by Tayari Jones
“No,” he said. “Don’t do that. You’re a pretty girl. Seems like she did a good job of bringing you up. Don’t throw your life away like your mama did.”
“Do you want me to run and get her?”
“Naw,” he said. “I got my life the way I want it. Hold stil .”
My grandfather turned and walked toward the front door of the bungalow. As the lock clunked in place behind him, I ran my hand over the trimmed half of the hedge, letting the fresh-cut stems prick the pads of my fingers. I imagined my mother sitting in the car looking at her watch. Maybe she
would come looking for me.
Grandfather final y emerged from the house fol owed by a woman who carried a squirming baby. She was older than I was but younger than my mother. Her curls, held back with silver clips, were dinted where she had fastened the rol ers.
“What is it, Luster?” she asked.
Grandfather said, “I want you to give this young lady directions to the King Center. She’s lost, and you know that I am forgetful.”
“Since when have you been forgetful?” she said in a tone that was half daughter and half something else. She shifted the squirming baby from one hip to the other. The baby, a boy, was chubby with a shiny face. He cooed at me.
“Look at him,” his mother said. “Flirting already.”
“Let me hold him,” Grandfather said. “His name is Anthony.”
I have thought back on this moment, as I have on many such moments of my life, and wondered why it is that I have been so careful with other people’s secrets. My grandfather spoke to me for only a minute or so before deciding that I was the type of person to keep quiet and pretend to be a stranger before his new wife and son. At the time, I was a little bit flattered to be the sentinel of information. My grandfather’s wife, pointing the way to the King Center, thought she was happy. She thought she knew her husband, but I knew things that she didn’t.
She was like my own mother, who thought she knew me but didn’t know that I’d seen Marcus again, just for a couple hours, in Jamal Dixon’s rec room. We drank peppermint schnapps this time, and I had to close my eyes against the same poster of Jayne Kennedy. She didn’t know that Ronalda and I took pee-in-a-cup pregnancy tests every month, and she didn’t know that I memorized James’s unlisted home number and cal ed sometimes just to hear Chaurisse’s voice. I suppose Mother and I were almost even now. Before the day I poured jel y beans onto the carpet, I had thought that I knew my mother, too. But when she and James confronted me about Marcus, she acted like the girl half of a couple and treated me like a disposable friend.
After the woman finished talking and pointing, I thanked her and walked away.
“Good-bye, sir,” I said to my grandfather, who had picked up his clippers again and was chopping hard at the bushes. He didn’t say good-bye, but he gave a swift, efficient nod of his head. The flying twigs and leaves surrounded him like a swarm.
BACK AT THE CAR, my mother was antsy, swiveling her head, biting her lips. She thought of herself as looking like her mother. Having never met my grandmother or seen a picture, I had to take her word for it. But in this agitated state, I could see that she took after her father as wel . She had his same chin, a little weak but stubborn, and her shoulders carried the same slump of sadness. If I were to ask her, she would say that it’s because they both lost Flora, but my guess is that it also comes from having lost each other.
“Did you talk to him?” she wanted to know.
“I said ‘Good afternoon, sir,’ same as last year.”
She nodded, waiting for whatever was coming next.
“That’s it,” I said.
“Dana,” my mother said. “Don’t lie to me, okay?” She didn’t say it as a threat, but just as an instruction. “You have to tel me the truth. I need information.”
For a moment, I hesitated. It was as though tel ing my mother what I had seen would have negated the moment I shared with my grandfather. It excited me to think of the minute or so I stood there sharing a secret that he couldn’t share with his young wife, the mother of his wiggly baby.
“Nothing happened.”
“Something happened,” my mother said, starting the car. “Don’t lie to me. I can’t have you lying to me.” Her voice was different now; she was trying to reason with me. “Just tel me.”
“We talked for a minute,” I said.
“Did he recognize you?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Listen. Think about this. If he recognized you, if he knew who you were, it wasn’t that he knew you were yourself, Dana. If he knew you, he thought about you as my child.”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Tel me,” my mother said. “Did he ask your name?”
“No, ma’am.” I sighed. “He didn’t.”
“Exactly,” my mother said. “Now tel me what happened.”
“Nothing happened.”
“It’s good for us to share what we know,” my mother said.
“It’s what makes us close.”
“He didn’t say anything.”
“Then what took you so long?”
“I wasn’t gone a long time.”
My mother hit the steering wheel with the heels of her hands. “Why are you doing this to me? Is it because I wouldn’t let you see that boy?”
“What boy?” I shrugged and looked out of the window. This secret was mine, wrapped like a shiny present, lodged on a high shelf where Mother could see it but couldn’t reach.
My paternal grandmother, Miss Bunny, died the very same year. James Lee Witherspoon loved his mother in the way that a son should. To my mother’s understanding, a man who cared about his mother the way James cared for Miss Bunny would never wil ful y mistreat a woman.
“Understand this,” my mother said. “James lost his daddy when he was a boy, leaving Miss Bunny to struggle. He saw that, and it made an impression on him. So he can’t leave Laverne to suffer like that. It would be a slap in the face to his mother. And on the other side, he can’t just leave us high and dry either. That would be an insult to Miss Bunny, too.”
“But Miss Bunny doesn’t even know we exist,” I said.
“Of course not, it would break her heart.”
“Wel then, what you said before doesn’t make sense.”
“Yes it does,” she said. “Love is a maze. Once you get in it, you’re pretty much trapped. Maybe you manage to claw your way out, but then what have you accomplished?”
In 1986, Miss Bunny was dying as I was taking my AP exam in biology. The proctor tapped me on the shoulder.
“Your father is here,” she said.
I looked toward the doorway, not believing. I looked back at my blue test book. “Where is he?”
“The principal’s office,” she said.
“Wil I get a chance to take a makeup? My mother paid for the exam.”
The teacher said, “Don’t worry about the test.”
I stood up, but I was worried about the exam. If I passed it, I would be able to take col ege classes over the summer for free. It would also look good on my application for Mount Holyoke. No one gets into an elite university without AP credits.
The proctor helped me gather my things, quietly so as not to disturb my classmates, whose responsibilities were less urgent than my own. Once we had shut the door to the classroom, she said, “I see where you get your pretty hair from.” Then she touched the curls that spil ed over onto my shoulder.
Raleigh, my father of record, was waiting for me in the lobby of the principal’s office. He looked terrible; his pale skin, thin under the eyes, showed purple veins. He wore blue jeans and a shapeless maroon shirt with the nubby texture of long underwear.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him. “Is my mother al right?”
“It’s not Gwen.” He covered his face with his hands.
“Is it James?” I said, believing myself to know the answer already. Raleigh loved no one like he loved my father.
“No,”
Raleigh said. “No.”
I was stumped and a little annoyed with him. The AP exam was important. “Wel , what is it?”
“It’s Miss Bunny,” he said. “She’s dying.”
“Who?”
“Miss Bunny,” he said. “Your grandmother.”
“Oh,” I said. “Miss Bunny. What’s wrong with her?”
“Cancer,” Raleigh said. “They say she’s only got a few weeks, a month maybe.”
I stood there in the lobby of the principal’s office, not sure what I should do. I had never met my grandmother, a slight that bothered my mother more than me. Raleigh got up from his chair and picked up my backpack, my wool coat, and my lunch cooler. He made his way toward the door.
“Wait,” I said.
Raleigh looked over his shoulder. “What?”
“I’m in the middle of taking my test.”
Raleigh said, “Didn’t you hear me? Miss Bunny is dying.”
I stood dumb in the office. “I heard you. I’m sorry to hear it.”
“So let’s go,” Raleigh said.
It took my legs a moment to get the message. “I’m going?”
“She can’t go to glory without meeting you.”
“Wil Mother be there?”
Raleigh let his arms carrying al my things droop. “Just you.”
“Does she even know?”
“James says he is going to cal her.”
WHEN RALEIGH DROVE, he let me sit up front beside him. James always insisted that I ride behind. Black people need to become accustomed to luxury. He taught me the protocol so if I am ever in a position to be chauffeured for real, I’l know what to do: Never touch the door handle, under any circumstances. Even if the goddamn sedan is on fire, wait to be let out. The same goes for being let in. His final rule was never, ever scoot. If you enter the passenger door, stay there. If someone else is going to ride, the driver wil escort her to her rightful side. For Raleigh, al that mattered was that I wore my seat belt. I climbed up front beside him and cranked down the window.
“Do I look okay?”
“Miss Bunny won’t care,” Raleigh said. His voice cracked. “Miss Bunny won’t care about that at al .”
“Did she ask for me?” I wanted to know.
MY FATHER AND RALEIGH were known in Ackland as “Miss Bunny’s Boys,” though only James was her flesh-and-blood child. “These here are my sons,” she would introduce them, daring anyone to make a distinction between James, dark-complected like his dead father, and Raleigh, white as a dinner plate. Miss Bunny herself was a medium brown color, as though she were the product of her boys.
Raleigh’s real mother, Lula, was a redbone girl from Richmond, Virginia. Why she would move from the relative metropolis of Richmond to a three-stop-sign town like Ackland was a mystery. When anyone asked her, Lula only said, “I couldn’t get along with my daddy.” She was fifteen when Miss Bunny met her. They worked together, cleaning house for the same white folks. Miss Bunny arrived in the mornings and left in the evenings after the supper dishes were washed and walked herself home to prepare a meal for herself and her husband. Lula’s job was to look after the children, so she stayed al night.
Miss Bunny and Lula found themselves pregnant at the same time, though Miss Bunny was pleased with her condition. She’d been married almost three years with no baby. Every married woman wanted a baby back then, whether she knew how she was going to feed it or not. Lula was miserable, and Miss Bunny couldn’t blame her. It was 1942, but Lula said she felt like she was living on a plantation. Miss Bunny felt the same way sometimes, even though she had her little home to go to at night, and her own husband, and a thin gold-plated band to make it al clear.
James and Raleigh were born in the same month, but Miss Bunny hadn’t seen Lula since she was seven months along and had run off with twenty-six dol ars folded thin and stashed in the lining of her suitcase. She was trying to get to Chicago but only reached as far as North Carolina.
She returned when Raleigh was six months old, sitting up by himself.
By then, Miss Bunny was keeping house for some new white folks. The hours were longer, but these employers were nicer, letting her bring home leftovers. Her husband didn’t like eating cast-off food, but Miss Bunny said it was good food, she had fixed it herself. What difference did it make if she cooked it at home on her own stove or over at the white people’s house? These new white people needed an overnight girl. Miss Bunny told Lula about the vacancy.
“What’s the husband like?” Lula said. “I can’t go through this al again.”
“He’s crippled,” Miss Bunny said. “Polio.”
THEY WORKED TOGETHER several more years. Miss Bunny and Lula talked about everything except their sons. Miss Bunny was crazy about James Junior and Lula couldn’t stand the sight of poor Raleigh. And it real y was the sight of him that she couldn’t stand. Who could object to Raleigh’s mild personality and gentle smiles? It was his boss-man complexion and swamp green eyes that she couldn’t bear. Miss Bunny tried to stay out of Lula’s affairs. Raleigh was Lula’s child; she worked hard every day to feed him and keep him in clean clothes. She could do what she thought was best. Yet every now and then, Miss Bunny would say, “Just try loving him, Lula. He’s a sweet boy.”
IN 1949, WHEN James Junior was almost eight. James Senior was kil ed in a mil accident. This I knew. James Senior died in the middle of the week, so Miss Bunny would get his pay up until Wednesday and that was al . She wanted to cry about it, and she did, but there was only so much time for lying in bed wailing. She had to eat. James Junior needed to eat. Miss Bunny knew she was going to have to find a live-in job.
RALEIGH SAYS HE doesn’t know whose idea it was. He doesn’t know which woman — his mama or Miss Bunny — felt she walked away with the better deal. What he remembers is Lula packing al his things into a cardboard suitcase held together with a strap.
“You’re going to live with Miss Bunny and James. She’s going to look after you from here on out, okay? Don’t look so sad. She’s a better mother than I am by twice. When you grown up, you might hate me, but when you talk against me you can never say that I lied. You can curse my name if you want to, but you won’t deny that this is the best thing that anyone ever did for you.”
Raleigh was just a little boy, hungry sometimes, but lonely always. He cried, which was unusual for him. Having been underloved for al his short life, he’d learned not to attract his mother’s attention in any negative way. When he came to understand that she was casting him off like an empty egg carton, he lost control of himself.
He has no recol ection of throwing himself on the floor or the spasms ending with letting go of his bladder. He knows this happened only because Miss Bunny told him how Lula ran to her house and said, “You’l have to get him, Bunny. I can’t face him. He’s over there howling like a dog. I just can’t take it.”
Miss Bunny said, “Lula, he’s just a little boy. What do you mean you can’t face him?”
“You just go and get him, Bunny,” Lula whispered. “If you want him, go and get him.”
Miss Bunny told Raleigh she found him lying on the concrete porch. Pissy was one word she used. Heartbroke was the other.
“I’m going with you?” he said.
“Yes, son. You are.”
She took his hand and they walked the half mile home. His wet pants scrubbed his thighs raw, but he was a child who had long before learned not to complain.
“I’m your boy now?”
“You are,” Miss Bunny said.
“How come?”
“Because I love you.”
Raleigh knows now that Miss Bunny could not have possibly loved him. He was a smal stranger, piss-soaked and desperate. What Miss Bunny needed was a companion for James, whom she did love. She needed someone to sleep in the house with him while she cared for the white children at her job.
Miss Bunny was a kind woman, and generous. When she told Raleigh she loved him, it was like the music of laughter. He kne
w from the battered books at school what to say in return. “I love you, too.”
RALEIGH TOLD ME this story as we were riding in the limousine so I could, at last, meet Miss Bunny. He talked throughout the three-hour drive, but the rest of the story I’d already heard — how James and Raleigh lived alone in Miss Bunny’s house six days a week. They ate cold sandwiches but also hot plates brought over by neighbors. He stopped the story when he and James were juniors in high school. Raleigh said he’d end the story there since I probably knew the rest. I didn’t argue with him, because I knew that the real reason he ended the story where he did was because that was when Laverne entered their lives.
“Raleigh, what ever happened to Lula?” I wanted to know. “Do you ever want to find her?”
“I know where she is,” he said. “I paid someone once to track her down. She lives in Mississippi. She got married, has a son named Lincoln.” He gave a smal smile that I didn’t like. “I don’t know if she named him for Abraham Lincoln, or maybe he was born in Nebraska. Could be she’s got a thing for Town Cars.”
“Did you go see her?”
“I started to,” he said. “I drove the Cadil ac down to Hattiesburg, burned up al that gas, but I wanted to take the best car. I parked in front of her house and sat there until she came out.”
“Did you say anything to her?”
“No. I just stood there and she thought I was a white man. I could tel the way she looked nervous to see me there and the way she cal ed me sir. I touched my hat at her and she turned around and went back in the house.”
“Raleigh,” I said. “Raleigh, I’l tel you a secret, okay?”
“Al right,” he said.
“Me and my mama do stuff like that. We do it al the time. We cal it ‘surveil ing.’”
Raleigh patted my knee again. “Dana, baby. That’s not a secret.”
“What do you mean?” I could hear the fear in my voice.
“It’s al right,” he said. “I’ve seen you and Gwen a couple-three times in places you’re not supposed to be.”
“Did you tel James?”
Raleigh shook his head. “Why would I do something like that to Gwen? I would never do anything to hurt your mother.”
