Margaret knew then that her father would not be home again. A lump rose in her own throat. Tears pushed against the insides of her eyes. “No, Mama,” she whispered.
“I wanted you to see him before he died, Margaret. But when they pressed that ... that mask against his face I knew it was too late.”
“Please, Mama,” Margaret begged, holding on to her mother’s sleeves. “Tell me he didn’t die, Mama, please!”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen to us now, Margaret. I just don’t know.”
Margaret felt her father’s hands on her shoulders. A warm breath brushed against her forehead. She swallowed. “We’re going to be okay, Mama,” she whispered. Her voice was small and uncertain. “I promise, Mama. We’re going to be okay.”
5
When Margaret walked into Li‘l Jay’s room, the rain was beating out a soft one-two against the pane. Night was coming on quickly and thunder cracked across the sky. Maizon was sitting on the floor beside Li’l Jay’s crib. Margaret tiptoed over and kneeled beside her.
“I should go home, I guess,” Maizon said, starting to rise. She had been crying.
“My daddy died today,” Margaret whispered. She opened her mouth and closed it, then turned to Maizon and tried to speak again. “Died,” she said, and in the crazy night air of the rainstorm, the word had a strange echo to it. She stared into Li’l Jay’s crib. His thumb crept slowly to his mouth and soft sucking sounds mingled with storm.
She pressed her face against his crib. “Daddy died today,” she said again. “He’s not coming home.”
Margaret knew she was trying to make sense of the words, rolling them around on her tongue until they found a place to settle in her brain; a place where they’d become real.
“Margaret,” Maizon whispered, “my grandmother said when people go to heaven, there’s a rainbow when they smile.”
Margaret stared at her as though she were just realizing Maizon was in the room. She got up and walked slowly over to the window.
“You see anything, Margaret?”
“No, nothing. Not even a little blue,” Margaret said.
“It’s too dark out,” Maizon whispered.
“Maybe he’s not smiling, Maizon. Maybe it still hurts.”
“Maybe he hasn’t gotten there yet. Heaven’s a long way away.”
“You think so?”
“He’ll be there tomorrow,” Maizon said.
They stared out into the darkness.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen now, Maizon. I bet even Ms. Dell doesn’t know. We might move away.”
“You can’t move away, Margaret! Best friends don’t move away from each other,” Maizon cried.
“Ms. Dell says they do sometimes, remember?”
“Ms. Dell doesn’t know everything, Margaret.”
“She knows a lot, though,” Margaret said, walking slowly back over to Li’l Jay’s crib. “Sometimes I wish she didn’t know so much.”
The rain had dropped to a whisper against the window. They watched the drops trickle down the pane slowly, branching out in every direction before hitting the bottom.
Margaret brushed the cookie crumbs from Li‘l Jay’s lips and stared down at him. Li’l Jay twitched in his sleep and sighed.
“He’s lucky,” Maizon said. “He doesn’t even understand anything yet.”
Margaret bent over and kissed Li’l Jay. “No, he’s not, Maizon. He won’t know anything about my father except the things I tell him. I’m the lucky one, I guess. At least I knew him.”
Maizon followed her out of the room.
Margaret’s mother lay on the couch with her hand covering her eyes. She sat up when they walked in and ran her fingers through her hair.
“I called your grandmother, Maizon. She said it was okay for you to stay here tonight.”
“Thank you, Ms. Tory,” Maizon said, staring at her toes.
“Mama, you want some tea?”
“No, thank you, dear. I’m going out again.”
Ms. Tory went into the hallway and began pulling on her rain boots. Margaret and Maizon followed her. The boots were still wet from her last trip.
“I have to go to the funeral home. Hattie’s going to come with me. Ms. Dell said she’d come up if you want her to. She said you and Maizon might want to be alone a while. Will you be okay?”
Margaret was frantic. “Can I go with you, Mama? Please! Maizon can stay with Li’l Jay. Please, Mama!”
Ms. Tory looked from Margaret to Maizon.
“I think it’s best if you stay here, dear,” she said softly.
“But you’ll get sick in the rain, Mama! You’ll get sick like Daddy,” Margaret cried.
Ms. Tory pulled Margaret to her. Maizon looked on, twisting her hands.
“No, no, no, Margaret,” she said softly. “I’ll be fine. If it gets too late, we’ll take a taxi. Don’t worry, sweetheart.” She kissed Margaret’s forehead.
“Mama... ?” Margaret whispered.
Ms. Tory held her, blinking back tears.
“Please come back, Mama.”
Ms. Tory held her for a long time. “I’ll always come back, Margaret. Always.”
They followed her into the baby’s room and waited while Ms. Tory leaned over the crib and kissed Li’l Jay. Then she kissed them both again and left. Margaret bolted each lock after her mother was gone. They trailed into Margaret’s room and plopped down onto the bed. Maizon brought out her hair pick.
“Want to comb my hair, Margaret?”
Margaret nodded. Something about combing Maizon’s hair always made her feel better.
Maizon sat on the bed and handed Margaret the pick. Margaret kneeled on the bed above Maizon’s head. She pulled the pick gently through the thick, wiry hair.
“I sure wish I had hair like yours.”
“I wish my hair was long like yours. Then I’d put it in cornrows and everything. I’d wear curls for picture day.”
After a moment Maizon said, “Margaret, do you think Ms. Dell knew about your daddy?”
“Maybe she knew more than me,” Margaret said softly, quickly brushing away a tear that was sliding toward her mouth, “because she and Mama talked about Daddy being sick and everything.”
“Death is mean. Isn’t it, Margaret? He takes and takes and takes. First he took Hattie’s baby. Just up and took it right out from under all those breathing tubes they had strapped to that poor baby.”
“I hate death. I hate it that my daddy’s not coming home again!”
“My daddy never came home again,” Maizon said quietly.
“But your daddy didn’t die. He just went away,” Margaret said, lowering her voice.
“He might as well be dead,” Maizon said, lying back on the bed. Margaret knew Maizon’s father had left her with her grandmother when she was a baby, right after her mother died. Maizon had never known either of them but she had often wondered where her father was. She had not talked about him in a long time.
“At least there’s a chance he might come back, Maizon. My daddy’s never coming back.”
Tears rolled down the side of Maizon’s face, collecting in her ears. Margaret cried too.
“Even if he does come back, Margaret,” Maizon said, “I’ll treat him like he never even lived!”
“Don’t let them take the life out of you, Daddy,” Margaret said silently. She saw him standing before her.
“What’s makes you think your daddy’s gonna let something like that happen? It would take a lot for one of them skinny plastic tubes to bring this six-footer down.”
Margaret heard her father laugh. The laughter sounded far away.
“Margaret, are you listening to me?” Maizon nearly shouted. She jerked her head toward Margaret, then moved closer.
“What did they do with my daddy?” Margaret whispered. She pushed her fist into her mouth to keep from screaming.
“Margaret!” Maizon shouted. “Don’t, Margaret, you’re scaring me!”
Margaret bounded off the
bed and ran over to the window. “Where is my daddy?” she shouted into the storm, then crumpled to the floor. “Where is he, Maizon? Where’d they take my daddy to?” Her voice was ragged and tired.
Maizon trembled as she walked toward Margaret. “He’s in heaven,” she said, kneeling down beside her. Her hand felt soft and warm on Margaret’s shoulder. Maizon leaned against the wall and Margaret rested her head on Maizon’s chest. She could hear Maizon’s heartbeat beneath the thin cotton shirt. The sound was soothing, very soothing.
“Why’d he have to die, Maizon?” she whispered. Maizon wrapped her arms around her and began rocking slowly back and forth.
“Maybe heaven needs him now,” Maizon said. She began to sing. The song was about a place in heaven where good people have to go. It was about babies and mothers and old men. The lyrics brought fresh tears to Margaret’s eyes. She cried long and hard, but Maizon held on.
6
The funeral had been long and hot. Now Margaret and Maizon sat on the curb in front of Margaret’s building in matching black dresses and etched their names into the tar. Maizon dug a hole in the street over the i and Margaret wished for a moment that there were an i in her name so that she could do the same.
In the distance they heard the sound of construction. A crew had started working on the lot on Palmetto Street.
Margaret dropped the sharpened Popsicle stick she had been digging with and put her hands over her ears. Everything reminded her of death: the construction, the sticky black tar, the heat, their black dresses.
A street cleaner made its way slowly down the street and they watched the truck sweep the discarded cans and paper bags away from the curb. Maizon held her nose as the spray of bleach-scented water wafted toward them.
“That street cleaner seems to be coming around more and more,” Margaret said, watching the truck disappear down the block.
“That’s because of the construction. Ms. Dell says rich people are going to move into those new buildings and if rich people want clean streets”—Maizon turned to Margaret and grimaced—“then rich people get clean streets.”
“Hattie says that’s going to be a grocery store,” Margaret said skeptically.
“Then it’s going to be a grocery store for rich people who want clean streets,” Maizon said, concentrating on her i.
Margaret looked up at her window. People had been upstairs for hours eating and laughing and talking about what a good man her father had been. She wanted to take a nap. But there were even people in her bedroom!
“Maizon, let’s go to your house.”
“Why?” Maizon frowned. “All the good food is in your house.”
“But there are too many people there, and I’m tired.”
Maizon looked puzzled for a moment, then agreed. “Me too,” she said. “It’s too hot out here, anyway.”
They walked down the quiet block, past the one tree on Madison Street. Margaret stopped.
“Maizon, remember when we were little and we couldn’t go past this tree? So we’d meet here.”
“And then I decided to call it the compromise spot,” Maizon said proudly.
“Because it’s the same distance from both our houses.” Margaret smiled, looking at the tree as though she were seeing it for the first time. “That seems like forever ago.”
“Yeah.” Maizon moved closer to the tree. “Hey, Margaret, check this out,” she said, pointing to the spot on the tree where she and Margaret had dug a hole and stuck a branch in, two years before. “The branch is gone.”
Margaret peered into the hole.
“Maybe a bird used it for her nest.”
“Yeah,” Maizon said. “Maybe.”
They continued down the street. Maizon undid the latch on the heavy black gate in front of her house and rang the bell.
“Maizon, use those keys!” her grandmother called from inside.
Maizon pulled two silver keys out of her sock and smiled at Margaret. She unlocked the two locks on the walnut-brown door. It creaked open with a whine. Margaret followed her into the cool, dimly lit vestibule that led to the kitchen.
Maizon’s grandmother stood at the counter, her back to them. Margaret grabbed Maizon’s hand and put a finger to her lips. “I want to watch her for a moment,” she whispered.
Maizon’s grandmother’s skin was warmed with gold. “She’s Cheyenne Indian,” Maizon had bragged. “That makes me an Indian princess, almost.” Her silver hair was French-braided and pinned at the nape of her neck. Her shoulders shook as she sprinkled cinnamon onto rolls, and she was humming softly. She stopped suddenly.
“Don’t I get a greeting or a kiss? You two act like spies, coming into my kitchen not saying anything.” She turned and flashed a smile. Her teeth were small and even. Maizon had said they were false but Margaret didn’t care. The smile was real.
“Hi, Grandma,” Margaret said.
“Margaret wanted to watch you,” Maizon tattled.
Margaret followed Maizon over and waited her turn for one of Grandma’s kisses. She loved kissing Maizon’s grandmother because she always held you tightly afterward like it had been ages since she’d last seen you and ages before she’d see you again.
“You seem to be getting along just fine, Margaret. I am so sorry about your daddy,” Maizon’s grandmother said, holding Margaret. “Oh, but the funeral was beautiful, wasn’t it? Just beautiful. I sure will miss him.”
“Margaret just wishes everyone would leave her house already!” Maizon said, going over to the refrigerator and looking for something to drink.
Grandma turned and frowned at Maizon. “Cat got Margaret’s tongue? Let her do her own talking. Put those rolls in the oven for me.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Maizon saluted her grandmother.
“If your mother wasn’t having such a hard time, I’d ask her to trade kids with me. This one here is just too smart for her own good!”
They laughed.
“So how long has it been, Margaret, since your daddy passed away?”
“Four days,” Margaret said quietly, feeling her throat close around the words. She took a seat in the wooden rocking chair.
“I know it seems like a lot longer than that, doesn’t it?” Grandma said.
“Uh huh.”
“Girl, the Lord works his magic in ways we don’t understand. You wonder who He is and why He does what He does. But you know it’s not for us to question.”
“Uh huh,” Margaret said, feeling sleepy and safe in the cinnamon-scented kitchen. The smoothness of Grandma’s voice floated over and comforted her. She didn’t want Grandma to stop speaking.
“When I was a little girl on the reservation I came home one day to find my father had died. I didn’t want to believe it because my father had always been there to help me with what I was doing. We’d do carpentry and plant vegetables together and cook and laugh with each other. But then ... he wasn’t coming home anymore. The Cheyenne Indians have a custom—to take a part of something that belonged to the person who has died and bury it with that person. I took the last thing we had made together, a feather cape for the games I played, and buried it next to my father. I wanted him to know a part of me would always be with him the way a part of him would be with me. And you know something, I believe he went to heaven knowing that.” Grandma smiled at Margaret.
“Grandma,” Maizon said from the refrigerator, “we don’t have any punch.”
“If you’re old enough to realize that, you’re old enough to make some. Now, you know where the mix is and you know where the water is.”
Margaret sat up in the chair. She loved reservation stories.
“My granddaughter may be smart, but she doesn’t always have what is most important—common sense. Margaret, you have common sense. You know you are tired now and would like to take a nap. So why don’t you go on up to Maizon’s room and lie down? I’ll wake you when the rolls are ready.”
“Hey, what about the punch I’m making?” Maizon said from the sink.
“I’ll drink it when I wake up,” Margaret promised, heading toward the stairs.
Maizon sucked her teeth. “Sleepyhead,” she mumbled.
Maizon’s grandmother put her hand on Maizon’s shoulder and said, “Let her rest, Maiz.”
Margaret made her way down the quiet hallway. The stairs were covered with the same brown carpet as the living room, but the upstairs floors were bare. This part of Maizon’s house always smelled like wax and wood. Over the years, Margaret had come to love that smell.
Maizon’s room was pink, with rainbow sheets and a matching comforter. She had shelves of books and stuffed animals. The dark oak dresser matched the wood of her canopied bed. Margaret wondered why Maizon loved sleeping at her house so much when she had such a great room. But she was too sleepy to think about it now.
She took off her black patent leather shoes and climbed up onto Maizon’s bed. She watched the sun stream through the curtains for a while. Thoughts of her father brought fresh tears to her eyes. They had never made things the way Grandma did but they had talked about things. And he would sing to her. Margaret thought about the song he used to sing about blue skies after rain-storms and someone watching over her. Grandma’s voice drifted up from the kitchen.
“You have to be patient with Margaret, Maizon,” Grandma was saying. “Death is hard. You’re lucky you haven’t experienced it.”
“My mama died. Then Daddy went away. And I knew Mr. Tory.”
“It’s not the same,” Grandma said patiently. “Your mama died when you were just a baby and your father left when you were not much older than that. You knew neither of them. And Mr. Tory you didn’t know much better. He was just your friend and not a very close one. But he was Margaret’s father. A father she had known.”
“Margaret seems sadder now, Grandma,” Maizon said.
“And she will be for a long time. Just be patient with her, Maizon. And be a friend.”
“I am her friend, Grandma. We’re best friends!”
“Sometimes being a friend is harder than you think, Maizon. My people had a saying for that, you know. They said a friend is someone who knows when to be there and when not to be.”
“Friends should always be together, Grandma.”
Last Summer with Maizon Page 3
