My wife said, “We’ll figure out the real story, get Stefan released, and have a nice vacation.”
Naomi’s face fell a little further. “That’s easier said than done, Bree. But I know the aunties are waiting for us. Why don’t you follow me?”
“Can I drive with you, Scootchie?” Jannie asked.
“Of course you can,” Naomi said, and she pointed across the street. “I’m the little red Chevy there.”
We left downtown and entered more residential neighborhoods, which were full of sharp contrasts. The houses were either run-down or freshly painted. The cars were either brand-new or about to fall apart. And the people we saw on the streets were either shabbily dressed or turned out in the latest urban attire.
We drove onto the old arched bridge that spanned the Stark River Gorge. The granite walls of the gorge were six stories high and flanked the river, which was running fast and churning over huge boulders. Ali spotted kayakers down in the whitewater.
“Can I do that?” he cried.
“Not on your life,” Nana Mama said firmly.
“Why not?”
“Because that gorge is a deadly place,” she said. “There’s all sorts of phantom currents, and there’re shelves and logs under that water. They’ll trap you and never let you out. Growing up, I knew at least five kids who died down there, including my little brother. Their bodies were never found.”
“Really?” Ali said.
“Really,” Nana Mama said.
Naomi kept on straight across the bridge. We bounced back over the railroad tracks into Birney, a very run-down section of town. The vast majority of the bungalows along the streets of Birney were desperately in need of TLC. Kids played in the red-clay front yards. Hounds bayed at our passing. Chickens and goats scattered off the roads. And the adults sitting on the front stoops looked at us suspiciously, as if they were familiar with everyone who came to the starkest part of Starksville and knew we were strangers.
That oppressive sense I’d suffered when I’d seen the sign to town returned. It became almost overpowering when Naomi turned onto Loupe Street, a cracked and potholed road that ended in a cul-de-sac in front of the only three homes in the neighborhood that seemed well maintained. The three bungalows were identical and the paint looked recent. Each home boasted a low green picket fence around a watered lawn and flowers growing in beds by a screened-in front porch.
I parked behind Naomi and hesitated in my seat when my wife and son got out. Nana Mama wasn’t in any hurry either, and I caught the grim expression on her face in the mirror.
“Alex?” Bree said, looking back in the passenger door.
“Coming,” I said. I got out and helped my grandmother down.
We went around the car slowly and then stopped, looking at the closest of the bungalows as if it held ghosts, which for us it did.
“You been here before, Dad?” Ali asked.
I let my breath out slow, nodded, and said, “This is the house where Daddy grew up, son.”
“LAND SAKES, IS that you here already, Aunt Regina?” a woman cried before Ali or any other member of my family could say anything.
I took my eyes off the house where I’d lived as a boy and saw an old locomotive of a woman wearing a red floral-print muumuu and bright green beach sandals charging off the porch next door. She had a toothy smile and was shaking her hands overhead as if she were bound for a revival tent and some of that old-time religion.
“Connie Lou?” Nana Mama cried. “Young lady, I believe you’ve lost weight since you came to see me summer before last!”
Connie Lou Parks was my mother’s brother’s widow. Aunt Connie had lost weight since we’d last seen her, but she was still built like a linebacker. When she heard my grandmother’s praise, however, her ample body trembled with pleasure, and she wrapped Nana Mama in her arms and kissed her noisily on the cheek.
“My God, Connie,” Nana Mama said. “There’s no need to slobber.”
My aunt thought that was hilarious and kissed her again.
My grandmother got her to stop by asking, “How’d you lose the weight?”
“I went on a cavewoman diet and started walking every day,” Aunt Connie declared proudly, and she laughed again. “Lost forty-seven pounds, and my diabetes numbers are better. Alex Cross, you come here now! Give me some sugar.”
She threw open her arms and bear-hugged me. Then she looked up at me with misted eyes. “Thank you for coming to help Stefan. It means the world to us.”
“Of course. I didn’t think twice about it,” I said.
“Sure you did, and that’s understandable,” she said matter-of-factly, and then she went to embrace Bree and the children, gushing over each of them in turn. Nana Mama always said my aunt Connie had never met a stranger. My grandmother was right. All my memories of her were filled with smiles and infectious laughter.