The homemade fish cleaning table stands. Every Thursday, we’d gather round the table, line it with parchment paper, and carry trays of perch, mullet, and catfish for her to clean. She didn’t want us getting scales on our bodies or cutting ourselves, so she shooed us inside with Daddy to play records and dance. She was in her own world when she prepared our dinner.
I travel farther on our land in search of the old well. The steep well frightened us all. Except Mama. She’d dance around it, dropping the bucket in the shallow hole and drawing water for her flowers. Daddy cemented the well when he caught her climbing in after one of her tormentors.
It has stood the test of time, its wooden shelter still intact. I lift the water bucket from the wood covering the cemented top. The oily, rusted chains alongside the bucket are slick and it slips from my grasp like an eel. I stoop to pick up the warped bucket.
“Tell us how you cut him!” a voice says.
My hands shake and I deepen my voice. “I didn’t cut him with no knife.”
The voice is closer now, and my insides warm as she says, “Last night, you told me you cut the dude.”
My mock bass is gravelly as I recite our favorite scene in Trading Places. “It was with these, I cut him. I am a chain belt in Kung-Fu. Bruce Lee was my teacher. Watch this.”
I whirl around, left hand forward, palm of my right hand near my left wrist. I shout perfect karate sounds like Eddie Murphy. My standing leg kick is whip-fast and Willa laughs at me. I can’t make my butterfly karate pose with my arms suspended in the air, right leg lifted, before we sweep each other up in a hug. I inhale the flowery smell of my sister’s perfume, the fruity shampoo in her hair. She stands back so we can take a good look at each other. We each get an eyeful of twenty-three years of change.
“Little Sis! Antoinette Maria Willamson. Look at you!”
I’m underdressed compared to her. Golden brown and statuesque, she sports jeans and a classy Casual Friday blouse.
“Willadean Amber Willi—I mean Alston.”
“My name is Willa. Dropped the Dean before I got shipped out of Sparta, remember?”
“You’ll always be Willadean to me.”
A moment of awkwardness passes between us before she takes my hand. “Come with me. I want you to meet someone.”
We walk to her car, surveying the land of our youth. A smirk is the first thing I see on McKenna’s face. When she sees us, she drops her head. Willa motions for her to speak, but she turns her back.
“McKenna, get out of the car. I want you to meet your aunt.”
She huffs and exits the car, attitude for days.
“Hi.” She thrusts her left hand forward and shakes my hand with as much enthusiasm as a taxpayer waiting for an audit. She glances at her watch and addresses Willa. “Mom, I thought we were here for a little while. I have a date with Uriah tonight.”
“We’ll be here as long as I say so.”
“Mom, we’re in the middle of nowhere!” She rolls her eyes at Willa and snorts.
Willa blows out a quick burst of air and says to me, “Give me a few seconds.”
She points to the garden hose on the side of the house and they walk toward it. I don’t know what Willa is saying, but her left hand is on her hip as her right fingers swirl in McKenna’s face. McKenna’s attitude disappears with each swirl. McKenna takes a deep breath, twists the ends of her curls, and heads toward me, Willa in tow.
My niece addresses me. “I’m sorry for my attitude.”
Willa clucks her tongue and looks just like Mama when she says, “Aliens invaded her body six months ago. Maybe my teen will return before her eighteenth birthday.” She asks McKenna, “Shall we try it again?”
“Hello, Aunt Antoinette. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Call me Toni. You can even drop the Aunt.”
“Nice to meet you, Toni.” The aliens have fled McKenna’s body for the moment and she shyly asks Willa, “Mom, may I call Uriah?”
“Make it fast. We’re going in the house.”
Willa joins me and I give her an extra key to the house, courtesy of Aunt Mavis. “All these years, I thought the house was gone. It looks like somebody still lives here.”
“Get this, Willa. Daddy’s maintained the property all these years for the two of us. May and Ray have a cleaning lady who comes in twice a month to dust and sweep, and a company does a quarterly deep clean. He was afraid Mama would destroy the house.”
“I’d have to agree.”
“Willa!”
“Face it, you were her favorite. Her little gumdrop. She didn’t give a damn about me and the feeling was mutual.”
I slip the key in the lock, preferring to have this conversation inside.
I step inside the foyer and I see yesterday. Everything is the same. From the scalloped mirror above the cherrywood table Daddy carved to a bowl of Aunt Mavis’s homemade potpourri, the familiarity almost makes me forget the bad times.
Willa covers her mouth. “Look at him!”
We look at Mr. Juggles, the ceramic clown cookie jar on the table. Mama stuffed him with fortunes after double-dates to their favorite Chinese restaurant with May and Ray. For kicks, Daddy used to remove his head and place it on Willa’s chest before she woke up on Saturday morning. He loved getting a rise out of her since she thought Mr. Juggles’s head was creepy.
Willa lifts his head and pulls a fortune out. “You will do well to expand your business.”
“I need that to come true yesterday. I’m afraid to check emails. I may as well sell Williamson Designs.”
“This will blow over soon.” She pulls another fortune from Mr. Juggles. “A person of words and not deeds is like a garden full of weeds.”
“Is Lamonte’s picture on that slip of paper?” I ask.
“You have to tell me about him.”
“My lips are sealed right now. You don’t want to hear all that cursing.”
“Mama’s precious little gumdrop doesn’t curse.”
Willa fishes around in the fortunes. “When we left for school each morning, I always hoped to pull out one that said, Your mother’s mental illness will be cured in three months.”
She grows melancholy. McKenna joins us and Willa’s face softens.
“Mom, Uriah said hello. I didn’t realize he was working tonight.”
“See. All that attitude for nothing.”
“I’m going back outside, Mom.”
“No, check out the house with me and your aunt.”
I grab Willa’s arm and McKenna trails us. “Let’s check out the place. I want to see if I need to modernize anything before I bring Mama home.”
Willa stops near the dining room. “You’re bringing her here?”
“If the hospital will let us. She wants to see us.”
“I won’t stop you from bringing her home, but I don’t want to see her.”
“Please reconsider. She misses us.”
Willa waves off my request and heads to our old bedroom. McKenna and I follow her. She opens the closet door and pulls out an item housed in a black dry cleaning bag. “Did Mavis clean this?”
I shrug, unsure of who’s done what over the years. She unzips the bag, revealing her majorette uniform. She removes the gold and maroon outfit, still sparkling. A pair of gold gloves and hat complete the set.
“What is that?” McKenna asks.
“My majorette uniform.”
‘You were a majorette?” McKenna touches the outfit. She is in awe her mother had a life before she came along. “I guess I got my dancing skills from you. Wait till I tell Uriah.” She breaks into a dancing routine for us.
When she’s done, I say, “It is in your genes. I got skipped on the dancing skills.”
McKenna places her extra appendage, her cell phone, to her ear and leaves us alone. We kick off our shoes, collapse in our childhood bed, and catch up on old times.
“Strange reunion, but I’ll take it,” I say.
“I hated you for so long. That may ev
en be an understatement about my feelings toward you. I couldn’t hold on to that anger, though. As I matured, I realized we both were victims of our circumstances.” Willa pauses. “May I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Why did you return my letters? Why didn’t you answer my calls?”
“I wanted to forget everything. One lie turned into two. Two became twenty. After a while, I couldn’t stop them.”
“Couldn’t or didn’t?”
“Didn’t.”
“I took it personally and it hurt.”
“You shouldn’t have. Russ and Clay encouraged me to keep in touch, but I was so confused about everything.”
“Aunt Norlyza said the same thing.”
“What?”
“For as messed up as our family is, she wouldn’t keep in touch either. Said we’d be lucky to see each other again. When a McCallister vanishes, they Bermuda Triangle-disappear.”
“Did you know about Uncle Grady?”
She nods. “I learned about Grady and all the other cousins and siblings who had no help or support services years ago.” She looks out the window. The well is in full view from our room.
“What are you thinking?”
“I wished Mama would have fallen in the well. Or left us for another man. Her illness cost us so much.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t make friends until I moved to Alabama. Everyone here knew about our situation and shunned us.”
“Same here. Well, my situation was a little different because of my living arrangements with Russ and Clay. I’m not sure which was worse: being shunned because of your crazy mother or your gay guardians. It’s amazing when people show their true colors.”
I retrieve my phone and check texts. Of the three I have, two are from Jordan. I slip it back in my pocket.
“Aunt Mavis told me about your engagement party. I’m sorry.”
“Not half as sorry as I am. All that money I wasted on good food, too.” My attempt to ease my embarrassment fails.
Willa takes my hand. “It takes time to get over a relationship. How long did you date?”
“Five years.”
“That’s epic. People don’t stay married that long.”
“Speaking of marriage, how long have you and Donald been married?”
“Seventeen years.”
“That’s epic,” I say, imitating her voice.
“We’ve had our ups and downs, but I told him about our family the moment we got closer when we were UAB freshmen. I’d lived with too many lies.”
“And he accepted everything?”
“We had more in common than we knew. He has a few family members in the same predicament. His family is more open about it than ours.”
“Willadean the Brave.”
“Willa Alston, thank you very much! Gumdrop, if it’s any consolation, I saw Lamonte’s photo in the Atlanta Business Chronicle, and you should be happy he broke things off with you. That big-head man would have ruined my nieces’ and nephews’ heads!” She pretends to blow a balloon and rotates an invisible globe with her hands.
“Only nephews. The Dunlaps are boy breeders.”
Willa winces at the thought and asks, “When are you going back to Atlanta?”
“In a week or so. I have to handle some business and transfer some money from my account in Atlanta to here. I know I can do a wire transfer, but I have to stop at Russ and Clay’s. Russ took some time off from studio work and traveling to take care of Clay at the house.”
“I’d love to see them again.”
“Our casa is su casa. I’m sure they won’t mind if you stop in. They are the only folks I know who don’t mind unannounced visits.”
“I’ll stop by.”
We keep chatting as two hours disappear. I speak with her husband, Donald, who invites me to come and see them when time permits.
Willa slides off the bed and slips her shoes on. “I’ve got to get back to Birmingham. We have church in the morning.” She hugs me and caresses my chin. “Don’t apologize anymore. I never blamed you for being distant. I only wanted you to realize we were in this together.”
Tears well up and I fear that if she leaves, I won’t see her again.
“Don’t cry. You have a big sister again, and you’re not getting rid of me.”
I link arms with my sister and walk with her outside. McKenna chatters away on her phone in the front seat as Willa gets in. We wave to each other as she backs out of the driveway.
Inside again, I lift Mr. Juggles’s head and swipe a fortune. “Forgiveness doesn’t change the past, but it does enlarge the future.”
Chapter 16
Greta
“I have a surprise for you,” Nurse Whipple says.
Annalease sits on the floor in front of my bed. I part her thick hair and grease her scalp as gently as I can as a peace offering for hitting her. She munches on Puffcorn as I ask her to face the window.
“Surprise for me?”
“I’m not supposed to say anything, but you’ve been so good taking your medicine the last few weeks.”
“My treatment meeting is coming up.”
“That’s not the only reason you’re taking your meds, is it?”
“I want to get better.”
I wait for ’Halia to pat me on my shoulder, but she doesn’t. Neither Jesus nor Clark speaks. The more I take my medicine, the more I feel like the old me. Last week, I dreamt I was back in the classroom teaching. I’ll ask Mavis to help me get my teaching license renewed. The requirements are probably different now.
“Take your Zyprexa so I can share the good news.”
I tie the end of Annalease’s braid with a pink rubberband and take the white cup from Whipple. Annalease turns around to see if I’ll put the medicine under my tongue. I swallow it with pride and give the white cup back to her.
“Guess who was added to your visitation list?”
I can’t contain my joy. “Toni?”
Whipple claps her hands together like she just won a stuffed bear at the Georgia State Fair. “Yes! She was added this morning. I’m sure she’ll attend the treatment meeting next week.”
I haven’t had news this good since ’Halia told me I wasn’t a marriage failure.
“Are you sure, Nurse Whipple?”
“Would I lie to you?”
“As far as I know you wouldn’t.”
Annalease’s shoulders bunch. She jumps up from the floor, plunks hard on her bed, and pulls her knees to her chest. She rocks a little while before tears stream. “I thought I was your daughter.”
Nurse Whipple intervenes, smiling like she always does. “Annalease, you’re all her daughters. There is so much love in the world to go around. You wouldn’t want Greta to keep it all to herself, would you?” Annalease shakes her head. “Just think of having two other sisters. An extended family, if you will.”
I guess I am all the family Annalease has in the world. She came to GMH five years ago. She stabbed her grandmother forty-five times because she wouldn’t sign a permission slip for a Washington, D.C. school trip. From what I read in the paper and what I heard the others whispering about, outpatient mental therapy in her hometown of Dublin, GA, would have helped Annalease, but the family was too ashamed to get treatment. Before she snapped, she bounced around from house to house until her grandmother took her in. A social worker helped her grandmother obtain a disability check since Annalease was underage. At the time of the stabbing, she was eighteen. They didn’t take her to YDC, the youth correctional facility, and she was too old to be placed in the youth building here. I took an interest in her after no one in her family would visit. She’s been with me ever since.
I sit on her bed. “Annalease, I have three daughters, and you are my baby girl. How does that sound?”
She lifts her head and extends her legs. “You promise?”
“Pinkie promise.”
She gets off the bed, picks up the box of rubber bands, and sits on the
pillow on the floor again in front of my bed. I washed her hair after seeing her stained shirt collar and dandruff so big it looked like sawed wood flakes. I scratched as much of it as I could with the end of my rattail comb and made sure her hair was fresh and clean before I braided it. This is the same thing I used to do with Toni’s hair.
If Whipple is right, there’s a good chance Toni might take me home if I can prove myself worthy. I have to get my luggage out of the closet in case she picks me up. It’s in the upper right side of the closet where Jesus placed it. He used to float in the closet and around the room keeping an eye on us. It wasn’t my imagination, although Annalease has a different version of how it got up there.
I’ve been at GMH so long I’ve forgotten how to do some things everybody else takes for granted. Whew! I feel all sixty-two of my years as I relax my arms from doing Annalease’s hair. I was thirty-nine when that little incident happened at the Hatcher Square Mall. Since then, being here has almost been like a sentence; Toni picking me up will be like my parole. I have to wait to go to the dining hall here. I can’t just get up, go to the refrigerator, and taste strawberry yogurt on the gold spoon Paul gave me. I can’t watch the spinning propeller on Jerry Wenn’s crop duster like I did when I was out in society. I miss picking scuppernongs and making wine with Mavis.
“Good old bullets!” I say to Annalease, relishing the memory of wine on my tongue.
“We can’t have a gun in here!” Annalease tenses.
“I’m talking about fruit, Annalease.”
I calm her with a shoulder rub. Memories are rushing through my mind and I can’t stop them. There was nothing like going to St. John’s A.M.E. and dressing the girls up in their Sunday best. We sat in the living room and waited for Paul to put on his suit, fancy tie, and shiny cuff links. Pastor Wilcox, a few years ahead of me in school, became the pastor of the church after being appointed by the presiding elder. Before I came here, he and Sister Wilcox prayed with me and told me above all else, the Lord was all I needed.
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