He looked away and into the yard, unsure how many more revelations he could handle in a day. He glanced back at her, but she was searching his face, and Anton knew she wouldn’t continue unless he asked. “What happened?” he said gruffly.
“He was a white doctor who came to work at the county hospital. He was from Chicago. I used to go once a week to clean his house. He had a house right in town. He was older than me, by fifteen years, maybe. So I didn’t ever think of him in that way. But—he liked me, Anton. Poor man, far from home, stuck among us black folks. And he was a kind man, too. Anyway, it pleased me that someone like him took an interest in me. You know? He was always asking me what I thought about this and that. What I wanted to be when I was older. Where I wanted to live. Don’t nobody ever ask me this. Your nana—God bless her soul—she thought I was gonna live out here in Podunk forever. But he treated me like I was something smart. And slowly, I came around to him. And so it happened.”
“I remember Nana,” Anton said. “She came to visit us once, right?”
Juanita’s face brightened. “You remember that? You cried for two days straight after she left.” She sighed. “She asked me so many times to move back to Georgia. You see, she’d seen what my life was like up north—single mom, no man, working a shitty job, barely making it. But I couldn’t. You were one when we left Ronan, and I vowed never to raise you here. Folks here have long memories. And wagging tongues. That’s why we got out in the first place. A mixed-race boy in a small town—forget it.” She smiled mirthlessly. “That was before I learned that the North was just a different kind of prison.”
“And my—The doctor? He just abandoned you?”
She shot him a puzzled look. “What was he supposed to do? Marry a skinny black ninny whose head was as empty as an old wooden trunk? He was a learned man. In any case, he took a job in Chicago just before you were born.”
“Bastard,” Anton swore under his breath.
Juanita looked shocked. “Bad luck to speak ill of the dead, Baby Boy. And that, too, your own daddy.” She caught his start of surprise and nodded. “He died in 1989. Car crash. I heard from Nana. Her old doctor told her. Guess they were still friends.”
All these screwed-up adults. He was just the end product of their stories, the tail end, an afterthought. So much had gone into making him—poverty, ignorance, racism—all of which would have made it impossible for an educated white doctor to be seen with a black country girl, even if he’d wanted to, even in the 1980s. And then another layer—the unwanted pregnancy, the loneliness of life in the North, the solace of a mind-dulling drug that made you forget the world would never belong to you. Really, it was as if history itself had conspired to deliver Anton into the arms of David and Delores Coleman. And he supposed he should be thankful for that deliverance, because an alternative fate would’ve meant that he’d be either on the streets or in prison or in a morgue.
He opened his mouth to ask more questions, because his hunger for his past suddenly seemed insatiable, when he was betrayed by another kind of hunger. His stomach growled loudly. And there was no time to be ashamed, because here was Juanita, brushing away the last of her tears, jumping to her feet, apologizing again, but this time for her poor manners, for not realizing that Baby Boy had traveled a long ways to come here and that he was probably starving. He tried shaking his head, but she was having none of it and was already hurrying into the kitchen. A moment later, he heard the opening of the fridge door and then the setting down of a few pots and pans. By the time he entered the kitchen, she was pouring some spices and flour into a bowl and rolling raw chicken into the mixture. “You remember your mam’s fried chicken, baby?” she said, and then turned her back before he could lie and say yes. “I’m gonna make you my famous chicken. It’s your nana’s recipe. And I don’t mind saying, folks come to Sal’s from the next county over to get a taste of it. I make it every Thursday.” She picked six large potatoes from a hanging basket and set them on the counter.
“You know, I really need to get going . . .” he began, but she shot him a look that made him stop. “Or we could just go out . . .” he attempted feebly.
“Out?” She laughed. “Nearest restaurant is eight miles up the road. This is the country, baby.” She was girlish again, in her element in the kitchen, and Anton’s heart skipped a beat at how beautiful she looked. “Naw, you just go back in the living room and take a nap on the couch. You must be so tired.”
But the thought of being away from her was unbearable. “I’m okay,” he said quietly. “Let me help.”
“You wanna help? Here, peel these. I’ll get the water boiling. I’ll make you mashed potatoes like you never tasted. And collard greens. You like greens?”
He laughed self-consciously. “I don’t think I’ve ever tasted those.”
She looked stricken for a moment and then muttered to herself, “Of course you have. You just forgotten.” She drew a pair of scissors out of the drawer. “’Scuse me while I go pick some fresh ones from the yard.”
WHEN THEY WERE done with dinner, Anton wondered if he’d eaten an entire chicken. He remembered eating at least four pieces, the last one to sate not his hunger but his mother’s. It was as if, with every bite of food that she served him, Juanita was filling up with pleasure and pride. “This,” he said, licking his fingers, “is hands-down the best fried chicken I have ever eaten.”
Juanita beamed.
“If you opened your own restaurant up north, folks would drive in from New York to eat this.”
She laughed that girlish laugh again. “Oh, Lord. I don’t think my blood could handle that cold anymore,” she said. “I got used to the heat down here.”
They had already argued at dinner about the fact that he would be leaving tonight. She had looked stunned, then crestfallen, but now he took the opportunity to say, “Well, you’ll have to come up for a visit after . . . after the election is over.”
“After you become the governor, you mean.” She clapped her hands. “Hallelujah. If someone had told me a year ago that my son would be governor, I would’ve asked ’em if they thought I just fell off a turnip truck.” She looked deeply into his face. “You are a good man. Kind. I can tell. You will make a fine governor, Anton. I know.”
He wondered how much she knew about Pappy, his family history, the weight that the Coleman name carried back home. He opened his mouth, but just then she said shyly, “And that young lady you are dating? What’s she like? I saw y’all’s picture in the magazine.”
“Katherine? Oh, she’s wonderful. Really smart. Generous. Beautiful.” And then, because he felt obligated, “You’ll meet her. Soon. When you, you know, come visit.”
There was an awkward pause. Juanita rose from the table and picked up their plates. “We’ll see,” she mumbled. “You’re gonna be plenty busy in your new job.”
“If I win.” He laughed.
She fixed him a look. “Of course you will win.” She cleared her throat and sang softly:
“And he will raise you up on eagle’s wings