But this night . . . how to begin? Pick up where we’d left off the night before? When yet another rambling conversation about funerals and selfish siblings suddenly became kissing, became my T-shirt off, became my nipples in Not-Daniel’s mouth.
This is how we began: Not-Daniel took the box of condoms from me, removed one, and then set the box on the dashboard next to my phone. Then he set his phone on the dashboard. I knew his ringer volume, like mine, was on the highest setting, because the call, that call, could come at any moment. Then he took my face in his hands and looked at me. I dropped my eyes.
“No,” he said. “I need you to be . . . here. All of you. Here.”
Lifting my eyes to meet his, I felt like Sisyphus pushing that rock. In his eyes, I saw wifekidsdyingmother. I blinked, and blinked again, until my vision cleared.
In the back seat, Not-Daniel undressed me, undressed himself, and then buried his face between my legs. I reached over my head, clutched the door behind me, and cried as I came over and over again.
By the time Not-Daniel put on the condom and pulled me to my knees, my legs were limp and useless. He turned me away from him, pressed his palm against the center of my back and pushed me forward. He draped his body over mine and entered me. He was rough, but not unkind.
I wondered whether he was thinking what I was thinking: what if one of our mothers dies while we’re down here rutting around, as my grandmother would say?
But in the cramped space of the back seat and of our grief and our need, there was no room for guilt or fear. Only relief.
And that’s what I told Not-Daniel when we were both spent, our damp backs sticking to the leather seat.
“Relieved?” He frowned and then smiled. “Relieved? Then I failed to deliver the goods.”
“No, no,” I said. “You . . . delivered the goods. The goods were delivered. And received. But I do have a question . . .”
“Shoot.”
“Were you worried that one of them would die while we were down here?”
“Thought never crossed my mind.”
“Really?”
“Really. Listen, I can either deliver the goods, or I can think about my mama, dying or not. I can’t do both.”
And then I laughed, even though I felt like I shouldn’t have. Even though nothing was as it should be.
DEAR SISTER
DEAR JACKIE:
I’ve started this letter about five different times in five different ways. Finally I just told myself you’re either going to read it or you’re not, and it’s not going to come down to how I write it. It’s all about who you are and what you’ve been through and what, if anything, it means to you to share a father with my sisters Renee, Kimba, Tasheta, and me. Maybe it means nothing. Maybe your life has been just fine without our father in it, which I hope is the case. Maybe it means everything, and you have longed to know him and struggled because you didn’t. Either way, you have a right to know that our father Wallace “Stet” Brown died last week of a massive stroke.
As far as we know, you never met our father. The last time he saw you, you were an infant. If that’s the case, and if it’s any consolation: you didn’t miss much. (Tasheta, our baby sister, asked me to tell you that. We’re all sitting around at Grandma’s house, and everyone is talking at once, telling me what I should write to you. I’m mostly ignoring them. They picked me to write this because I shoot straight and don’t mince words. But I also have tact, unlike Tasheta.)
Oh! In case you’re wondering, we always just called it “Grandma’s house,” even though Granddaddy lived here too, when he was alive. He died of a heart attack in 2002, God rest his soul. You would have loved him. Everybody did. Always had a joke or funny story to tell. He was good people, just like Grandma. They lost their kids to the street or hard living, one way or another, even though they tried their best to raise them right. But some people just go their own way, you know?
Anyway, back to Stet. Tasheta is right. You didn’t miss much. Stet—everybody but Grandma called him “Stet” because back in high school, he wore a Stetson—Stet wasn’t much of a daddy. Each of us girls had a different kind of relationship with him, none of them healthy and none of them what we needed it to be.
Kimba is the oldest, and she’s the peacekeeper. She called our father “Wallace,” but she mostly pretended he didn’t exist. Over the years, she’s kept Tasheta and Renee from strangling each other. She went to Harvard. Her mother (Jan) and my mother had been friends . . . before Stet. But by the time Kimba and I were in elementary school, they had put their differences aside and raised us together like sisters. My mama said, “Y’all gon’ need each other one day. Me and Jan aren’t always going to be here. And you sure as hell can’t count on your daddy.”
Anyway . . . Kimba lives in Philadelphia now, with her husband and two kids. Your niece and nephew. She’s the only one of us with kids, and she’s the quietest one. Like I said, the peacekeeper. She flew down as soon as Renee called her with the news, and she’s helping out with Grandma. But I can tell she really wants to get the hell out of town and back to her life.
Speaking of Grandma . . . I don’t think Alzheimer’s has fully set in yet, but she’s on her way. She can’t always remember our names, but she knows that her baby boy died. And she’s sad about it. She’s been crying off and on. At seventy-five, she’s outlived her husband and all but one of her children, our Uncle Bird who moved in to take care of her when Granddaddy died.
Last week, after Kimba arrived, we met up for dinner at Grandma’s. Her neighbors and the people from her church had dropped off food. We had food for days: fried chicken, baked chicken, macaroni and cheese, greens, deviled eggs, potato salad, black-eyed peas and rice, pound cake.
So we were sitting there eating and whatnot, and Grandma says, “Which one-a y’all pregnant?” She waved a chicken leg around like a pointer. “I dreamed about fish near ‘bout every night this week.”
We been hearing about Grandma’s fishy dreams all our lives. With seven children, nineteen grandchildren (including you), eight great-grands, and three great-great-grands, Grandma has dreamed about fish a lot.
“Somebody ‘round here pregnant,” she muttered.
Renee, Kimba, and I just looked at each other and shook our heads. “It’s not us, Grandma,” Renee said. (Tasheta hadn’t gotten here yet; she’s always late.)
Anyway . . . Grandma and her fishy dreams announced the existence of every one of her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren. (“Except for Khalil,” she always reminded us. “You know Derrick never brang that girl around until that baby was two weeks old. And you know she had the nerve to get an attitude because I told her she shouldn’t have that baby out so soon with no shoes on his feet, no hat, nothing. I don’t care if it was June.” June 1986, but Grandma still talks about that girl and that baby like it was yesterday. Khalil is nineteen and is a daddy his own self now!)
If Grandma dreams about fish, there is a baby baking inside someone in her life. Everybody talks about how she’s only been wrong once, and they chalk it up to the fact that she was in the hospital at the time from complications related to her diabetes and was probably just having wild dreams because she was sick. But Jackie, I’m going to tell you a secret that only our sisters know: I knew that wasn’t true. I felt more guilty about ruining Grandma’s track record in the eyes of the family than I did about the abortion in the eyes of God. Fifteen years later, and Grandma still complaining about how “the sugar is even worser than them doctors realize. Messing around with folks’ dreams . . .” But I don’t have the heart to tell her what I did.
But this time, it’s really not me who’s pregnant. I know for a fact that it ain’t me, because I ain’t been with nobody in almost a year. Because men are tiring, and I don’t have the energy. Are you married? Do you have kids?
Anyway . . . Maybe it’s one of our cousins, or second cousins? Or Tasheta. But she gets those Depo shots . . .
I know who ain’t pregnant for sure: our middle sister, Renee. Because she is probably still a virgin. Renee is definitely the most delusional one of us when it comes to Stet. She is my full blood sister. (I don’t like to think about it, but I guess my mama felt like being the same fool twice where Stet was concerned.) Renee and me don’t have much else in common. Like the situation with Stet. When we were in grade school, she was always telling people that Stet and Mama were married, that he took us on Bahamas cruises every year, and that Stet bought her a Barbie Dreamhouse for Christmas. Every year it was some big gift. Meanwhile Stet went on Bahamas cruises every year all right—with his girlfriends. And he never once bought us gifts. All we could count on him for was broken promises, late child support (if there was any at all), and summers at Grandma’s house. Those summers were the only good thing I can say about him, and really they weren’t about him because he’d be in the streets the whole time we were there.
But none of that fazed Renee. She bought that man a card and a gift every birthday, every Father’s Day, every Christmas. Like he was Father of the Year or something. Mama would ask me if I wanted to get him something too. No, ma’am. That’s just what I told her. No, ma’am.
So Tasheta and me, we fell in line somewhere in the space between Kimba and Renee. Like a daughter purgatory where you don’t expect him to get you anything for your birthday or Christmas, ever, but it still hurts like hell every time he doesn’t.
One time, one Father’s Day, Renee and I were at church with Grandma. Renee was ten, I was thirteen. Stet had promised Grandma that he would come to church. He was always promising Grandma he would come to church. Renee and I sat on either side of Grandma in the second pew or the right side of the sanctuary, where Grandma always sat. Renee just kept turning around and turning around, looking at the door at the back of the church. I know she was thinking Stet was going to walk in any minute. She was holding a gift, a pack of socks she’d gotten for him and wrapped herself in Christmas paper. Pastor got to the end of the sermon, and Renee just kept turning around, turning around. Grandma patted her knee and hugged her close. But she kept looking back.
Then the pastor did the altar call, inviting anyone who wanted to ask Jesus into their heart to come forward. And then he asked all the fathers to come forward to commit or recommit their lives to their children. Renee watched all those men come forward and kneel at the altar and promise to be good fathers to their children. Then she looked back one last time, and the tears started.
On the way out the church, she threw the socks in the garbage can. If I could’ve taken that pain away from her that day, I would have. But I couldn’t. All I could say to her is what I’d heard our mama say about Stet, “He doesn’t deserve us.” I knew it was true—he didn’t deserve us. But I don’t think Renee ever believed that. I don’t think she’s ever learned what she deserves, what she’s worth.
So I had to take a little break from writing you. Fixed me another plate. Thinking about that Father’s Day at church years ago made me wonder what Father’s Days were like for you, and all the other days as well. Is it better to have the one big hurt of your father not being around and not all those little hurts that come when he disappoints you? Or is it better to have a piece of a father, hurts and all?
Well, it’s not like any of us got to choose in the beginning. But we do get to decide how much space to give him now.
I really hope that this letter doesn’t make things harder for you. It wasn’t our idea to reach out at first. Growing up we’d heard things here and there, that there was another sister, but we didn’t pay it no never mind. But while we were sitting here a few days ago, Grandma’s neighbor Miss Margaret stopped by with a sweet potato pie.
She said, “Didn’t y’all have another sister . . . the fat one?”
We had no idea what she was talking about.
“She was over here visiting a few years back. Was married to some man from up North.”
“Oh, that was me, Miss Margaret,” Kimba said. “My husband is from Philadelphia. And I was pregnant the last time I was here.”
“No, you were just fat. I remember when you were pregnant.”
I swear, old people stay saying slick shit because they know we can’t shake them. Kimba just looked at me like, “Is this bitch for real?”
And Miss Margaret kept talking. “And there was another one of y’all . . . another girl Stet had.”
“We never met her,” Renee said, a little too quickly.
“Well, she has a right to know,” Miss Margaret said. She turned to Grandma. “Don’t you think she has a right to know, Mae?”
Grandma looked up from her piece of pie. “Who?”
Miss Margaret shook her head. “Never mind.”
Then Tasheta came in, loud and on the phone, as usual. “Girl!” she was saying to someone, “Tell him you not a mind reader. He better speak up if he wants to be down. Closed mouths don’t get head!” And then she cracked up at her own wordplay. “I’m serious . . . Look. You know how they say, ‘No child left behind’? I say, ‘No nigga left undrained.’ ”
“Tasheta!” Renee jumped up from the table. “That’s disgusting. Show some respect.”
Tasheta held her open palm inches away from Renee’s face. Dismissed. She still wore hospital scrubs, and she’d pulled her microbraids up into a bun.
Miss Margaret turned up her nose. “Lord Jesus, let me get up out of here. Mae, I will talk to you later. Take care.”
Tasheta ended her call and kissed Grandma on the cheek. “Hey, Grandma.”
“Lord knows where that mouth has been,” Miss Margaret mumbled on her way out the door.
“Thank you for stopping by, Miss Margaret,” Kimba said following her out onto the front porch. “And for the pie. We’ll see you at the service on Saturday.”
That scene pretty much tells you everything you need to know about Tasheta. Well, that and the fact that she and one of her married boyfriends just celebrated their fifth anniversary.
Kimba asked Tasheta, “Do you ever remember Wallace talking about another daughter of his?”
Renee huffed. “Come on, Grandma. I’m going to run you a bath. It’s getting late.”
Tasheta thought about Kimba’s question between bites of macaroni and cheese that she was eating straight from the baking dish. “Nah,” she said. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Miss Margaret thinks we should get in touch with her. But we don’t know anything about her.”
“Did you ask Uncle Bird?”
Tasheta is wild, but she’s also smart. Her mom used to be a stripper, but she made sure Tasheta stayed in her books and went to college like the rest of us. She’s a nurse, Kimba’s a professor, Renee’s a kindergarten teacher, and I’m a program director at a social services nonprofit. What do you do?
So . . . I volunteered to go talk to Uncle Bird (real name: Bert) who was back in the bedroom he used to share with Stet when they were boys. Uncle Bird’s eyes were red from crying. Stet’s passing really shook him up. That was his big brother and best friend.
Uncle Bird couldn’t recall your name, and he could only remember your mama’s first name. But he said he remembered your mom coming by Grandma’s house a few times, and he saw you once when you were a baby.
“Your daddy was something else,” Uncle Bird said. He was stretched out on his old twin bed. I sat on Stet’s. “Nothing got past him. You know back in the day, I used to do my dirt. And he’d call me on it. We were sitting around drankin’ with some fellas one time. I had just gotten back from Miami, handling some business, but I wasn’t saying what that business was. Stet pointed at me from across the table and said, ‘Only a coupla of things a nigga is driving to Miami for . . . to buy some dope, see some kids, or make some more kids.’ ”
Uncle Bird laughed. “And I said, ‘Nigga, I know you not talking about somebody having a bunch of kids. You the only motherfucker I know describe his kids like a Spades hand.’ ” Uncle Bird mimicked my father’s slow drawl: “
‘Uhhh . . . I got five and a possible.’ ”
We both laughed. And then Uncle Bert was crying again. Grief is like that. He hadn’t just lost Stet. He’d also lost his four other siblings, all too soon. To drugs, violence, or both. We barely got to know our aunts and uncles.
When I got back to the dining room, Tasheta was pouring tequila shots for herself and Kimba. She went and got another glass and poured me one too.
You probably won’t be surprised to know that Renee didn’t want us to find you. (And that she turned her nose up at the tequila.) She said you’d probably come sniffing around thinking Stet left some money. I reminded her that Stet didn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of when he died. Don’t mind her. I told you, she’s delusional. After all these years, she’s still the doting daughter. She used to go over there and grocery shop and cook for him every week. She spent Friday nights over there watching TV like an old person. She was the one who found him dead on the bathroom floor. I asked her once if she was dating. She said she believes in courting, not dating, and that someday, the man God chose for her would find her. I wondered how he was supposed to find her since she didn’t go anywhere but to work and Stet’s house. Did she think the cable guy or Stet’s building super could be the man God chose?
While we were sitting there sipping, Tasheta’s phone rang. Kimba glanced down and read the name on the caller ID: “ ‘Rectal Rooter’? Tasheta, what in the world?”
Tasheta snatched up the phone. “Mind your business!” She went into the living room and proceeded to have another loud conversation.
Renee looked like she was going to pass out. Kimba and I just took another shot.
When Tasheta came back to the dining room, Renee was still pissy. “Tasheta, even if you don’t have any self-respect, you should at least respect the sanctity of other people’s marriages.” Tasheta took another shot. “I respect their marriages,” she said, slapping her glass down on the table. “Until they don’t want me to.”
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies Page 2
