After a while, they walked hand in hand toward us. Mama motioned for us to get on out the car, but Marcus told me to stay put. He gripped my hand. When the two of them climbed into the car, Mama looked back at us, strained her eyelids as wide open as they would get, and said, “You say hi to your daddy now.”
I squeaked out a “hi” and Marcus stayed silent beside me, his hand tightening around mine like he was worried I’d slip away.
“You ready to go home?” Mama’s voice was a wash of relief, her smile so wide all her teeth showed through.
Daddy shook his head. “Nah, baby, I can’t be going back inside yet. Let’s go to the lake, yeah? What you say, kids?” He looked back at us and, even though this strange man still didn’t feel like my father, the way his face spread open and lit up from the gums made me want to belong to him.
“Yeah, Mama, the lake!” I nodded.
Marcus shook his head, but when Daddy asked if he’d be alright with us going on an adventure, he said, “I go where Ki goes,” and even now I don’t think he’s ever said nothing about me that made me feel more special.
Mama drove back to Oakland and parked on a side street near Grand Avenue. We heard the sounds as we started walking to the lake. Daddy had his arm around Mama when he steered her toward the pergola, Marcus and I holding hands and following, the drums chorusing our arrival.
We should have known Daddy would hear the drum circle and gravitate right into it. Daddy sauntered up to one of the drummers and pulled him into a clap-back hug, mumbled to him in his sweet talk till the man handed his drum right over to Daddy, who joined the group’s rhythm like he was born into it.
Daddy always knew how to enter the music, his hands slapping, chin tilting in every direction. This newly free man bobbing like he hadn’t seen the things he’d seen. Mama stood straight and still, faintly swaying, and I could tell she was waiting for something to happen. Waiting for Daddy to collapse. But he didn’t. He just kept on slapping that drum, grinning at us. Eventually, he gave the man his drum back and Daddy went over to Mama and whispered in her ear until, finally, Mama’s mouth opened wide and the melody came out like it had just been uncaged. Daddy separated from her and started clapping, looking at everyone around him like Damn, that’s my woman, look at her sing.
Next, Daddy locked eyes with me and strutted right over to where Marcus and I had our hands locked together, watching.
“My little girl know how to dance, huh?” He leaned down and reached a hand out to me. I took it, but Marcus’s tug on my other arm pulled me back. I looked up at him and he shook his head, so I let go of Daddy’s hand.
Daddy turned to Marcus. “I hear you got some talent of your own, son. How ’bout you show us some of these rhymes?”
Marcus glared at first. Daddy turned around and shouted out to the drum circle, “Y’all ready for some rhymes?” The chorus came back loud, unanimous, more people from the street gathering under the pergola, contorting their bodies into dance, and joining the music.
Marcus hadn’t ever heard nobody want to listen to him like that and I could see the smile itch at him. I let go of his hand and he stepped forward, busted out into bars I had heard a million times when he was memorizing them in the bathroom while he thought we were asleep. Daddy beatboxed for him and the drummers staggered into his rhythm, which seemed to change every couple verses. Still, when Marcus was done, Daddy applauded and clapped his back and Marcus nodded, not objecting when Daddy pulled me onto his feet and waltzed me around. I don’t think Marcus ever forgave Daddy, but he accepted him after that. We walked around the lake and when Daddy asked him how school was, Marcus responded.
There’s not a thing Daddy could’ve done that would’ve made me hate him. When he died, I thought maybe it was a consequence of not resenting him more, not playing into karma like Marcus had so the world wouldn’t have had to kill him to keep the good-evil balance in check. That was before I learned that life won’t give you reasons for none of it, that sometimes fathers disappear and little girls don’t make it to another birthday and mothers forget to be mothers.
* * *
Every time I leave Oakland I miss the trees. Out here in Stockton, the gray sky is bright. It stings my eyes, stings like my childhood burns when Alé tried to make me frijoles and spilled the whole bowl of boiling beans right down my shirt. My stomach still has lines that Alé traces with her finger whenever I let her. Sometimes it feels like she’s still trying to make up for my burns, my bruises.
I hit Blooming Hope Halfway House after walking for only four or five minutes. The name only makes its appearance more ironic: all the flowers out front are dying and the building looks like it was built three centuries ago and hasn’t been renovated since. I swear the roof just about sags and that porch might as well call itself a burial ground because it’s covered in dirt from God knows where and, still, as I approach, I see a gathering of people out front who could not be beaming wider. Maybe anything is better than a cell.
If you look up Blooming Hope, they’d tell you it was a “facility supporting the rehabilitation of compromised persons,” but really it’s just a mandatory halfway house where the security guards wear jeans and everyone has their own wardrobe and their own ankle bracelets. Mama is lucky to be here, I guess, especially for what she did, but I still can’t shake how dead the place feels, a prison without the bars.
When I get close enough for them to realize I plan on coming inside, the three people stop talking and turn toward me.
The man, beard long enough to hide an entire pipe, removes his cigarette from his lips and calls out to me, “You here for visiting?”
I nod, dipping my head under the overgrowth of what used to be a beautiful floral entryway and is now rotting leaves and branches that just keep extending. A series of steps lead up to where the three are standing. One of the women is short, has red hair and piercings lining the entirety of her bottom lip. She smiles faintly at me. The other woman has hands so massive I bet they could cover Trevor’s whole basketball or hold Shauna’s baby in just one palm. They don’t match the rest of her body, which isn’t small, but isn’t large enough to warrant the size of her hands. She has bantu knots all over her head and each one has a single flower tucked into the base.
The redhead speaks next. “Go inside and the visiting room is on your left.”
I nod again and it’s like my throat has stopped working: clogged up with all this air and the trail of Mama’s voice and how lonely this is without Marcus.
The door creaks just like I expect it to. Houses give away all their secrets at the door. Dee’s is full of scratches. Mine doesn’t even have a working lock no more.
Immediately I’m encased in sound. Not like on the bus, though. This time, the sound is harmonies of shrieks and crying and laughter that rolls into rambling and there are too many voices to discern a single word, but I know the room is joy. When I think about Mama, I think anything but joy.
The room is chaos in its most raw form: bodies on bodies. Bodies beside each other on couches, in chairs. Bodies embracing. Bodies sipping coffee. Bodies sobbing and clinging and smiling. I don’t see Mama, but I hear her. “Oh please, Miranda.” Mama’s voice is booming, but her laugh is chill, almost robotic.
I move toward it, through the clutter of people whose limbs cement in my vision, but never their faces. Their lips blur with their noses and they are just bodies. Bodies on bodies. And Mama.