Like Sisters on the Homefront

by Rita Williams-Garcia

“What’s up with you?”

  “Oh, uh, nothing.”

  Gayle shook her head, took her baby, and searched for Miss Auntie.

  12

  GAYLE SWUNG OPEN the oak doors to Great’s wardrobe, not caring if she disturbed Great’s sleep. A funk of cedar chips and dried flowers and spices hit her immediately. Her nose wrinkled, her eyelids blinked. She pushed through the musty barrier, shoving the gray-blue dress way, way back where the other dresses could smother it. If that one-hundred-year-old rag didn’t feel sunlight until the next century, it would be too soon.

  A flicker of pity caught Gayle off guard, as she saw all of Great’s finery arranged in the wardrobe, never to be worn by her great-grandmother again. The oak floor was lined with shoes small enough to fit her own feet, and the top shelf was stacked with cardboard hatboxes of varying sizes. On the rack hung coats and dresses, many outfits obviously cut from the same pattern. Fascinated, Gayle ran her fingers along the fabrics. She stroked a marvelous pelt of fur, then brought it out for closer examination, finding a reddish stole with twin fox heads, four paws, and twin tails dangling.

  “Gross!” she cried. “You be thinking you high-steppin’, wrapped in your fur, and a fox head bites a chunk out your booty.” She rehung the stole, exchanging it for a crepe daffodil-colored dress, which she pressed against her body. “Now, why couldn’t Miss Auntie find a dress like this?” She put the dress back and turned to Great, who was still sleeping. “You must’ve been a hot thang,” she said, then continued to snoop. Maybe there was money tucked away. A hundred dollars was all she needed for a bus ticket.

  She spied a mustard-gold dress bag hanging stiffly at the left end of the rack. Had to be something fabulous, Gayle thought. It was hard to get to. She wrestled it down off the rack and laid it on the floor, kneeling over it while tearing down the zipper. She peeled aside the plastic flap, then snatched her hand away, realizing instantly that the lavender gown with the high neck was Great’s funeral gown. Struggling to pull the zipper up, she all but threw it into the wardrobe and turned suddenly. It wouldn’t surprise her any to catch the frail woman chuckling.

  “That’s gonna cost you,” Gayle told Great, who slept undisturbed. “Now where you stash your money?”

  A wooden cigar box wedged between hatboxes seemed a likely place to start looking. She brought it down and sat over it like a child raking through treasure. There was nothing but letters inside tattered brown envelopes with half-penny stamps dated 1800 something. In one envelope addressed to Mahalia she found what looked like play money. The bills were the wrong sizes, some even dated 1862, with the wrong dead presidents sitting in the wrong corner. She found a five-dollar bill with a buffalo, another bill with women on it. Absolutely useless. She tore the brittle envelopes as she stuffed the phony bills back inside. Next she picked up a handkerchief coarse with cotton seeds woven into its fabric. When she untied it all she found was a tiny cowrie shell, the kind those “Back to Africa” girls string in their dreadlocks. She rolled it between her finger and thumb, wondering what made the shell so precious. She knotted the handkerchief as she had found it and put it back in the box. Something else caught her eye: a piece of ledger paper torn like it had been stolen from its book. She made out:

  1 barrel coffee beans

  2 kegs cane likker

  1 nigra breed sow 14 yrs old good teeth Bambera stock

  Nothing. She put the lid on the cigar box and slid it between the hatboxes, convinced that none of its contents were of value.

  She moved on to the dresser, where photos of relatives dead and living tried to shame her for stealing. She stared them down. What Great gonna do with her money? Go to Atlantic City?

  The top drawer was filled with cotton gowns, and the bottom drawer hid the recipe. She pulled out the drawer second from the bottom, glancing in the mirror to see if she had been caught. Great was still sleeping, so she continued. There was no money hidden in the drawer, only spools of thread, patches of fabric, old dress patterns, and a leather-bound book. She sat down with the book. In its heavyweight black pages were yellowed photographs, newspaper clippings, and funeral cards. The first photograph was of a baby girl hanging onto her mother’s long skirt. The next picture was of the same girl, about ten, wearing a raggedy dress with a torn ruffle. Abigail Coston was written on the photograph’s yellowed border. She was like Gayle: Devil brewing in her eyes, heinie two seconds off a beating. By the time Gayle turned to the wedding photograph, she realized Abigail was Great. She admired her wedding outfit, her long black skirt and white ruffled blouse; her hair gathered and rolled high along the sides. The man who stood with her clutching a Bible to his chest had the same godly preacher face as Uncle Luther but with more Indian features.

  Gayle turned the page. Abigail sat with a robust baby boy in her lap while her husband stood. The only smiling face belonged to the boy—grandaddy she never knew. Each turning page told who owed what to which family members. Gayle licked her chipped tooth vainly, pleased she was the only one to inherit Great’s petiteness, her features, her ways. Mama got her bigness from Grandaddy and her stone face from Great-grandaddy. Junie would carry his weight like Great-grandaddy if he’d straighten up. Cookie owed every ounce of pretty to her grandmother. But José! José was each and every baby boy Luther, particularly around the mouth and jaw.

  She forgot about being up to no good, snooping for money. Great startled her by calling out, “Who that?” Gayle slammed the book shut and shot straight up. “It’s me, Miss Great. Just looking for your change of clothes.”

  “I don’t need changing.”

  “Thought you might.”

  Great patted the side of the bed, beckoning Gayle to sit with her. “What you need, child?”

  Gayle joined her great-grandmother, bringing the book with her. She had been caught and was now relieved. “Miss Great, I need some money.”

  “Right there in the Bible. Take it.”

  Gayle grabbed the Bible that sat on Great’s nightstand. A ten-dollar bill fell out of Corinthians One. She fanned the pages looking for more. Ten dollars was all there was.

  Great inquired about church. Gayle relayed everything, starting with “’Scuse me, Great, but that gray dress ugly” on to the usher who snatched her baby, her version of Uncle Luther’s sermon, the Paulette snake woman, how Cookie sang the roof off the church, and how weirdly Cookie was behaving lately. “Nose open wide,” Great said, which Gayle refused to believe. Cookie in love? No. Great instructed her to “watch and see.” Great appreciated the talk, filling in morsels for Gayle to digest. It hurt Gayle to learn that the baby snatcher was her own father’s cousin. She and José were joined to yet another branch of family she knew nothing of.

  Gayle brought forth the leather-bound book and turned to Great’s girlhood pictures.

  “Why your dress torn? What you been up to?”

  Great strained to look. “Them Hog Pen Hanleys.”

  “Who?”

  “Hog Pen Hanleys, that’s who. Smell like they been rolling in their pappy’s hog pen. Always pulling my braids, spinning rhymes on my ma and pa. One day I got the biggest Hanley gal by the tuft of her hair and pulled till she had enough. Her brothers ran off and left her. Pa thought it was funny. He owned the general store and photographed me right there grinning with my dress torn. Then he whupped me for fighting in my school dress.”

  “Great, you’s awright.” Gayle beamed. She turned to the wedding picture. “How come you married that old man? I thought he was your daddy.”

  “That old man my Luther,” Great said with pride. “I thought Mr. Luther fit to marry Ma but seemed all those meetings were over me. M’tears ain’t even dried and I woke up married to Luther, a widower past forty. No children though. Lost them all to the pox. I asked him if Ma could live with us. He said with his mama there, and my mama there I’d never be a wife and it was important I learned wifing and mothering from Miss Mahalia—his mama. I didn’t want to know about wifing and mothering, so I ran away thr
ee times. Begged Ma let me in. Last time she locked her door. Said I was acting a little girl playing runaway and if I really wanted to run off I would do it right and go to Texas or some far-off place like that. ‘Take care,’ Ma said. ‘Those out-west Indians not as kindly as the ones down here. They might see your black hide and hunt you like a buffalo.’

  “Ain’t never been out the county. Frightened me so bad I ran home to Luther. Was simple enough to tell him what Ma said and he laughed at me. I got to noticing how handsome his face was when he laughing, and I never ran from him again. Ripened three times, but only one child lived to be a man. Another Luther. My Sonny. Your granddaddy.

  “Now, Sonny spread the Word, like all them Luthers before him. Sonny a marching preacher. All those Civil Rights marches . . . Selma, Wash’ton, Miss’sippi! Sonny was right there, marching and preaching. Among men he stood out like a giant! Praise God! You’da loved your grandpa. He could laugh big, talk big. Get the people moving. But Sonny got stopped by the law driving up from Alabama from one of them marches. Seems they didn’t like the looks of a big cullud man in a Thunderbird. And Sonny couldn’t play boy to save his life. He was just too tall for alla that . . .” Sorrow took Great away momentarily. Gayle touched her cheek softly and she came back. “Your Uncle Luther was about your age when we put him on a train to Alabama to get the car and drive his daddy’s body home. My Luther couldn’t make the trip. His time was coming. He was too old. Kept saying over and over that with Sonny gone, he had to Tell me.”

  “The Telling?”

  “The Telling,” Great rejoined. “Wasn’t s’pose to go to me. S’pose to pass down to all them Luthers. The ones could preach the Word. Child! That Ginny girl liked to worry me to death ’bout the Telling. Something about ‘orah histry.’ I got so scared of her prodding me with recorders and cameras that I wouldn’t say a word.”

  Gayle shook her head, smiling. “Stubborn.”

  “He told me, over and over, like the Spirit moving his lips. Then he passed. Never did see Sonny. Not in this life.”

  “They went together?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Great said, filled with genuine joy. “Big old send-off. Preachers came far as Ohio. Old Luther and Sonny brought out the finest preaching. And the eulogies! Freedom singers came from Canaday to sing jubilations. And the stove burned night and day, feeding all the people that filled the house. That was a good time!”

  “Great, if anything happened to José I’d have to kill somebody.”

  “Baby, why you want to say a thing like that?”

  “Miss Great, you happy they died?”

  “Oh, no, baby. That grieved me the most. But I knew they was in paradise and that ain’t a cause of grief.”

  Gayle shook her head. “Yawl put too much in this glory, glory business. You won’t see me jumping up and down when it’s dying time. Not like you. Great, you just as happy it’s around the corner.”

  “Amen, glory, glory,” Great said. “And I wants a happy send-off with singing I can hear from beyond. People coming by the house filling it with life. Just throw a nice little dress on me. Nothing fussy and high tone, but no sackcloth either. Then on to paradise.”

  “How you know you going to paradise, Miss Great?”

  “Baby, I’m as good as gold. But shinier.”

  Gayle laughed.

  “Oh, I was a young devil,” Great admitted. “But I got the goodest heart. Ain’t never turned away a soul in need, and I gave the world my only son—that’s how I know! Gold,” she said patting her breast lightly. “Good as gold.”

  “Good like Cookie.”

  Great thought for a while then answered, “Cookie a good child. Yes, she is. Good is all she knows. Now, you’sa devil. But that’s all right. When you lay down your deviling, you won’t turn back and can’t no one turn you. You’ll be stronger than those who lived by the rule all their lives. Paradise will open for you, too.”

  Gayle sucked her teeth. “Ain’t going to paradise no time soon, Granny.”

  “Don’t worry none,” Great said. “Paradise ain’t having you no time soon. Now, let’s check on the recipe ’fore they come.”

  13

  JOSÉ THREW HIS PACIFIER down on the kitchen floor for the third time, squealing and banging his hands on his high-chair tray.

  Gayle slammed her hand on the kitchen table and pulled back her chair, leaving a skid mark. “Stop it, José! I’m not playing with you,” she warned.

  He responded with a pat-a-tat-tat-tat on his tray, looking up at her with love in his eyes.

  “Lookit what you made me do,” she said of the floor mark, knowing she’d have to scrub and wax it later. “You think that’s funny, don’t you.”

  Miss Auntie, who up until now had been sitting quietly at the breakfast counter, cleared her throat. As far as Gayle was concerned, Miss Auntie could take her criticizing grunts and those papers she was marking over to another corner of the house. It wasn’t like Miss Auntie had sweated out seven hours of hard labor bringing José into the world.

  Gayle retrieved and rinsed the pacifier one last time. She aimed her finger at her son and told him, “I’ll fix you good.” It was all she could do to keep from unloading her mind, feeling Miss Auntie’s eyes crawling up her back. She kept cool, taking out a diaper pin from the curio jar that sat on the sink counter, and fastened the pacifier to José’s bib. Frustration overwhelmed him. He tugged on the blue plastic loop and looked up at his mother with defiant eyes she could swear were her own.

  It gave her profound satisfaction to say, “That’s why I’m the mama and you the child” when she sat down to finish polishing the silver teapot.

  Cookie stepped lively into the kitchen from outside, planting a big kiss on her mother’s cheek and heaping unbearable doses of cheer on Gayle and José. She took a glass from the cabinet and the pitcher of lemonade from the refrigerator. For every action—the pouring, the closing of the refrigerator door, the twirling—Cookie had a melody.

  José gurgled, hoping Cookie would include him in her play. Gayle rubbed the teapot harder, wanting to be left out.

  Don’t Cookie know what day it is? All that singin’ and slippin’ and slidin’ like she in a parade! If she had to change sheets, nurse Great, watch the baby, and polish some old 1830-who-gives-a-damn-teapot, Cookie’d know it was Monday. Slave day.

  Gayle couldn’t stand it any longer. Cookie’s joy was overflowing. “All right,” Gayle relented. “Whu’sup wit you?”

  “It’s going to be a great day!” was the best Cookie could do.

  Gayle dipped her sponge into the pink cream, sorry she asked in the first place. “I hate Mondays. Reminds me I gotta be here another week with no parole.”

  Brightness welled and released in Cookie’s eyes and spread to her cheeks. She plunked herself before Gayle, rapped her knuckles against the table, and declared, “Cousin Gayle, you’ve got to come to fellowship with me.”

  Miss Auntie confined her comment to a raised eyebrow. Gayle was inclined to agree with her aunt: Cookie must be crazy.

  “Churchie meetings? Whatchall do? Talk about bad kids gon’ fry in hell?”

  Cookie laughed. “Don’t be so closed minded, Cousin. I’m talking about a good time. Meeting in town with kids our age. Discussing Scriptures, praying, singing. Just being renewed in Christ!”

  In the midst of flagrant eyeball rolling, Gayle caught Miss Auntie smiling. She couldn’t figure whether her aunt was amused by Cookie’s absolute faith or by the unlikelihood of Gayle’s being renewed by anything vaguely spiritual.

  Cookie went on, her head lolling from side to side. “We have dances, picnics, guest speakers. And twice a year we go on retreat,” she emphasized, hoping the retreat would change Gayle’s opinion. Having no idea what a retreat was, Gayle remained unreachable, annoyed that her cousin had interrupted her misery with utter stupidity. Gayle concluded the retreat had to do with praying and Scriptures and all those shalt nots.

  “I guarantee you’ll come away from one mee
ting high on the Lord,” Cookie said, her pie face now fit to burst.

  Gayle’s neck jerked back. “High on the Lord?” She hadn’t begun to contemplate just how simple her cousin was when Cookie added, “It’s a nice little drive into town.”

  Gayle stopped polishing. Car, drive, the hell out registered quickly.

  “Can we stop at the store on the way back?” Gayle asked weakly, saving her energy for scheming to get cigarettes and Dairy Queen sundaes out of Cookie.

  “You know we can.”

  Gayle sought out her aunt. “Miss Auntie,” she whimpered, altogether too pitifully and too quickly to fool anyone, “can you watch the baby while I go?”

  Miss Auntie, her two cents now overdue, laid her pen down on the table. “Now, now, Miss Gayle. I believe I made myself clear. Emanuel is your little bundle of fun. Take him with you.”

  “All right. All right,” Gayle snapped, stamping her feet under the table. For the moment, she was sick of José’s drooling looks-like-his-daddy’s face. She stuck the sponge down into the pink cream. “He’s gotten so big with yawl feeding him everything in creation. He don’t walk and I ain’t got no stroller. Carrying kids around is backbreaking work.”

  “Carrying them is easy. Raising them is backbreaking joy,” Aunt Virginia rejoined lyrically. “But you’re doing just fine, sweetie. Just fine. Now, go see about Great and I’ll finish up in here.”

  It would be easier if Miss Auntie would kick up a storm or had a big old ugly mouth like Mama. Mama could holler! Miss Auntie’s voice dipped, making it hard to stop listening to her magic even when she was getting you sick.

  This time Gayle sat in the backseat with José rather than giving Cookie a hard time. Cookie a natural fool for Jesus, Gayle thought. Check her out. Praying while the motor warming up. Popping a Jesus tape into the stereo. Singing along and getting happy.

  Cookie peered into the rearview mirror and saw Gayle falling into the wave of the gospel chorus crackling through the speakers. “Didn’t I tell you this was going to be a great day?”