The Color of Family

by Patricia Jones

  “Of course I knew who I was. I was Emeril’s twin sister and I was loved. There wasn’t anything or anybody that could have ever changed that,” Antonia replied defiantly, looking starkly at Agnes. Then, as her lips softened just enough to let one corner of her mouth turn up toward a smile, she said, “Besides, I don’t believe you defended me back then.”

  “I did, though,” Agnes said assuredly as she looked briefly at the plate of food that was just put down before her. “Why, do you remember that first summer the three of us met and we all worked over there at the Devereuxs’?”

  “Yes I do,” Antonia said sprightly with the memory of a time long forgotten. “You were their nanny, and I worked in the kitchen with Cora Calliup’s mother, who got me and Emeril jobs working over there.”

  “That’s right. And Emeril was their yard boy.” She waited for the waiters to clear their salad plates and get completely behind them before continuing, “Okay, so one day, Mrs. Devereux nearly tossed you outta there when she found the bones from the ribs they’d had for dinner the night before tucked away in your sweater pocket. She couldn’t believe that you had dug those things outta the garbage and was savin’ them to take home with ya. She thought you were some kind of dangerous nut for doin’ that. And honestly, honey, I couldn’t think of a darn good reason myself, but I still told her, I said, ‘Mrs. Devereux, Antonia ain’t crazy. She’s just gifted is all. She’s one of those seers, and them bones is what she uses to help her see what us regular ungifted folks can’t see.’ Anyway, I knew you weren’t no seer, honey, but she believed it, and she didn’t fire you. Why did you take those bones, anyway?”

  “I took them because I thought if I strung them on some pretty gold string, they’d make a pretty necklace. Turned out I was wrong.” Then with an emotion that boiled up from way down deep, from a place that had been constructed so long ago and then abandoned, Antonia shared a laugh with Agnes that gave her a freedom that had eluded her for so long, it was all at once unnerving and the most ebullient life could ever offer. And it lasted, because as with anything that can make a body tingle from its soul, Antonia was in no hurry to let it leave. But then as it drew to an end, she said, “Well, anyway, it’s a good thing I didn’t get fired, because if I had I wouldn’t have been able to get another job that whole summer. And most of the money I made at the Devereuxs’, Momma and Daddy made me put in the bank, and I couldn’t touch it till I got to college. It’s a good thing they did too, because that money plus the money Momma and Daddy would add to it from time to time helped me when I went to Spelman. So I guess I ought to thank you.”

  “I guess you ought to,” Agnes said with a lilt of jest in her voice that somehow seemed to restore her whole face, dancing eyes and all, back to her former girl-self.

  Antonia sliced off a piece of what she could only identify as some sort of fish with her fork, then scooped it up and put it in her mouth to discover it was catfish. She thought to tell Agnes of how she’d never, ever thought to fix catfish any other way but fried, but that what they were eating now was quite a tasty way of fixing it, but she chose instead to say, “Agnes, I wish I could understand why it’s so hard for you to just admit to me that Clayton is Emeril’s son. I mean, I know I’ve said all of that stuff about how the world should know what kind of man my brother was and what kind of man he fathered, but that was just a lot of other stuff in me talking. Really, it would only have to be between the three of us, me and you and Clayton. I don’t want anything else from you, Agnes, except to know my brother’s child. I don’t think that’s asking for the world.”

  Agnes only chewed, staring straight ahead at Antonia. Her face had fallen flat, coming back to her present woman-self. And as if waiting for minutes to be added to the day, she sipped from her water glass, set it back on the table, then replied, “Antonia, there is absolutely nothing I can say to you that I haven’t said a million times before. You’re going to believe what you’re going to believe, and all I can do is tell you that what you believe isn’t so. I’ve always known, Antonia, that we wouldn’t even be going through this if I was black.”

  “You’re right. We wouldn’t be going through any of this if you were black, because there’d be no reason for you to hide his color, now would there be?”

  “That’s so unfair, Antonia,” Agnes said, diverting her eyes from Antonia’s as if a force larger than she had snatched them away.

  “It may be difficult for you to hear, but there’s no way it could be unfair because it’s true.”

  Agnes went to pound her fist down on the table until she seemed to remember where she was, and then she simply slapped the tips of her fingers on the edge of the table. Though it was nowhere near the same explosion as her fist, the tenacity was quite clear when she said, “What in the hell do you want from me, Antonia? I have tried to be reasonable with you. I have come to your home. I have invited you here to have a beautiful lunch, and all you can do is continue to needle me and take me round and round in your circles about something that cannot possibly be true.”

  So Antonia stared back and said with an even firmness, “Well if as you say it’s impossible to be true, can you tell me why it is that Emeril died on July twenty-third nineteen fifty-six, and Clayton was born on April twenty-third nineteen fifty-seven? And just in case you’re bad with math, that’s exactly nine months to the day after Emeril died.”

  Agnes twittered with nervous laughter, then said, “Antonia, what are you saying? Okay, so he was born nine months to the day after Emeril died, not nine months to the day after the first time Emeril and I made love.”

  And Antonia laughed, as well, only with slyness, and said, “But Agnes, do I need to remind you that on the morning of the day he died, I caught the two of you doing it right there in the living room of the house where you looked after those children down in the Garden District? Now I am married to a doctor and I do know that most babies are not born exactly nine months to the day after conception, but I do also know that it can happen.”

  Agnes, flustered, flushed and, stammering all over herself, seemed to be pecking in the air right before her in search of what to say. And when she looked into every corner of the room and back, it seemed as if she needed to search in another part of the dining hall’s atmosphere for words that only Antonia would understand. “So—So—So, how in the world do you know that about him? How is it that you know when his birthday is, Antonia? Have you been stalking him or something?”

  “Agnes, are you serious?” Antonia said with an incredulous, stammering laugh. “Clayton Cannon is a concert pianist. A public figure. Do you have any idea just how easy it is to find out that information? Sometimes it’s as easy as just looking in the paper.”

  And Agnes, unaware that someone was heading toward her, completely oblivious to her daughter-in-law and grandchildren walking across the dining room, whipped herself around and pointed an accusing finger at Antonia and screamed in a whisper, “Stalker! You are a stalker, that’s what you are!”

  “I’m no stalker, Agnes, but if I were, it wouldn’t matter, because the Bible says ‘Be thy brother’s keeper, and keep his children from deception,’” Antonia said with all the confidence of what she believed.

  “The Bible may say that, Antonia, but you don’t have no right to stalk my son. You’re a stalker. Stalker! Stalker!”

  But Antonia’s attention was not on Agnes’s ranting that was wrapped tightly, Antonia presumed, in fear. She was awed by the miracle of what stood before her. “Hello,” was all she could say to the woman and two children.

  “Mother Cannon?” Susan Cannon said. “Is everything all right?” She looked suspiciously at Antonia, then at Agnes, then back at Antonia who was regarding the twins with an exacting interest, and this made Susan cinch her forehead even tighter.

  Agnes collected all the parts of herself that she had splattered all over the room when she exploded and said, “Oh yes, honey. Everything’s just fine. I’m just having lunch here with an old friend of mine from New
Orleans, Antonia Jackson. Antonia, this is my daughter-in-law, Susan, and my grandsons, Noah and Luke.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you all,” Antonia said meekly. The weakness in her fluttering heart, the sense of scarcely being able to believe she was near enough to touch Emeril’s grandsons, had taken her voice nearly completely from her. There he was, Emeril times two as a boy. Everything was duplicated, even the one dimple in the right cheek—that dimple told her that fate simply wouldn’t create such an uncanny coincidence. But even with the uniqueness of the dimple, it was the eyes that told her all she’d ever need to know. Those boys had Emeril’s eyes, which meant they had her eyes too. And she wondered if they could see it; if they could look into her eyes and see that they were the same as their own. And so she blinked slowly, half involuntarily and half as a beacon to bring home lost souls in the dark night of secrets.

  “The pleasure’s all mine, I’m sure,” Susan finally said once she’d finished staring at Antonia, who was still staring at the boys. “Boys, did you say hello to Mrs. Jackson?”

  “Hello, ma’am,” the boys said in unison.

  “Hello, darlings,” Antonia said softly.

  Then Susan went closer to her mother-in-law, took hold of her hand and said, “Mother Cannon, why would you have lunch down here? I mean, it’s lovely and all, but why didn’t you just have your friend over to the house? I would have fixed you all a lovely lunch.”

  “Well, I wanted some atmosphere. You understand, don’t you?”

  “I guess. Well, anyway, the doorman is the one who told me where you were, otherwise I’d likely to never find you. You didn’t leave a note, or anything.”

  “So why were you looking for me?” Agnes asked with her voice just barely on the edge of impatience.

  “I wanted to see if you might be available this evening to stay with the boys. Clayton and I were invited to a dinner party tonight at the home of the president of Peabody, but since Clayton’s in Milan I didn’t think I would have to go without him. Turns out he wants me to go anyway. Says it’ll be good to get to know the president of Peabody just in case his career goes south and he needs a teaching job. Can you imagine? The man’s at the top of his career and he’s trying to line up a safety net.”

  “I think that’s pretty smart,” Antonia said, adding her unsolicited opinion.

  Susan regarded her with questioning eyes and said, “I suppose it is.” Then she turned to her mother-in-law and asked, “So anyway, can you stay with them?”

  “Oh, of course I can. Even if I had plans I’d cancel them for these two sugars,” she said as she went to the boys and squeezed them to either side of herself.

  “All right then, we’ll see you upstairs. I suppose you won’t be long, will you?” and she looked at Antonia as if she’d find the answer with her. “I need to run to a store and pick up some pantyhose.”

  “No, we’re almost through here, aren’t we, Antonia?”

  “Yes, we are,” Antonia said without a trace of the disquiet she was certain she’d feel at the end of a luncheon with Agnes Cannon. Instead, she felt fortified, lifted up in integrity with the fact of life that would inextricably tether her to Agnes forever. And the only twinge of sadness she felt was that Susan had no idea that those boys’ great-aunt was sitting right there, willing and ready to watch them at any hour. So she let that thought go, and said to Susan, “You have beautiful boys. Love them well.”

  “Oh I do,” she said with the pride of a mother. “They’re beautiful in every way. Such blessings. Say good-bye, Noah and Luke.”

  “Good-bye, ma’am,” they both said.

  Then Noah said, “It was nice meeting you.” And he watched Antonia with a half-smile and studying eyes that couldn’t seem to let her loose as his mother gently shooed him and his brother along.

  “I’ll see you later, Mother Cannon,” Susan said.

  “Bye Grandmama,” the boys said together as they moved farther across the dining room.

  “Bye babies,” Agnes said. Then she turned her attention back to her plate, taking large bites of food as if they were a day and a half from Armageddon and all earthly pleasures had to be consumed. She looked up only to say, “We should finish up since I have to get to the boys.”

  And so Antonia ate toward the finish without any thought of those pralines in cream waiting for her in spite of their devilish temptation. She just needed to be gone from Agnes and downtown altogether, even though she’d only gotten a mere sliver of what she’d come to get. That little bit was enough, though, and even if nobody else believes it, Antonia knew in her heart that she had just laid eyes on Emeril’s grandsons. Agnes can call me fou-fou, she can call me evil, she can call me angry, Antonia thought with a sly smile that let the edge of her lips barely curl. None of it mattered, because she knew that her tenacity, in the name of Emeril’s honor, is what was putting the fear of the devil into Agnes, the one living in the morass of mendacity.

  CHAPTER

  10

  Ellen was stretched out on the sofa, staring at her musings as they pranced across the ceiling. She wanted so badly to close her eyes and drift off into the pillowy part of her mind where nothing could reach and torment her. But after the dash to the hospital with the fear of losing her baby pumping every ounce of blood through her body, the threat of doom would simply not leave. Her eyes had been stretched wide since three in the morning, and she looked at the clock to find that it had been a solid twelve hours now. Every time it seemed that some curtain of rest was about to descend and take over, the tape of mischief that had been playing all day long in her mind would loop around to its three A.M. beginning and play all over again.

  So before it could start again, she reached over to the coffee table and grabbed the Parents magazine she had picked up at the hospital newsstand days ago when she was feeling particularly warm with daydreams of motherhood. But lo and behold, there it was, right there on the cover of the magazine. It was as bold as day and something she hadn’t noticed till now: PROTECTING YOUR CHILD FROM DANGER. And so it started her up again, thinking about those two killer men who’d escaped from jail as they were being transferred to Lewisburg. She could barely think about anything else after she heard her brother first report it on the news nearly a week before. Yes, she thought about them during the day, and as chilling as the thought of two maniac convicts on the loose was to think about in the crisp light of an afternoon, there was something about the three A.M. hour that opened her eyes from a stone sleep, making her certain they had shimmied up the side of her house and were climbing through the bathroom window as she lay there stilled with fear. And she couldn’t let go of the possibility now any more than she could at three in the morning that maybe they’d scalp her and Rick just as they’d scalped their other victims, leaving their bloodied pads of hair at the front door, a gruesome calling card for which they’d become known.

  Not even Rick lying next to her offered up any solace for her disturbed heart, she remembered, because watching him lie there with the peace of sleep in every part of his form, she thought about dying, as she thought about it now on the flip side of night—and so there’d be no hope for their forever. Ellen sat up and looked across the room at the picture of her and Rick as an hours-old married couple, she beaming with joy unparalleled and he looking at his new bride with the warmest love that even now, some eight years later, still made her misty. Mostly because she thought about her vows that were supposed to be forever, but it seemed to her now, as she thought about forever, that it could only be realized if they were both to die together. If she died first, maybe in childbirth, or some freakish accident, or suddenly in her sleep the way death can sometimes flash, she’d only be promising him her forever. He’d have to live the rest of his forever alone. Alone with a baby and a mortgage, collecting a writer’s fickle wages. What if his books stop selling? What if he finds himself at the bottom of the bestseller list, or worse, off the list altogether? What in the world will he do?

  But before she
had a chance to come up with solutions to her imagined scenario, the doorbell rang. So she got to her feet and went as slowly as she could stand to go—since she was supposed to be taking things easy—to the door. Once she got up the three steps that sank the living room into a grand valley, she went through the double-wide portal into the hallway, and just before she opened the door, she looked through one of the narrow panes of glass framing the doorway to find her mother. That’s right, she thought as she swung the door open, she did say she’d stop by.

  “Ma, come on in. I almost forgot you said you were coming by.”

  “Hello, my baby,” Antonia said as she pushed the door closed with one arm and put the other around Ellen’s vanished waist. They walked together back to the living room where she helped Ellen down the three steps and back to the sofa. “Are those steps too much for you, baby?”

  “No, Ma. There’re only three of them.”

  “I guess that’s true,” Antonia said as she took off her coat, tossed it to the other end of the sofa, then settled herself down next to Ellen. “Honey, are you sleeping? Did you get any sleep when you got home from the hospital last night—or should I say this morning?”