by Mary Monroe
I sat down on the dangerously weak couch. She sat down across from me on a wobbly bamboo chair.
“How long can you stay down here?” Lillimae asked, fanning her face with the tail of her bathrobe, revealing puckered fat on her thighs that reminded me of blisters. It was a struggle, but somehow she managed to cross her massive legs. I didn’t even try to do that, because it was too much trouble.
I looked at my watch before answering. “Just a few days. I need to save some vacation days for my honeymoon cruise.”
A broad smile appeared on Lillimae’s face and she shook her head and clicked her teeth. She rubbed the side of her neck and looked at me, blinking hard. “Girl, would you believe I spent my weddin’ night in the emergency ward gettin’ my jaw wired up? My man beat the livin’ daylights out of me for slow dancin’ with his best man.” She chuckled and let out a deep sigh. “My thirtieth birthday at that. Me and Freddie Lee had already been together for ten years and had two babies.”
“You must have had some wedding reception. Are you still married?” I didn’t laugh. There was nothing funny about a man hitting a female. I still had nightmares about the beatings that Mr. Boatwright had showered me with the few times I tried to keep him out of my bed.
Lillimae shook her head and shrugged. “That thing I married took off before the ink dried on our marriage license. Freddie Lee—that’s my husband’s name—was so jealous, he didn’t even allow me to go to male doctors. Every time I left the house and came back, he made me take off my panties so he could sniff ’em to see if he could smell another man’s juice. I broke his black ass up from that real quick, though. One time I went out and ate the biggest bowl of pinto beans and cabbage greens I could find. Then I washed it all down with some home-brewed beer. My panties was nice and ripe by the time I got home for him to sniff ’em. I didn’t have to worry about none of his foolishness after that.” Lillimae paused and laughed so hard, a huge tear rolled down the side of her face like a marble.
“Where is this Freddie Lee now?” I asked.
Lillimae gave me a serious look and groaned. “He’s in Lauderdale, livin’ with his mama. She manages one of them bait shops and he works with her.” Lillimae paused and grimaced. “Freddie Lee can be such a worm hisself sometimes. No wonder he loves sellin’ worms now.” Lillimae sniffed and then a thoughtful look appeared on her face. “But he is a good daddy to our two precious little boys. That’s why I didn’t mind lettin’ him have them for the summer. When I call to talk to the boys, me and Freddie Lee talk, too. We still love each other. I know we’ll eventually work things out and hook back up. If not for us, for our boys. A child needs both parents to feel whole.” Lillimae gave me a mournful look and quickly glanced over her shoulder in the direction where Daddy was. “I’m sure you know what I mean by that.”
“I do,” I said flatly.
“Besides, I can’t stand bein’ lonely, so I’m just about ready to put up with anything if he decides to come back. Even that panty thing he used to do. Daddy is seventy-two years old now. He won’t be around to keep me company too much longer. I’ve been so blessed to have him with me all these years.”
“I wish I could say that,” I muttered grimly.
Lillimae gasped and frowned. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, I didn’t mean anything by that,” I said levelly, listening as Daddy flushed the toilet again.
CHAPTER 6
I
t was another twenty minutes before Daddy returned from the bathroom, mopping his face with a wet towel and straightening his bathrobe.
“Lord, I wish I hadn’t et them peppers. Lillimae, can you run out to the drugstore and get me some more Maalox?” he grunted, a severe grimace on his face. “Carry Annette with you so she can sight-see.”
I waited with Daddy in the living room while Lillimae went to put on some clothes and shoes.
Sitting next to me on the couch, Daddy placed his hand over mine and squeezed, smiling so hard his eyes watered. “Annette, I can’t get over how fine you turned out. But then, good-lookin’ females run in my family.”
I listened with interest.
“Daddy, do you have other family? Aunt Berniece said something about you having a brother somewhere. I’d like to get in touch with your other relatives, if you don’t mind.” I thought that at this stage of my life, it was important for me to know as much as I could about my background. I wanted to have some answers for the questions I expected from the children I planned to have with Jerome.
Daddy sighed and shook his head and then an unbearably sad smile crossed his face. “St. Louis was my only brother. He passed last year. He would have been eighty last week. He had a bunch of kids but I don’t know where none of ’em at. Both of my sisters, twins named Collette and Corinna, passed before you was born.” Daddy paused and giggled. “Big-foot gals, both of ’em.” He sniffed and got serious again, massaging his chest. “A car wreck is how they died. They come into this mean old world together and they left it together. Comin’ home from a revival one night, a possum jumped in front of the car and they ran off the Yammagoochee Bridge over in Alabama. Both of ’em died in my arms after me and some boys from the church pulled ’em out of that car. There was a hospital less than five minutes away, but we couldn’t carry them there on account of it was still segregated at the time. Right after Kennedy got in the White House and him and the rest of the decent white folks made new laws, they closed that hospital down to keep from havin’ to doctor on Black folks.” Daddy’s lips quivered and his jaw twitched, almost as much as mine. He sniffed and continued. “Corinna left a little girl behind that her man took off somewhere right after the funeral. He was one of them Geechees so I suspect he took that child off somewhere to one of them islands where I think he came from.” His jaw still twitching, Daddy paused and blinked fast and hard. But a single tear still managed to slide out of his eye. “I declare, I loved that little gal as much as I love my own.” He paused again and grinned, wiping the tear off his cheek with the back of his hand. “You ever gwine to be my girl again?” He sniffed hard and downgraded his grin to a weak smile.
“I’ve always been your girl, Daddy. And I always will be.” I patted Daddy’s shoulder and looked away, sucking in air so hard a sharp pain rolled through my chest. “How come you didn’t tell me Lillimae looked like that?” I asked in a whisper, leaning my head close Daddy’s.
He looked at me with genuine surprise. “Look like what?” He glanced toward the back room, where Lillimae was slamming closet doors and banging dresser drawers shut.
My face was flaming as I caressed my cheek and cocked my head to the side. Talking out of the side of my mouth, I said in a controlled voice, “She can pass for white.”
Daddy shrugged. “I can sure enough understand you havin’ a beef with white women…”
I gave Daddy a thoughtful look and a smile. “My closest female friend back in Ohio is white. I don’t have a problem with white women. But it was a real shock to find out that my own sister looks like one.”
“Well, Lillimae ain’t white. At least not by these rules the white folks done laid down. And while we on the subject, every nigger I know claim to be part Indian. Even me! Only ones ain’t braggin’ about havin’ Indian blood is the Indians. Shoot. White blood, Indian blood, don’t matter how much of it you got. If you got any Black blood at all, you Black in this white man’s country. Case closed. Lillimae is a Black woman and she proud of it.” Daddy paused and gave me a thoughtful look. “And I hope you proud of your color, too.”
“I am, Daddy. I wouldn’t want to be anything else.”
I could not believe that I had only been in Florida for a few hours. It seemed more like a few days. Daylight was coming to a dramatic close. Lightning bugs and dim streetlights lit up the night as Lillimae and I made our way from the living room to her old Chrysler. She kept it parked in a narrow driveway by the side of her house. The full moon, shining like a huge silver ball, looked like it was about to drop right out of the dar
kening sky. It gave me an eerie feeling.
It was still just as hot as it had been when I’d arrived that afternoon. All of the doors to the neighboring houses were standing open. People in their nightclothes had gathered on their front porches. They were fanning, drinking, and listening to radios playing everything from Gospel to the Blues.
After the visit to the drugstore, Lillimae and I stopped at a vegetable stand. She wanted to pick up more turnip greens and a bag of red-skinned potatoes. The place was crawling with sweaty people pushing shopping carts, loaded with everything from watermelons to ten-pound plastic bags of raw peanuts.
There was a long line of customers at three of the four checkout aisles. Since Lillimae had only two items, she rushed to the express lane. I stumbled along behind her, chewing on a handful of grapes that I had snatched off a counter next to the greens.
The cashier, a middle-aged blonde who would have been pretty without the dark circles and heavy bags under her large blue eyes, smiled as we approached her counter. She had chatted with the white man ahead of us, telling him how sorry she was about his sick wife and telling him she was going to pray for him and his whole family. Naturally, I assumed she’d show us some level of courtesy, too.
Just as Lillimae placed her greens and the sack of potatoes on the counter, a sharp-featured white man wearing a manager’s identification tag appeared out of nowhere. He stood rooted in a spot near our cashier, with his hairy, sunburned arms folded and a grim expression on his face. The cashier’s face immediately went from a smile to a scowl. She roughly stuffed Lillimae’s greens into the same bag with the potatoes, even though the bag was clearly too small. Then, she practically threw Lillimae’s change at her, ignoring her request to have the greens put in a separate bag. Instead, the rude cashier waved us through her line and snapped her fingers at the customer behind us and yelled, “Next!”
I had to remember where I was, because I was tempted to say something. By the grace of God, I was able to restrain myself. But I still glared at the cashier. Somehow, Lillimae managed to remain pleasant, even telling the woman, “Have a nice day.”
I was further annoyed when the manager put his hands on his hips and watched us until we went out the door.
“I guess some things never change.” I sighed as Lillimae and I approached her car parked on the street directly in front of the vegetable stand. “I’ll never forget the way some white folks used to treat Muh’Dear and me when we lived down here.” I snorted so hard I had to rub my nose. I was surprised to see specks of blood on my fingers. Lillimae didn’t respond until she had tossed the bag with her vegetables onto the backseat.
“I would have gone to another stand if I had known that woman worked here,” Lillimae hissed, gripping the sides of the steering wheel. The weather had cooled off considerably by now, but beads of sweat covered most of Lillimae’s face. She was red with rage. “I work my fingers to the bone at that damn post office so me and Daddy can eat good. This is one of the best stands in town and one of the closest. But them motherfuckers’ll never get another one of my hard-earned dollars. I don’t have to put up with that shit.”
“I would not have been as nice to that old peckerwood witch as you were,” I snarled, looking back toward the vegetable stand.
The same cashier who had behaved so rudely was now standing outside on the sidewalk in front of the vegetable stand under a streetlight, looking at us. For a moment, her eyes locked with mine. I blinked because I couldn’t believe the unbearably sad look on the woman’s face now. I gasped when she offered a faint smile before we drove off. I let out a deep sigh and turned back around.
I saw no reason to share what I had just seen with Lillimae. As far as I was concerned, the woman was nobody. But what Lillimae said next made my eyes burn with tears.
“Her name is Edith,” Lillimae told me, her voice cracking.
“Who?” I asked, my eyes staring at the side of Lillimae’s head.
“That old peckerwood witch that just waited on us.”
I gasped. “You know her?”
Lillimae nodded. “She’s my mama.”
CHAPTER 7
T
he first few hours of the first day of my visit with Daddy and Lillimae had already been difficult enough. Seeing Lillimae’s mother at that vegetable stand had made it even more difficult.
Lillimae had prepared her absent sons’ small bedroom next to the kitchen for me to sleep in. I took a long bath in a huge, claw-foot bathtub, noticing that the Florida sun had already started drying out my skin. By the time I crawled out of the bathtub, slathered Vaseline Intensive Care lotion over most of my body, and returned to the living room, Lillimae and Daddy had disappeared to their bedrooms. I waited until I was sure they were asleep. Then I padded into the kitchen to use the telephone on the wall next to the refrigerator to call up Muh’Dear, my mother.
Before I could dial Muh’Dear’s number, that greedy cat from next door started clawing and thumping on the kitchen door. He was meowing so loud, I let him in before he could disturb Lillimae. Since she seemed so fond of him, I knew she would come out to feed him again. Once the cat rolled across the floor, straight to the refrigerator, I took out a slice of raw bacon and tossed it to him. He dragged it to a corner and started gnawing. He was already halfway done with it by the time I finished dialing Muh’Dear’s number so I knew I had to talk fast.
Muh’Dear must have had the telephone in the bed with her, because she answered before the first ring ended.
“What your daddy got to say for hisself after all these years? I bet he done already told you enough lies to fill a hog trough,” Muh’Dear said hotly.
Before Daddy’s desertion, Muh’Dear had talked about him like he was the king of some proud African tribe. She even used to call him Mr. Goode. Now when she referred to him it was always by his first name only, Frank. And she now talked about him like a dog. I felt tremendously sad knowing that Muh’Dear’s bitterness toward Daddy remained so strong after so many years. Despite Daddy’s departure and all of the obstacles we had encountered because of it, Muh’Dear and I still had a lot to be grateful for. We both had nice homes, jobs, decent friends, and our health. I had a man and he was a good man. Muh’Dear loved Jerome as much as I did. “As much trouble as men is, we still need ’em,” she had told me a few years ago.
I didn’t agree with Muh’Dear’s old-school belief about women needing men. But the one man I felt I did need in my life was my daddy. A bloodline was one thing a person couldn’t change. It bothered me, knowing that part of my blood had run in so many different directions. I had a real daddy and siblings. I wanted to unite our blood while there was still time. The brief time that I had had Daddy in my life had meant a lot to me. Having him back meant even more. I knew that if I had never reunited with him, I would never feel like a whole person again.
I didn’t appreciate Muh’Dear’s negative attitude, but she had every right to still be angry.
“Annette, Frank brought you all the way to Florida to tell you more lies. Once you see what a snake he is, you’ll get him out of your system once and for all. I sure enough did.”
“Daddy hasn’t told me any lies, Muh’Dear. He was glad to see me,” I replied, speaking low.
The cat had finished the slice of bacon and had returned to sniff at the refrigerator once again. This time, I tossed him a huge pork chop, hoping it would keep him occupied until I completed my conversation with Muh’Dear.
“Well, Frank’ll be lyin’ like a rug as soon as he tune up his lips. That no-good jackass. How he lookin’ these days? I bet he look like he been whupped with a ugly stick. When you act ugly, you get ugly sooner or later.”
“He looks the same way he did the last time we saw him,” I lied. Without going into detail, I added, “He’s still one of the best-looking Black men in town.” I paused and sucked in my breath. “He still goes to that Baptist church on Greely Street that we used to go to when we lived down here. He’s an usher.”
“That don’t mean nothin’, girl. The Church is full of devils,” Muh’ Dear snapped.
I was exasperated. I covered my mouth with my hand to keep Muh’Dear from hearing my deep sigh. “Muh’Dear, let’s forget about what Daddy did to us. We can’t change the past.”
“I know that. But Frank Goode is goin’ to rue the day he run off and left us the way he done. He goin’ to be sorry.”
“He’s already told me he was sorry,” I said dryly, my fingers twisting the telephone cord.
“Oh, he did? That’s a surprise.” Muh’Dear sucked her teeth and took her time continuing. “You called Jerome?”
“Not yet. I’ll call him tomorrow.”
“Well, you better. You ain’t never goin’ to find another man as good as him at your age. And you better hurry and marry him before he change his mind or before he take a real good look at you. Makeup is a mask you can hide behind but for so long.” Muh’Dear laughed. “It was years before your stepdaddy found out what I really looked like.”
“Go to sleep, Muh’Dear.” I sighed. “Don’t forget to go water my plants. I’ll be home in a few days.”
“Wait a minute, girl. I ain’t finish talkin’ to you yet.” Muh’Dear lowered her voice to a whisper so I knew what was coming. “You seen that white woman? Your auntie told me that that she-puppy done dragged her white-trash tail on back to Miami.”
“You mean Edith?” I saw no reason for me to whisper the way Muh’Dear often did when she and I talked about white folks.
“Who in the world is Edith?” she hissed, still whispering.
“The white woman Daddy was with.” I didn’t like saying things that hurt my mother but she made it hard for me to avoid.
“Oh, excuse me! So now you on a first-name basis with that paleface Jezebel?”
“No, I’m not. I saw her at a vegetable stand that Lillimae took me to today. Uh…Lillimae is Daddy’s oldest girl.” I paused and added with a chuckle, “She looks just like me. She took off from her job at the post office to spend time with me. Daddy lives with her.”
