He walked with his own family to the cafeteria, his mama talking nonstop while they waited on the elevator.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about, boy, that baby is as fine as you were. Real fine, you hear me? Look just like you. When I get home I’m going to pull out your newborn picture, put them side by side, and you’ll see. He got that same head shape, you got to mold it though so it flattens out, and that same nose, you got to squeeze it with your fingers, not so hard that it hurts him, you hear, but just to straighten it out. My baby, a daddy.”
She paused; he could tell that whatever she was thinking was as amped-up as her speech. This was the woman who had started him on basketball, the one his friends wanted to holla at, the one he’d been so proud of those years she was around. She had come back.
“We got to exercise his legs ’cause big thighs run in our family, don’t they, Mother?” T.C.’s mama went on, turning to MawMaw, who was holding her up as if she were the one who needed a cane. When MawMaw didn’t respond, his mama kept on.
“I’m just so happy,” she repeated. T.C. stood on the other side of her, and she squeezed his hand. “You’re going to be a good daddy, none of that here today, gone tomorrow mess. You know how I know? Remember when Miss Patricia took her grandbaby in? T.C. used to go over there every day and just hold him. What kind of eleven-year-old boy got any interest in a baby? My son did. And this one’s named after Daryl too. He’s gon’ be the light of your life.”
When they reached the cafeteria, his mama went off for a doughnut, and he and MawMaw and Aunt Ruby picked a table and waited.
It was rare to be sitting in silence with Aunt Ruby there—she usually talked enough for the whole family—but it seemed as if they were all still in awe. He fumbled with the sugar packets on the table. After a while he asked them what they were thinking.
“Oh, nothing, just ruminating. Not every day you become a great-grandmother, is it?” MawMaw asked.
Aunt Ruby smiled. “No, it’s not,” she repeated. Then she paused, wringing her hands. “Times like these, I really miss our parents.”
T.C. was surprised to hear her bring them up. They had died before he was born, and neither MawMaw nor his aunt mentioned them much. All he knew was that their father had been a doctor, the first black doctor in all of Louisiana or something like that, and that MawMaw and her mama hadn’t been close when she was a girl, but something had happened along the way to change all that.
“You miss them too, MawMaw?” he asked.
“You never stop missing your parents, no matter how old you get.” She paused. “No, I expect I’ll take this grief to my grave. But I just know they would be so proud. Things have changed so much in this world. People don’t do things in the same order they used to,” she chuckled.
“Maybe they never did them in that order,” Aunt Ruby cut in, laughing too.
“I guess not,” MawMaw said, “but our parents, even though they were sticklers for the rules, I have to think they would be proud, despite themselves.”
“They would,” Aunt Ruby said, but it came out more like a question.
“I hope so,” T.C. said, setting the sugar down.
He looked up. His mama had glided more than walked back with a bib for the baby she’d picked up in the gift shop.
grandmama’s baby, it read in blue cursive letters. She sang the words aloud. Then she looked at T.C. with more tenderness than he remembered seeing even ten years ago when he’d been named high school player of the year. Nobody drafted kids straight out of high school then, so he chose LSU. Six months later he was home for spring break, playing pickup ball with Daryl, and he twisted his right knee, tore the ligament. His doctor told him to wait out the season, but Coach Domingue played him anyway. Back then, he listened to everything Coach said, he was so happy to be wearing the same uniform Shaquille O’Neal had worn, but the second game of the season he fell again, fractured a bone in the same knee this time. LSU paid for the operation, but he was never the same after it, and when the school realized he changed, they did too. A few months later, Katrina hit and Daryl died, and T.C. was bottomed out.
He walked back to the elevator now though feeling like a different man than the one who had walked into the hospital a few hours earlier, as if he had been reacquainted with the boy he’d been, who’d held so much promise, but the promise wasn’t specific to basketball or anything really, it was all encompassing, and there was no way he wouldn’t be able to parlay it into something real. He didn’t know what it would be, but it would have to be more than bagging groceries, selling weed even. No, he’d finish this last batch, then he’d start thinking about next steps.
He didn’t go home for the next four nights. Alicia’s people asked to relieve him, but there was nowhere else he wanted to be. He and Licia fell into a routine in that hospital room, taking turns waking up every two hours, watching old movies, and in a state of delirium, speaking the characters’ names instead of each other’s. Mostly, they just stared at the baby and imagined different versions of his future, reminisced on different aspects of their own lives that might apply to him, the height he’d get from his father.
“But now that I think about it, I don’t want him to play ball. Too risky,” T.C. said.
Or the intelligence he’d inherit from Licia, who was just a year from finishing nursing school.
“A doctor,” she said. “Not a nurse, but a doctor.”
At the root of it, they didn’t care, not yet; the child they’d created had come out perfect, and it had plucked them both out of the realm of ordinary existence and elevated them to the level of gods.
The night before they were scheduled to leave, Aunt Sybil came to see them. She walked in in her fancy suit and sharp heels clanking against the linoleum. T.C. used to put on a collared shirt for her visits, but all he could think now was that her shoes would wake Alicia, who had finally fallen to sleep.
“I come bearing gifts.” Aunt Sybil handed him a giant bag.
“Thanks,” he pulled out the onesies, socks, and sailor suits. “We appreciate it.”
He let her hold the baby, then when Licia stirred, they walked the portable bassinet up and down the hallway.
They talked about the delivery for a while, when he’d come back home; Aunt Sybil noted it was a good thing he could make it for the birth, said MawMaw was beside herself; Sybil hadn’t seen her so happy ever since PawPaw died. When the pleasantries were over, she turned to him.
“I never had my own kids, and you know I hate telling grown people what to do, but the real reason I came out here is for you. It’s always nice to see a new generation come in, but you’ve got to do right by him, T.C. He’s too beautiful to let him down.”
T.C. laughed the silly, nervous laugh Aunt Sybil had elicited from him his whole life.