. Entertaining her girls with her stories. And they’d “yup,” “right,” and “um-hm” in all the right places.

  “I heard they put the young ones to sleep,” she began. “But the nurse—a rusty old black one—said, ‘Nothing for this one. She can take it.’ I told her, ‘Nurse, I’m young. I’m not s’posed to feel no pain.’ She gave me a dirty look like I disgusted her and said I shoulda thought about that while I was spreading my legs. Mama couldn’t take off from work early and I didn’t have no doctor so I straightened her out myself. Still wouldn’t give me no knockout. Called it teaching me a lesson. Oh, I hate it when people try to correct my world all in one shot. Honey, I gets evil then. You shoulda heard her chewing me out, expecting me to break down and cry and say I’m sorry for being pregnant. So I laughed in her face. Yup. And those pains were shooting up my back. But see if I cried.

  “Oh! That ain’t even the funny part,” Gayle went on, spurred by Cookie’s interest. “There was this old broad in the bed next to me. About thirty, having her first baby. Talk about crying! Her husband’s holding her hand saying, ‘Breathe, honey. You can do it.’ Honest to God, they was cracking me up. Black people—acting all simple. Then we was in the same room after the delivery. That old broad cried every three minutes. Cried when they brought the baby in, cried when they took it away. She even cried after counting his fingers and toes.
So I asked her, ‘Why you crying all the time?’ She said—straight up, no lie—‘Life is beautiful,’ and started crying again.” Having delivered her punch line, Gayle broke into convulsive laughter.

  Cookie pictured her cousin on the burning coals of hell. “Didn’t you cry . . . when you had that . . . when Auntie Ruth Bell made you . . .”

  “Oh, that ’bortion?” Gayle shot out plainly. “What? Me cry so Mama could start hollering ‘What you crying for?’ Please. You ain’t been speeched until Mama speeches you dry. Believe me, if I have a choice between a speeching and a beating I’ll take a pop upside the head anytime.”

  “Cousin, between you and me, I don’t think Aunt Ruth Bell should have put your souls in jeopardy like that.”

  “Well,” Gayle said, her exuberance winding down, “I didn’t cry then. No use starting up now.”

  “Don’t you feel like some part of you is missing?”

  “Like what?” Gayle asked. The only missing part was what the doctors took out and wouldn’t let her see.

  Cookie couldn’t explain about the missing thing but insisted, “You must want to cry. If I went through all you went through I’d be in tears.”

  “Goodness, Cookie. Get a hold of yourself. I’m still ticking and kicking. Don’t get yourself all worked up. Jeez.”

  Cookie was embarrassed, while her cousin seemed to have no feelings. She got up to leave, saying, “It’s late. I’ll wake you in the morning to do Great.”

  Gayle pushed the baby’s crib closer to her bed. He didn’t seem to care that he was in an old wooden box a thousand miles from home. He had passed out from all of that food Miss Auntie had pushed down his throat. And who was gonna have to stay up and rub his belly when he started hollering all night? Not Miss Auntie and certainly not Mama who was at home having the last laugh while Gayle was stuck in a room with no TV and no music and no life ’cept José in a house full of Holy Rollers.

  Gayle looked down at her son. “Least you could do is cry,” she whispered, although it was clear from his peaceful face that he was happy.