The Walkers had gathered this morning for a private moment with Malawi. Their father had hugged Ghana for so long she felt lightheaded when he let her go. She held Kenya close for a long time, too, feeling this deep loss in their trinity. She even embraced her mother, whose shrunken body seemed to flop like a rag doll, unable or unwilling to hold itself up, leaning heavily on her husband to get through each moment of the day.
Ghana was empty of any more emotion. Her subconscious had said goodbye during the night, in a dream; that dream of them sitting by the ocean, but this time Malawi ran down the beach, laughing, and dove into the water, disappearing in a large blue wave that rose up like the mouth of a whale and swallowed her whole. Standing on the beach waving goodbye, Ghana awoke slow and heavy and sobbed. Through her tears, she thanked her little sister for all the happy moments they had shared.
Seated at the other end of the pew, her father looked depleted in a way her mother didn’t. Mama had been drained for so long it was almost normal for her to look thin and frail. But her father appeared downtrodden and stunned, smaller than he had ever looked to Ghana. Teddy and Joe sat behind him, protecting him from the poking and prodding of the world. He’s been exalted and vilified in the television talk shows and opinion columns. His court decisions have been analyzed as if his work as a judge could offer insight into why his youngest daughter had broken down on the side of the road and sought help at a nearby house only to be murdered by a fearful Floridian who shot first and asked no questions.
Ryan’s solidity next to her, their fingers entwined, gave her comfort, yet there was a chasm between them she wasn’t sure she could close. He would never understand who she was. She carried a burden in her genetic coding, the burden of dark skin, the double-whammy of being black and a woman. The assumption that she would steal, that her hair was dirty, that she was lazy and sexually promiscuous. That she had no right to speak her mind. That her life was worth less than a white life just because she was black. That she didn’t really matter. Something was deeply wrong with a world where a white man saw a black woman at his door and shot to kill. An act of kindness would have cost him nothing—to ask what she needed, to make a simple phone call for a tow-truck.
After meeting Ryan, she had studied the Loving case, amazed and thrilled by it; amazed that two people could be jailed just because a black woman had married a white man; amazed that her relationship with Ryan had only become legal in Virginia around fifty years ago. Thrilled that two people had refused to be defined by a state law. Thrilled that love had conquered the pettiness of a nation. And yet. Here we were again pitting black against white, white against black.
Ryan squeezed her fingers. She wanted to be strong and embody the strength of Mildred Loving. Wanted to stay with a white man who carried a gun to work, who for many, represented oppression and extreme violence, sometimes death. She just wasn’t sure she could.
Dad had always been the one she sought for advice about men. Mama was dismissive in her responses, the stay-at-home mom who was too busy painting to talk to her kids. But Dad, the important judge, always had time, even just a moment to listen and respond. Gently he would say, “I only have a moment. What do you need?” At a young age Ghana recognized that her father had once been a boy and could help her understand boys, though at thirty-one, she still found them confusing.
“What do you think of Ryan?” she had asked her father after he met him.
“Seems like a good man. Respectful.”
“What about him being white?”
Her father chuckled. “Do you like him?”
She hesitated. “I think I love him.”
“But do you like him? Can you sit in a car with him driving from here to San Francisco and back and still want to be with him afterward?”
Ghana laughed then, saying, “Sure I could,” but thought about such a drive for days, months after. They probably could survive that kind of time together. When it was just the two of them, life seemed simple and easy. But the world had a way of intruding, poking into their lives, shaking things up and creating chaos. It wasn’t being in the car together, it was what they encountered on the road and how the world influenced their thoughts and actions. Finding a way to navigate the rocks and potholes, that was the challenge.
Everyone stood as the pallbearers gathered around the casket and carried it down the aisle to the hearse waiting outside. Her parents followed first, then Kenya and the kids—Sidney wasn’t here—and then Ghana and Ryan and each pew thereafter. She was pleased to see Cass here, though she was by herself near the back. Her friend blew a kiss and Ghana beckoned for her to come with them, but Cass refused, not wanting to intrude. Outside, the family climbed into a limousine and Ghana stared at the carpeted floor thinking about Malawi diving into the ocean.
The ride to the graveside felt longer than twenty minutes; no one said a word, the only noise was Mama quietly sobbing.
The sun was bright, yet the air was cool in the cemetery. A field of headstones spread out across a rolling hill and Kenya felt the chill of grief that stuck to the grass, the trees, and the stones all around them, a grief she didn’t feel.
Malawi was being buried next to their grandfather. The Honorable William G. Walker. Hundreds of people had come out for his funeral. Junior had just turned two and Sidney had carried him in his arms up the hill to the grave site. She looked at her son now, wearing a black suit and tie, looking much older than twelve, looking much like his father. She prayed he didn’t become the asshole his father was.
All day, staring at the casket, Kenya had wanted to rip it open, pull her sister out and scream at her, “What the hell were you thinking? He’s my husband.” She wanted to hear Malawi explain how it happened. Did he seduce her? Did she approach him first? When? Kenya was fighting the hatred boiling in her stomach for her sister, for her husband. It was wrong for her to hate her dead sister, gunned down for seeking help. Practically a martyr in the black community. But she did hate her. She’d slept with her husband behind her back. Wore sexy underwear and sent him messages knowing he was married to her sister. And him. He eagerly went along with the affair knowing how wrong they both were.
As family and friends placed flowers on the casket, Kenya wanted to spit on it. Instead she walked away, taking Charlene’s hand in her own and linking arms with her son. Her life was unraveling, all the threads coming undone and she couldn’t stop it, couldn’t keep the fabric tidy and neat, not anymore. Her children must be her focus now, yet she feared what the world held for them. Junior, not yet a teenager, would grow to be a black man in a world killing young black men, killing their spirits, their hearts, their ideas. Their lives. Charlene, still so innocent. So many black women were lonely, struggling to be strong in a world that didn’t hold them in its heart. She didn’t want her children to be confused by what the world told them. By the messages in the media and what teachers would try to make them think. They were strong and beautiful and they could think for themselves. That’s what she wanted them to know. She wanted them to read and learn and understand who they were. She wanted them to be unafraid, to succeed, to thrive.
She stumbled on the gravel path heading back to the car. Stopped moving and closed her eyes, clinging tighter to her children.
A white man shot her sister. Shot her in the chest, and Kenya didn’t know how do deal with that truth. How to make peace with the fact that she’d never get to confront her. To hear Malawi’s side of the story. To ever make peace. She didn’t know how to move forward and raise two strong and loving children in a world that allowed this murderer to go free.
“Mom, you okay?” Junior’s voice seeped into her thoughts.
She reassured him that she was fine and hugged him close. “It’s just a sad day.” She kissed the top of his head. “Just a very sad day.”
28
For the third time this week Ghana talked to a woman who had lost a loved one. This woman, her name was Brenda, had lost her son when he was shot by a stray bullet in Columbia Heights. He’d
been three months shy of his sixteenth birthday.
“He was walking home from school when shots were fired from a passing car,” she said. “We don’t know what the target was, but my boy went down, and the police still haven’t found the shooter. That was five months ago.”
“I’m so sorry,” Ghana said, knowing these were helpless words that did nothing to change what was wrong. She was becoming a better listener. All they wanted, really, was someone to talk to, someone who understood what they were feeling.
The first time someone called her, Ghana had panicked realizing her information was available for anyone to find—the woman had tried to contact Bet, but instead found Ghana’s name and number online. She thought the call would last only a moment, but instead it was almost ninety minutes. The woman had lost her sister to a shooting; the sister had been a drug addict. “Didn’t mean she deserved to die.”
“Of course not.”
“She was high and got into a fight with a police officer,” the woman said. “The details are unclear, but they shot her. She didn’t have no weapon. They say she was resisting arrest. And they shot her.”
Ghana couldn’t find any words. There was nothing she could do, but she asked anyway. “What do you need?”
“Just wanted to talk to you. To let you know, you and your family ain’t alone.”
The gesture made Ghana cry. A complete stranger had reached out to her to let her know she wasn’t alone. Then two days later another call came and this woman said her husband had been choked to death by a white man in Philadelphia. The men had gotten into a fight over a parking space. A parking space!
When Cass called, inviting her to happy hour, Ghana admitted she could do with a drink.
Arriving early, she settled into a booth at Jerry’s bar, ordering two light beers. A small group, laughing and talking loudly, were spread out across several tables pulled together in the center of the place. Ghana suspected they were co-workers from a nearby office; the group was mixed: men, women, black, white, Latino, Asian, all enjoying drinks and appetizers. What a world it would be if this reflected every community. People accepting one another at face value, working and socializing together, appreciating what each one offered.
“Tough day?” Cass said as she slid into the seat opposite.
Ghana rolled her eyes. “There’s too much death.”
“What? What’s happened now?”
“No, nothing new.” Ghana told her about the women who’d called, about their pain and heartache and sense of loss at having no outlet to express their hurt. Cass tilted her head and offered a sympathetic expression. “So they call you to talk?”
“Yeah. I feel so inadequate. It’s like they have no one else. Yet at the same time, I completely understand. You can’t relate to anyone unless they’ve gone through it themselves.”
When Ghana had called Cass to tell her about Malawi’s death, Ghana had cried on the phone with her for an hour. She knew Cass would understand because she’d lost a brother to cancer. But after talking with these women who were strangers, and yet not strangers, Ghana realized there was a deeper connection of loss because the loved one had died, not from some disease inside their body, but from a malicious disease outside of themselves. Destroyed by a violence and hatred that was eating at the core of society. And that was a different pain. A different feeling of loss, of no control; while death may be the result of a physical disease, death should not be the result of being black or Asian or Latino or Muslim or Christian, or anything that sets a person apart from another group of people.
“Aren’t there groups to help, you know, support groups?” Cass asked. “Professionals they can call?”
“Not really. I did some research and there are plenty of grief support groups and counseling but nothing for this kind of loss, where a family member is killed, you know . . .” She stumbled over the word. “. . . murdered.” After a moment she said, “Who would have thought more than twenty years after Rodney King, the country is still fighting about race?”
“Girl, this country’s always been fighting about race.”
Ghana’s mood slumped at the thought, fearing what the future held for the nation. For herself. Maybe different races shouldn’t mix. Maybe people from different cultures should have remained in their respective sections of the world and not gone exploring, had not transported millions like chattel across continents to become enslaved.
She watched the bar fill with men in suits and women in heels, looking for happiness for an hour before they head home. Loud laughter erupted from the mixed group in the middle of the bar, and she watched them gesturing and laughing. She wanted to believe this group did represent most of America.
“So what’s the deal with you and Ryan?” Cass asked.
Ghana released a sigh and shrugged, uninterested in talking about her relationship. “I don’t know.” Cass nudged for information, prodding until Ghana responded. “I still love him, but this whole race thing, and the gun thing, just has me feeling weird about it all.”
Her friend nodded and sipped her beer.
“I mean the color of his skin had nothing to do with anything for me. That’s not what I saw when I met him, but I guess I just didn’t think it all through.”
“What’s there to think about? You either love him and think he’s worth the effort, or you don’t.” Cass swirled the last of her beer in the bottom of the bottle. “My parents, they’ve been together since the mid-seventies. They met and married in Philly, but still, they experienced some shit for being a mixed couple. My mom would tell me about folks asking her if she was babysitting. A white woman couldn’t have two dark-skinned babies. Just crazy shit like that.” She shook her head. “But my parents stayed true to their own belief that they were meant to be together. They’ve argued, and my dad even cheated on my mom at one point—though I don’t think he knows I know that.” She chuckled and asked if Ghana wanted another beer. Ghana nodded and Cass waved over the waiter.
“Yeah, my mom found out and jacked him up,” she continued. “Told him he either got his act together or he’d never see his kids again. He chose his kids. At the time, me and Kwame were little, like babies, but as far as I know, Dad’s been faithful ever since.” She sighed. “What I’m saying is, they didn’t let other people influence what was between them. They got looks, but still, they held hands and walked with God, as my mom says.”
The waiter brought fresh drinks and Cass took a sip. “You need to focus on what’s between you two,” she said, “and stop thinking about what other people are doing and saying.”
Ghana considered this for a moment, then said, “What worries me is, can I trust that he really loves me and not this exotic image that white men sometimes have about black women? You know?”
“Girl, yes, I know. But you have to search your heart for that. You either trust that he loves you for you, or you don’t. And if you don’t trust him, then you don’t need to be with him.”
“You make it sound so simple.” Ghana wanted to trust him. Wanted to trust that he loved her and not her skin color, yet she was afraid to ask him outright.
As if reading her mind, Cass asked, “Why don’t you talk to him about it. Ask him if your race was a factor in why he’s with you.”
“I can’t ask him that.”
“Why not?”
“Because if that’s not the case, he’ll be insulted.”
“Well, how would you feel if he thought you were with him because he’s white?”
Ghana paused, unsure how to respond. “But that’s not the case.”
“Sure, we know that, but he doesn’t.”
Before Ghana could answer, Allan surprised them both and came into the booth next to Cass, kissing her repeatedly on her face. Cass giggled and asked if he wanted a drink. Ghana decided to head home and gave Cass a hug, thanking her for listening.
She took her time walking down the block, the bright sun still hot in the sky, the street filled with people rushing home after work.
She thought about Ryan, about Malawi, about the women she’d talked to, about their loss. So many women looking for a connection with someone who understood. She could create a support group. She could do it with Kenya’s help. An organization that would honor Malawi. Ghana increased her pace, suddenly eager to get home and research how to start such a group.
29
Malcolm didn’t like having nothing to do. He used to play chess on the computer, but these days he couldn’t focus on it. He’d buried his little girl last week and each morning since, he’d awakened feeling gutted, expecting to see his insides splayed out on the bed. Flashes of Malawi waking up in a coffin, screaming that she was still alive stopped him from sleeping. He headed downstairs, another entire day ahead of him with no appointments, no cases to review, nothing. His breakfast was two Bloody Marys and a bowl of cornflakes. He would walk, he thought. Through the neighborhood or take a drive to the C&O Canal. Maybe later.
He slumped into his armchair and turned on the television searching for something mindless. He paused at “Judge Judy” and laughed. If only it were that easy. CNN was reporting a bombing in Afghanistan. The Weather Channel warned the country to prepare for hurricane season. The History Channel was analyzing the shooting of JFK. He stopped at The Discovery Channel and watched a spider spinning an intricate web, the narrator’s voice soft as if not to disturb this creator at work. After a while, he continued flipping through channels and stopped when he heard Malawi’s name. A talk show discussing the arrest of Jeffrey Davies. That motherfucker! Arrested but immediately released on bail. At home as if Davies had violated a traffic law instead of committing murder, while his baby girl was rotting in the ground. Malcolm was convinced the son-of-a-bitch wouldn’t be convicted. He deserved the death penalty. Malcolm would give him the death penalty. In fact, he should kill him himself. The thought floated around his mind and then hung like a leaf caught on a web. He should kill him himself. Malcolm imagined stabbing the man in his chest multiple times, blood spurting everywhere, then he shook the image away, only for it to return with Davies screaming for his life while Malcolm pushed the knife deeper and deeper into his flesh. He could almost feel the muscle and bone. But, no, in reality he wouldn’t kill the man that way. It was too intimate, too messy. He’d rather shoot him, blast him backwards into hell with a shotgun just like he did to Malawi.
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