Today the street’s blocked off. A crowd marches down the middle of it. They’re holding signs and posters of Khalil’s face and are chanting, “Justice for Khalil!”
I should be out there with them, but I can’t join that march, knowing I’m one of the reasons they’re protesting.
“You know none of this is your fault, right?” Momma asks.
How in the world did she do that? “I know.”
“I mean it, baby. It’s not. You did everything right.”
“But sometimes right’s not good enough, huh?”
She takes my hand, and despite my annoyance I let her. It’s the closest thing I get to an answer for a while.
Saturday morning traffic on the freeway moves smoothly compared to weekday traffic. Sekani puts his headphones on and plays with his tablet. Some nineties R&B songs play on the radio, and Momma sings along under her breath. When she really gets into it, she attempts all kinds of runs and goes, “Yes, girl! Yes!”
Out of nowhere she says, “You weren’t breathing when you were born.”
My first time hearing that. “For real?”
“Uh-huh. I was eighteen when I had you. Still a baby myself, but I thought I was grown. Wouldn’t admit to anybody that I was scared to death. Your nana thought there was no way in hell I could be a good parent. Not wild Lisa.
“I was determined to prove her wrong. I stopped drinking and smoking, went to all of my appointments, ate right, took my vitamins, the whole nine. Shoot, I even played Mozart on some headphones and put them on my belly. We see what good that was. You didn’t finish a month of piano lessons.”
I laugh. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. Like I was saying, I did everything right. I remember being in that delivery room, and when they pulled you out, I waited for you to cry. But you didn’t. Everybody ran around, and your father and I kept asking what was wrong. Finally the nurse said you weren’t breathing.
“I freaked out. Your daddy couldn’t calm me down. He was barely calm himself. After the longest minute of my life, you cried. I think I cried harder than you though. I knew I did something wrong. But one of the nurses took my hand”—Momma grabs my hand again—“looked me in the eye, and said, ‘Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. The key is to never stop doing right.’”
She holds my hand the rest of the drive.
I used to think the sun shone brighter out here in Uncle Carlos’s neighborhood, but today it really does—there’s no smoke lingering, and the air is fresher. All the houses have two stories. Kids play on the sidewalks and in the big yards. There are lemonade stands, garage sales, and lots of joggers. Even with all that going on, it’s real quiet.
We pass Maya’s house, a few streets over from Uncle Carlos’s. I would text her and see if I could come over, but, you know, I don’t have my phone.
“You can’t visit your li’l friend today,” Momma says, reading my mind once a-freaking-gain. “You’re grounded.”
My mouth flies wide open.
“But she can come over to Carlos’s and see you.”
She glances at me out the corner of her eye with a half smile. This is supposed to be the moment I hug her and thank her and tell her she’s the best.
Not happening. I say, “Cool. Whatever,” and sit back.
She busts out laughing. “You are so stubborn!”
“No, I’m not!”
“Yes, you are,” she says. “Just like your father.”
Soon as we pull into Uncle Carlos’s driveway, Sekani jumps out. Our cousin Daniel waves at him from down the sidewalk with some other boys, and they’re all on their bikes.
“Later, Momma,” Sekani says. He runs past Uncle Carlos, who’s coming out the garage, and grabs his bike. Sekani got it for Christmas, but he keeps it at Uncle Carlos’s house because Momma’s not about to let him ride around Garden Heights. He pedals down the driveway.
Momma hops out and calls after him, “Don’t go too far!”
I get out, and Uncle Carlos meets me with a perfect Uncle Carlos hug—not too tight, but so firm that it tells me how much he loves me in a few seconds.
He kisses the top of my head twice and asks, “How are you doing, baby girl?”
“Okay.” I sniff. Smoke’s in the air. The good kind though. “You barbecuing?”
“Just heated the grill up. Gonna throw some burgers and chicken on for lunch.”
“I hope we don’t end up with food poisoning,” Momma teases.
“Ah, look who’s trying to be a comedian,” he says. “You’ll be eating your words and everything I cook, baby sis, because I’m about to throw down. Food Network doesn’t have anything on me.” And he pops his collar.
Lord. He’s so corny sometimes.
Aunt Pam tends to the grill on the patio. My little cousin Ava sucks her thumb and hugs Aunt Pam’s leg. The second she sees me, she comes running. “Starr-Starr!”
Her ponytails fly as she runs, and she launches herself into my arms. I swing her around, getting a whole lot of giggles out of her. “How’s my favorite three-year-old in the whole wide world doing?”
“Good!” She sticks her wrinkly, wet thumb back in her mouth. “Hey, Auntie Leelee.”
“Hey, baby. You’ve been good?”
Ava nods too much. No way she’s been that good.
Aunt Pam lets Uncle Carlos handle the grill and greets Momma with a hug. She has dark-brown skin and big curly hair. Nana likes her because she comes from a “good family.” Her mom is an attorney, and her dad is the first black chief of surgery at the same hospital where Aunt Pam works as a surgeon. Real-life Huxtables, I swear.
I put Ava down, and Aunt Pam hugs me extra tight. “How are you doing, sweetie?”
“Okay.”
She says she understands, but nobody really does.
Nana comes busting out the back door with her arms outstretched. “My girls!”
That’s the first sign something’s up. She hugs me and Momma and kisses our cheeks. Nana never kisses us, and she never lets us kiss her. She says she doesn’t know where our mouths have been. She frames my face with her hands, talking about, “Thank the Lord. He spared your life. Hallelujah!”
So many alarms go off in my head. Not that she wouldn’t be happy that “the Lord spared my life,” but this isn’t Nana. At all.
She takes me and Momma by our wrists and pulls us toward the poolside loungers. “Y’all come over here and talk to me.”
“But I was gonna talk to Pam—”
Nana looks at Momma and hisses through gritted teeth, “Shut the hell up, sit down, and talk to me, goddammit.”
Now that’s Nana. She sits back in a lounger and fans herself all dramatically. She’s a retired theater teacher, so she does everything dramatically. Momma and I share a lounger and sit on the side of it.
“What’s wrong?” Momma asks.
“When—” she begins, but plasters on a fake smile when Ava waddles over with her baby doll and a comb. Ava hands both to me and goes to play with some of her other toys.
I comb the doll’s hair. That girl has me trained. Doesn’t have to say anything, and I do it.
Once Ava’s out of earshot, Nana says, “When y’all taking me back to my house?”
“What happened?” Momma asks.
“Keep your damn voice down!” Ironically, she’s not keeping hers down. “Yesterday morning, I took some catfish out for dinner. Was gonna fry it up with some hush puppies, fries, the whole nine. I left to run some errands.”
“What kinda errands?” I ask for the hell of it.
Nana cuts me “the look” and it’s like seeing Momma in thirty years, with a few wrinkles and gray hairs she missed when coloring her hair (she’d whoop my behind for saying that).
“I’m grown, li’l girl,” she says. “Don’t ask me what I do. Anyway, I come home and that heffa done covered my catfish in some damn cornflakes and baked it!”
“Cornflakes?” I say, parting the doll’s hair.
“Yes! Talking ’bout, ‘It’s healthier that way.’ If I want healthy, I eat a salad.”
Momma covers her mouth, and the edges of her lips are turned up. “I thought you and Pam got along.”
“We did. Until she messed with my food. Now, I’ve dealt with a lotta things since I’ve been here. But that”—she holds up a finger—“is taking it too damn far. I’d rather live with you and that ex-con than deal with this.”