All the Things I Meant to Tell You

by Tiffany L. Warren

“Must be,” I whispered back.

  As she staggered up the center aisle of the church, I decided that my uncle’s mistress had lost her mind. The closer she got to the front, the more I could hear her low moans. It sounded like she was in physical pain. I almost felt bad for her. She’d lost someone too—even if he was someone she wasn’t supposed to have.

  When she passed our aisle, I was amazed and astonished by the size of her behind. No wonder my uncle was under her spell. I had never seen a behind that big in real life. Each perfectly formed gelatinous globe jiggled against the constraints of whatever shapewear she had on under her dress. I had heard men describe a ‘shelf booty’ where one could comfortably sit an item like a glass or a bowl. The mistress’s booty was shelf enough to hold a whole set of World Book Encyclopedias.

  Deacon Jones was at the microphone. “Joe was more than my brother in Christ. He was my blood brother. We worked together thirty years at the pickle plant, and I can always say that Joe had my back,” he said.

  Deacon Jones stopped for a moment when he saw Uncle Joe’s mistress in the center aisle. He shook his head and looked down at his notes. Maybe he’d find something in there to cast out a ho spirit, because this woman needed to leave. It wasn’t the time or place for her to make her presence known.

  Aunt Sherrie turned around in her seat and saw the mistress. Aunt Sherrie’s eyes widened, and she shot up from her seat. Rochelle tried to pull her back down, but it was too late. Yolanda sighed and stood to her feet too.

  “Who let this Jezebel in the church?” Aunt Sherrie said loudly.

  Decorum was out the window, and this was about to go from a celebration of life to a viral video online. Some of my younger cousins already had their phones out.

  “I j-just wanna see him. I wanna pay my respects,” the mistress said.

  “Isn’t it enough that you killed my husband with whatever demonic spirits you carrying between your legs?” Aunt Sherrie said. “Now you’re here to rub it in?”

  “I didn’t kill him. I tried to save his life.”

  One of the church nurses sprang into action and was at the mistress’s side. Rochelle finally got Sherrie to sit again. Both Yolanda and Rochelle flanked Aunt Sherrie, but this time closer. She couldn’t move without alerting at least one of them.

  As the nurse led the mistress to Uncle Joe’s still open casket, I wondered why they hadn’t closed it before the service started. It was usually done that way. The family saw the body and then they closed the casket. Maybe someone had known that the pickle ho was coming.

  She stopped in front of the casket and quietly wept. It felt strange that Uncle Joe’s mistress was in the church after the prayer and A and B selections had gone forth. It kind of reminded folks that if they believed even half of what Pastor Remington said during Bible Study, then Uncle Joe might not be basking in heaven’s glory. On account of the adultery and all.

  “That’s long enough!” Aunt Sherrie said.

  A couple of chuckles and uncomfortable murmurs sprinkled across the sanctuary. Aunt Sherrie was right though. This attention-seeking heffa had showed up in the middle of service, jiggling her behind everywhere, weeping and crying to look in the casket at another woman’s husband. She should be glad no one had jumped on her. My cousin Indiana was always ready for a good brawl. Her siblings flanked her just like Aunt Sherrie was being flanked, probably to keep her from making a scene.

  The nurse who walked the mistress up to the front of the church, politely led the crying heffa away. To the rear of the church. She sat in her pew and wailed. It was troubling that she did this. She wasn’t family. Why didn’t she leave? Why didn’t someone make her leave?

  I was gonna make her leave.

  I stood, and Sam got a look of terror on his face. Luckily, I didn’t have someone flanking me, and Sam didn’t move fast enough to keep me from walking into the aisle. He did get up and follow me though.

  The service continued even with her wailing. It had to. We had an appointment at the gravesite, and we couldn’t be late for that. They had to finish in a timely manner. Or decently and in order as Pastor Remington would say.

  I stopped at the pew in front of the mistress and sat. Sam sat down next to me. I turned all the way around in my seat, like the bad little kid that stared at you all service until you crossed your eyes at him.

  “What’s your name?” I asked in a low tone, right above a whisper, but not loud enough to be disruptive.

  “Melinda.”

  “Well, Melinda, you need to go.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Joe’s niece, Hahna.”

  Melinda scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Oh, you the rich one everybody always talking about, huh? You paid for that casket? ’cause I know Sherrie ain’t have no money for all this.”

  I rose up to my knees ready to spring on her, and Sam pulled me back down into my seat. I gave him a short glare and then turned my attention back to Melinda.

  “I did pay for all this, ’cause Uncle Joe didn’t leave any life insurance. You can stop all your hollering, ’cause he ain’t leave you nothing either. Move on to the next one.”

  She touched her belly. “He left me something. Someone. And when this baby gets here, we gone get a social security check. We gone be all right.”

  I damn near threw up in my mouth. Uncle Joe was sixty-eight years old. She had to be my age. Why in the hell would she brag about this pregnancy?

  “You gone be all right with a whole six or seven hundred dollars a month?”

  “Yep. Shole will.”

  She had better hope Auntie Sherrie and Indiana didn’t beat her whole gigantic ass when this news got out.

  “Do you need help to your car?” Sam asked Melinda.

  She gave Sam a shocked look. She was probably used to men being on her side. With all that junk in her trunk, she would have been hard pressed to find a man that would be her enemy.

  “Help?”

  “Yes, we can walk you out,” Sam said.

  “We?”

  This part almost made me laugh. Did she think my man was about to walk her ole man stealing behind out of the church without me? We could all walk out. Together.

  “Well, I want to hear the eulogy,” Melinda whined.

  This last thing she said was too loud, and people started turning around in their seats. Including my Aunt Sherrie, who seemed furious that she was still in the church.

  “You’re upsetting everyone by being here, so you’re leaving, whether you want to or not,” I said. “We’re being nice, and we don’t have to.”

  “Get that Jezebel outta here,” Aunt Sherrie screamed at the top of her lungs.

  I stood up. “Let’s go. Unless you feel like tussling with me with your meal ticket in your belly.”

  “You threatenin’ my baby?”

  “I’m saying get up, and let’s go.”

  Sam stood too, and walked to the end of Melinda’s pew. “It’ll be okay, Melinda. Come on, we’ll walk you out.”

  I guess Sam did sound a bit (a lot) more sympathetic than I did. She rose to her feet and Sam held his hand out in the direction of the door looking like a properly trained Shady Falls church usher.

  She stumbled out of the aisle, and Sam helped to steady her, but then quickly removed his hand. He wasn’t escorting her out, just showing her the door. Sam was so brilliant and perceptive. I loved this man.

  We followed Melinda as she walked across the gravel parking lot to her car. A couple of times, I thought those little rocks were going to trip her up in those five-inch heels, but she made it to her little 1990’s era Honda.

  She unlocked her car door then turned to face me and Sam.

  “No matter what y’all think,” she said, “me and Joe was in love. He was gonna leave Sherrie as soon as we had our baby. She never gave him any kids, and he always wanted one. She’s a barren woman. Just mad ’cause my body is young and fertile.”

  I closed my eyes and swooned from the sun beating down on me. Or
maybe it was because I’d skipped breakfast.

  “Girl, if you don’t carry yo ass on,” I said.

  She probably saw that it was a good idea for her to do exactly as I said. So, she carried her ass on.

  “You cussed on the church grounds,” Sam said as she peeled out of the parking lot.

  “The Lord understands. He helped me to not cuss her out inside the church.”

  Sam chuckled and put his arm around me. “Your Aunt Sherrie is going to be devastated when she finds out about the baby.”

  “Please. They better give that baby a paternity test before they cut a check. My uncle was taking Viagra. That’s the reason why he had a heart attack.”

  “I don’t know. Sounds like the swimmers are still swimming to me.”

  If this was my uncle’s baby, Sam was right. Aunt Sherrie was going to not just be devastated, but she was going to be embarrassed in front of her family and friends.

  “Why would Uncle Joe do this to her? What makes a man hurt his wife that way?”

  “Did you see her booty?”

  I hit Sam’s arm and he laughed. “I knew you were looking at that big thang.”

  “There is such a thing as too much booty, and that was it,” Sam said. “I’ll take your little donk any day.”

  “My booty is not little.”

  “Compared to that it is.”

  We started walking back to the church. I wished we could get in our car and just leave, but since this woman showed up to the funeral, I needed to stay around a little while longer. Aunt Sherrie was going to need reinforcements at the repast.

  Chapter 26

  HAHNA

  The church hosted the repast for Uncle Joe’s funeral, although I wished it was back at Auntie Sherrie’s house. At the church, there were a dining room full of well-wishers. Some of them didn’t even know or care about Uncle Joe. They just wanted to get some of that fried chicken and macaroni and cheese that Cousin Yolanda made. Or Deacon Jones’s peach cobbler.

  We sat at the table with Aunt Sherrie, but I was glad Sam was at my side. I was still numb from the funeral. Watching them lower the casket into the ground was hard. Especially with Aunt Sherrie falling apart.

  Rochelle sat at the table across from me and Sam. I didn’t feel like looking at her but moving would make me look bad and give Rochelle a reason to show her behind in the church banquet hall. Not that she needed a reason.

  “Sherrie, it was a nice service,” Rochelle said. “Joe woulda been happy at all the folks that came out.”

  “Mmm-hmmm. Even his ho came out.”

  I cleared my throat and looked at the table. Sam looked around as if he was surveying the room. Why would Rochelle mention the service? It was a nightmare with Melinda wailing and jiggling all over the sanctuary.

  “She was just paying her respects, I guess. She knew her place,” Rochelle said. “She didn’t try to sit with the family.”

  “She ain’t family, so why would she?” Aunt Sherrie asked.

  “I’m just saying. Some of ’em think they got the right to,” Rochelle said. “Especially if they got a child by the man.”

  I exchanged glances with Sam. Did Rochelle know about Melinda saying she was pregnant? I wondered how many other people she’d told that story. If it was more than one, Aunt Sherrie would hear about it soon. I hoped it was when I was already on the way home. I had already been down there more than my typical number of days in Shady Falls.

  Tennessee and Indiana sat down next to Rochelle.

  “Indiana did you bring your babies?” I asked. I didn’t really care whether she’d brought her children or not. I just wanted to change the subject from Melinda.

  “Everybody knows you don’t bring kids to a funeral. A spirit could get on them.” Indiana said.

  “A spirit?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah, spirits like funerals,” Rochelle said, “not even just the spirit of the person who died. Sometimes other spirits come out too. Like a party.”

  “Oh, I see,” Sam said.

  “Where you from?” Rochelle asked. “I thought all black folk knew about that.”

  “I’m from Florida. Haitian. And I know all about spirits. Our whole family participated in the funeral when someone died.”

  Rochelle’s eyebrows went up. “Haitian? Oh, you practice that voodoo. Lord, let me plead the blood of Jesus.”

  Sam’s nostrils flared, and I squeezed his hand under the table. She was baiting him because she knew she couldn’t get to me.

  “I’m actually Catholic, but not practicing,” Sam said.

  “Catholic? That’s even worse.”

  “How is that worse, Cousin Rochelle?” Tennessee asked. “Catholics believe in Jesus.”

  “Yeah, but they put Mary on top like she over the whole thing.”

  “Is that true, Sam?” Indiana asked, with a truly curious look on her face. She probably wanted to know for real.

  “That’s not quite how it goes, but like I said, I’m not a practicing Catholic, so I’m really not one hundred percent sure,” Sam said.

  “It’s demonic,” Rochelle said. “We might have to come up to that big mansion in Atlanta and cast spirits out. But I guess we gotta be invited first.”

  I knew it was going to go to this at some point. I’ve never invited my family to Atlanta. They’ve suggested that I should host the holidays or a family reunion, but I’ve always declined. It didn’t feel weird to me that the woman who gave birth to me had never been to my house. She wasn’t a part of my life.

  “I been wanting to come through to the A,” Tennessee said. “I want to get my music off the ground. You got a mansion cuz? Maybe me and my girl can stay in a spare bedroom until things take off.”

  “Call me after all this is over. We can chop it up,” I said, knowing I was lying through my teeth. I wasn’t chopping anything up and Tennessee wasn’t moving into my house. Period.

  Rochelle cackled. “What make you think she gone let you come up there? I could be living on the street and she wouldn’t even let me come up there.”

  “I wouldn’t let you be out on the street,” I said.

  This was true. I wouldn’t let any of my family be homeless. But that was different than them moving into my space with me. I could buy one of these little Shady Falls houses for less than the amount that I got in interest on my smallest money market account. They’d be taken care of, but just away from me.

  The young people that were part of the hospitality ministry at the church started bringing paper plates full of food to the family table. Good. Something to take their attention off me.

  “Hey, can you put two pieces of chicken on mine?” Tennessee said, real sweet, to one of the girls as she handed Aunt Sherrie a plate. The girl nodded and smiled at him. He was probably gonna have a pile of chicken and macaroni and cheese. Church girls flirted with food.

  All of our plates were full, but like Tennessee’s, Sam’s plate had extra chicken. Sam’s punch cup was filled to the rim too when everyone else’s was only three quarters of the way.

  “Somebody’s got a crush on you,” I whispered as Sam sipped from his red Solo cup. “She gave you extra punch.”

  “She doesn’t see I’m taken by the baddest chick in here?” he whispered back and kissed me on the cheek.

  Rochelle glared at me with pure hatred and envy on her face. How could a mother be mad that her daughter was doing well? Especially when that daughter paid bills and took care of everyone’s shortfalls.

  I knew part of it was my relationship with my grandmother. My mother was the wild child and the outcast, but my grandmother had spoiled me rotten. Instead of reveling in the fact that her child was loved, Rochelle was hateful and jealous.

  “Y’all look real cozy together. If y’all gonna have a baby, you better hurry up. She’s getting long in the tooth.”

  “Okay, you know what? I’m sick of you taking digs at us. Find something else to focus on, because I’m over it,” I said. Sam rubbed my back trying to calm me dow
n, but she was getting on my nerves.

  “See how disrespectful she is?” Rochelle said to anyone who was listening. “You would think that I wasn’t the one who gave birth to her. You would think it’s the other way around.”

  Fortunately, no one really fooled with Rochelle, so she had no allies at the gathering. Folks just shook their heads and went on with eating their food.

  “Let’s not show out at the church now,” Aunt Sherrie said. “We can talk about this later on back at home.”

  “I’m not showing out,” Rochelle said. “I ain’t cussed nobody and I ain’t said nothing that wasn’t true.”

  “All right. And we all heard you, so you can be quiet now,” Cousin Yolanda said as she finally brought her plate to the table to eat with the family. She was still wearing her little white plastic apron from the kitchen.

  Rochelle rolled her eyes at Yolanda, but she quieted. Even though Yolanda was the youngest of the three sister-cousins, she always seemed to have the level head and be in charge.

  “Sam, thank you for coming out to our little book discussion last night. It was such a treat for them to meet an author in real life. Not too many authors come down to Shady Falls.”

  “It was my pleasure. I was surprised at all the questions they had. I really enjoyed the dialogue. If I go on a book tour with my next release, I’ll make sure to put Shady Falls on the list. We can have a book party.”

  “When my book comes out, we can tour together,” Tennessee said. “We can call it the Hot Boys of Literature.”

  “Sounds good. I’m down with it,” Sam said.

  Sam sounded so much more convincing and friendly than I did, but maybe he was being truthful.

  “He ain’t gone go on tour with you, just like Hahna ain’t gonna come let you live in her mansion,” Rochelle said. “You believe that, you dumber than you look.”

  That was it, I was done. Not going to let her continue to insult me in my face and act like I had to take it, just because she laid down with somebody and got up pregnant. She wasn’t a mother to me, so nothing she said made me feel guilty. It just made me want to fight.

  I got up from the table, and Sam followed suit. We scooted behind the chairs at the long table to say goodbye to Aunt Sherrie.