They Tell Me of a Home: A Novel

by Daniel Black

  “Your sister,” Momma said with a demeaning smile. I couldn’t say anything to make her understand.

  “Where is that girl anyway? I know she’s grown,” I said in an effort to lighten the mood.

  “She’s out back,” Momma said, scaling more fish. “She’s been waitin’ on you a long time.”

  Momma was not going to let up, so I decided to go see Sister. When I exited the back door, I immediately saw the tombstone:

  Cynthia Jane Tyson

  1970-1987

  “loving sister and daughter”

  I fell to the ground in shock and horror, screaming at the top of my lungs, “Sister! Sister! No!” I rolled on the ground with snot pouring from my nose and tears streaming from my eyes. “Oh God! Sister, no! Please, Sister, no! Oh God, no! Not you, Sister! Please, Sister, not you!” I was slinging my arms, kicking my feet, and throwing my head from side to side, bellowing, “Sista! No! God, no!”

  I heard Momma come from the house and say, “She’s been waitin’ on you. You were the last person she asked for. We had nothin’ to tell her, although whatever she wants to know, you can tell her yourself. Now.” She turned and reentered the house.

  My heart was pounding like I had run a marathon. “Oh my God, oh my God!” I kept mumbling. “What the hell is this?” I felt like I was losing my mind. I embraced myself tightly and screamed even louder in agony, “Sister! This can’t be true! You can’t be dead! Sister! Sister!” Momma or Willie James should have prepared me for the truth. Their vengeance alone was the only explanation for their deception.

  Sister was dead. My last joy, my childhood friend, my spiritual confidante, was gone. She had been my only reason, over the past ten years, for wanting to stay connected to these folks who obviously had no commitment to me. I could not hold her, touch her, hear her laughter, or see her make fun of Miss Josephine again. Sister was simply gone, and there was nothing I could do about it. I rolled around in despair, screaming, “No, Sister, not you! No, Sister! Please not you, Sister.” I tore my shirt in anguish, and my pants were covered with red dirt stains. “Please come back to me, Sister. I need you. Oh, Sister, please,” I cried. I began to lose my voice. Why had Momma done this to me?

  Suddenly I jumped up furious and stormed back into the kitchen, screaming and crying profusely.

  “What happened, Momma?” I yelled loudly. “Did y’all kill her because I loved her? Did you and Daddy decide to fuck up my entire life by taking the only thing about this godforsaken shit hole I enjoyed?”

  “You betta watch yo’ mouth in this house, boy,” Momma whispered intensely.

  I ignored her warning. “How did she die, Momma?” I screamed even louder, shaking and trembling and wiping snot from my nose.

  Momma said nothing. She simply kept cleaning fish.

  “Momma, if you don’t say something to me, I swear to God …”

  “Not in this house you don’t!” She stabbed the knife into the cutting board violently. Her anger brought me back to reality.

  “How did she die, Momma?” I asked slowly with my eyes closed.

  “I don’t know. She just died one day, boy.”

  “What?” I was yelling again. “What kind of nonsense is that? People don’t fall over dead arbitrarily! Not at seventeen! What the hell happened, Momma?” My tone was totally disrespectful and I knew it.

  “You’bout to make me mad, boy,” she said, smiling softly.

  “Fine! That’ll make two of us!” I retorted. I was really losing my cool.

  “I ‘speck you betta watch yo’self befo’ you git in a heap o’trouble wit’ dat damn mouth.” The smile had evolved into a tight-lipped grimace.

  “Momma!” I screamed. “You got to tell me more than simply she died. How did she die?”

  “I don’t know, boy. We found her dead in her bed one evenin’. The bed was full of blood.” Momma was whispering. “Nobody knew what happened, so we just buried her.”

  “What?”

  “You heard what I said. She died; we buried her. Dat’s what you do wit’ dead folks.” Momma rolled up the last of the fish guts and put them in the same plastic bag with the others.

  None of this made sense to me, but I decided to try a calmer approach. I certainly wasn’t getting anywhere yelling.

  “Momma, wait,” I said more quietly, hoping my diplomacy might elicit more information. “I’m sorry for cursing. I really am. But to come home after ten years and find my sister dead is outrageous—”

  “That’s right, ten years,” Momma interrupted. “That’s yo’ fault. If you hada kept in touch with us, you woulda knowed.”

  “Momma, I can’t change the past! I’m asking for an explanation about Sister. Why is that so difficult?”

  “Because your presence here is difficult.”

  I appreciated her honesty, although it hurt badly. “What do you mean?”

  “When I saw you today, it took everything in me not to slap the shit out of you.”

  The feeling’s mutual, I thought.

  “You were Sister’s hero, T.L. Her dying hope was to leave this place and go find her brother. She told us we ran you away. Said your leaving was our fault. ‘Y’all were too mean to him,’ she would say. You know Sister said what she thought. ‘I woulda left, too, if Daddy beat me like that,’ she told me one day. I told her to hush up her mouth’cause she was talkin’ business she didn’t know nothin’’bout. But, yeah, you were her man. And you didn’t love her enough to send a card.”

  Momma didn’t know about the letter, and telling her wouldn’t have made any difference.

  Hearing about Sister’s love for me reignited my hysteria. “Momma, please! What the hell happened?”

  “Why do you keep asking me the same question over and over again?” Momma began to get a little louder. “I told you everything.”

  “No, you didn’t. I don’t know how she died!”

  “Well, hell, I don’t, either!” Momma screamed, and walked out of the back door with the bag of fish guts.

  I sat at the kitchen table with my head in my hands in utter disbelief. How could this be? Sister was dead and Momma had no explanation. My emotions changed from sadness to confusion. None of this made sense to me. Momma was acting like her daughter’s death was regular, ordinary, simple. My level of trepidation had not moved Momma’s peace one bit. I began to feel almost apologetic. This was insane, so I returned to the grave.

  “Sister, Momma’s not telling me the truth. I know you wouldn’t leave me without seeing me first. You knew I would come back for you, didn’t you?” I was crying as I gently rubbed the petals of the artificial roses, which framed the tombstone. “How did this happen? Did Momma or Daddy hurt you?” I laid my head on the ground next to the headstone. I thought that maybe if Sister felt my tears she would respond. “Sister, tell me who did this to you. I don’t believe you died suddenly one day. You weren’t sickly as a child. Please tell me, Sister, and I promise—” I didn’t know what I promised. I was too disheveled, distraught, and disgusted to recognize any immediate recourse. A song came to mind I thought might soothe my lamenting heart, and I sang it loudly for Sister without shame:

  “I come to the garden alone,

  While the dew is still on the roses.

  And the voice I hear falling on my ear

  The Son of God discloses.

  And he walks with me and he talks with me,

  And he tells me I am his own.

  And the joy we share as we tarry there

  None other has ever known.”

  I was there at least an hour or two, telling Sister secrets about me she probably already knew. I told her about my experiences traveling the world and meeting all different types of people with tons of different ideas. I even mentioned the time I tried to kill myself because my past had overwhelmed me. She understood, I think. I felt better. I tried to explain it to her in detail, but I knew Sister and I never needed words to communicate.

  “Git up off that ground, boy, and come git
yo’self somethin’’teat,” Momma called from the kitchen window, ignoring both Sister’s grave and my pain.

  I rose and reentered the house from the back porch. The reality of it all struck me when I saw Momma again.

  “Momma, why is Sister buried in the backyard?” I asked, not realizing how crazy this was until I spoke the words themselves.

  Momma said nothing.

  “Momma? Why is Sister not buried in the graveyard at the church?” I was beginning to worry severely. Everything about her death was extraordinary and strange.

  “’Cause I wanted her near me,” Momma said as though this explanation made perfect sense. “You had her in life; I have her in death.” Momma was losing her mind. She was losing her goddamn mind.

  “After Shelia died, I wanted a little girl more than anything. One whose hair I could comb and who I could dress in pretty little dresses and send off to Sunday school. I wanted a little girl who all the boys wanted and who all the other little girls envied. And I got a little girl, but she didn’t want none of what I wanted for her. All she wanted was you. What could I do besides let her go? And once you left, I knew I’d never have my baby girl because her memory of you and her hope of your return was bigger than you had ever been. I couldn’t compete. But once she died, I decided I was gonna have what I wanted.”

  “Momma, that’s crazy!” I said, astonished and bewildered.

  “Maybe it is,” Momma wailed, “but when you ain’t neva had nothin’, you do what chu can to hold on to the little bit you got. Dat’s why you left here. You was always searchin’ for things to hold on to, somethin’ that could be yours by yo’self. Wunnit no readin’ and writin’ jobs for no black boys round here, so you left.”

  I wanted desperately to correct her poor reasoning, but she was on a roll and I didn’t stop her.

  “I never got a chance to have nothin’. A woman can’t do nothin’ but mind her man and have his babies. Dat’s what de ole folks believed and I believed it, too. When Scooter drowned, I thought I was gon’ die from the pain in my heart, but I didn’t. I learned how to live without givin’ my heart away. He was my baby, and I couldn’t figure out why God took him back. Then God took Shelia, too. I didn’t have nobody but Willie James left. Momma told me it’s all part of being a woman. I decided I’d better learn how to lose and still have peace of mind. Then you came along.”

  Momma started setting the table. I think she was crying, but I couldn’t tell. I didn’t know what to say.

  “Sister was a pretty baby,” Momma continued, placing forks and glasses next to the plates in perfect proximity. “She never did cry. All she did was smile. I used to tell folks she knew a secret she wouldn’t tell nobody. A pretty baby girl seemed like a welcome gift to me. I started makin’ her cute little dresses and I’d plait her hair real nice, but she never liked any of it. All she wanted to do was play wit’ chu. She didn’t care nothin’’bout no lady things. No, no. She wanted to fish and swim naked in de pond and read all dem damn books. She didn’t want nothin’ to do wit’ me. That’s why I gave up. I quit trying to make her my little girl. She wanted you, so I let her have you.”

  “I didn’t know Scooter drowned,” I said. “I thought it was epilepsy.”

  “Lot of stuff you don’t know. More stuff you don’t know than stuff you do.” Momma put the fish and salad on the table. She placed her hands on her hips, leaned back in exasperation, and proclaimed, “Ten years is enough time for a whole lotta stuff to happen. You jes’ got to catch up wherever you can. I don’t know what happened to Sister, and if I did—”

  “You wouldn’t tell me, would you?” I interrupted with a sharp edge.

  Momma wasn’t moved by my tone. “I don’t know. If you didn’t care about her in the last ten years, I ain’t too sure she means much to you now.”

  “That’s not fair, Momma.”

  “Fair? Ain’t nothin’ been fair in my life, boy. Shit. I done worked hard for damn near fifty years and still ain’t got nothin’ to show for it and you talkin’’bout fair? I done buried three children, lost one,” I guessed she was referring to me, “and been married to a man thirty-five years who loves what I do—not who I am. Don’t I deserve somethin’ fair? You ain’t the only one who want a life of pleasure and joy. You ain’t hopin’ for somethin’ nobody else in the whole world ever wanted. Don’t fool yo’self. I been wishin’ all my life for what you jes’ thought about a few minutes ago. Don’t show up after ten years and start talkin’ to me’bout what’s fair and what ain’t.”

  Momma walked away from the table toward the bathroom. She seemed satisfied she finally said what she had been hoarding for years. I had never heard her speak so matter-of-factly. She seemed more human to me than before. Yet I still didn’t know what happened to Sister.

  4

  A grave in the backyard. Who had heard of such a thing? My visit home was becoming more than I ever imagined. I had spent every day of those ten years longing to hold Sister again, waiting to laugh at people with her again, and when I get home she’s buried in the backyard? This was crazy to me. Momma walked around the house—and the yard—tranquil about Sister’s death to the point of being numb. She hung clothes on the line out back, amid the tombstone, with a contentment at once disturbing and fascinating. I looked at her, at the house, at the peace of the woods, trying my best to figure out why I was the only one troubled. Of course there was no need to confront Momma again, for she had said what she was going to say. For the possibility of my return—she knew Sister’s spirit would summon me—Momma had undoubtedly rehearsed exactly what she’d say to me. My questions, which she had not anticipated, she simply circumvented. She definitely wouldn’t dignify me with a discussion.

  I left Momma in the house eating fish. It was about seven o’clock and beginning to get dusky. I walked outside, trying like hell to find some meaning, some logic, to this madness. I noticed three or four of Daddy’s cows grazing in the field east of the house. They looked peaceful, unconcerned. I wondered if they had known Sister. I thought maybe she had fed them a time or two and had petted them tenderly in her sweet way. If she had, they would have remembered her soft touch and mourned her sudden disappearance. I wanted to ask them what happened, if they had seen or heard anything strange. They seemed to read my mind, for they began to survey me intensely, although having no words by which to express their thoughts. I walked closer to the fence that separated their world from ours. Leaning there, I hoped for some type of revelation, but I got nothing.

  I walked around the edge of our land like a lost fawn trapped and seeking a way out. It was still hot, though a bit cooler than when I had arrived. The sky was transforming into a dark, ominous purple, suggesting rain. The wind was strong, and pollen lingered in the air. I saw the garden where Momma and Daddy had planted peas and okra and potatoes and collard greens. The cabbage heads were shaking excitedly from the wind. I stood there and stared at the big collard green leaves, which, bunched together, trembled intensely and resembled a church choir on Sunday morning rocking with the power of the Holy Ghost. Yet I could not hear them. I sensed the urgency of their message but received no communication. I felt chill bumps cover my skin. What was going on in Swamp Creek?

  I walked onto Grandma’s back porch and sat down. I didn’t know who lived there, but at the moment I didn’t care. It was beginning to rain. The rain would bring some relief from the heat although no relief for my heart. Tree limbs were swaying in the wind like old women in church, listening to a good sermon. Dust was flying in the air, covering everything in sight. I sat with my knees to my chest, feeling the cool breeze and praying for an answer. I knew Daddy would be coming down the road any minute and I would have to deal with him, but for the moment I was simply trying to regroup.

  Grandma’s back porch had been my refuge, other than the barn. It was nothing elaborate. Old mason jars, a rusty garden hoe, an old gas can that no one ever used, some battered work shoes from thirty years ago, and an outdated push mower. It was more
like a junk house than a back porch. As a child, I would go there to sit and think or read or get away, and when I left, I felt prepared for battle once again. The hay barn was my other respite from the world, but I didn’t want Daddy to catch me off guard, so I sat on the steps of Grandma’s back porch instead, watching the rain and awaiting his arrival.

  “I like rain,” I told Grandma one day as we shelled purple hull peas.

  “You do?” she responded nonchalantly.

  “Yes, ma’am. It makes me think of Noah and the flood in the Bible when it starts raining. Think it’ll ever rain like that again?”

  “Naw, boy! De Lawd done promised us it wouldn’t never rain like dat no mo’. De rainbow is de sign of de promise.”

  “What if God doesn’t keep His promise?”

  “Is you a fool?” Grandma said sternly. “God don’t neva break no promise.” She kept staring at me wild-eyed.

  “Maybe God changed His mind. Ain’t that possible?”

  “No!” Grandma screamed, jumping up spilling the bowl of peas. “You must ain’t got good sense, boy! De Lawd don’t neva need to change His mind ‘cause eva’thang He do is already perfect! He ain’t got to rethink nothin’! He done planned out what’s gon’ happen in de world and dat’s what’s gon’ happen! Ain’t nothin’ you can do’bout it and He ain’t gon’ change His mind to fit you!”

  I was on thin ice, but I pushed ahead anyway. “If God done planned out everything, what’s the use in praying?”

  “’Cause you don’t know what God done planned out!”

  “It doesn’t matter! According to you, if God done planned it out, it can’t ever be any other way, so what’s the use in asking?”

  “’Cause prayer changes things, boy!”

  “Oh! God might change His mind after all if we beg Him hard enough?”

  Grandma glared at me silently for a second, carefully planning her response, then suggested, “God already knowed what you was gon’ pray for befo’ you was eva born. He done already took yo’ requests into account when he was planning de world.”