“Nobody was ever going to set Ada straight.”
“That was Coral’s job,” Ada explained. “She was good enough for two of us. Right, Coral?”
“I spent my whole life hoping you guys weren’t going to get in trouble.”
“Oh yeah, remember how Coral would cry when any of us got a beating? She’d cry so hard, Mama would stop hitting us.”
“Can I get a thank-you for that?”
“Remember when Coral came to breakfast, all upset because she was going to be late for school?”
“Yeah, and she told Mama, ‘How can I be on time for school if Althea is occuuupeeing the bathroom?’?” Ray winked at his youngest sister as he mimicked her eight-year-old voice.
“The best was when Althea decided to teach Coral to drive—”
“And the cop pulled them over—”
“And asked Coral if she would drive off a cliff if Althea told her to do it—”
“And Coral said yes!”
“You bet she said yes!” Althea poured another shot of brandy. “When I told Coral to do something, I meant it. And I didn’t tell her to turn down the street the wrong way. I told her to turn left into the inside lane, and bam, she just drives straight into traffic.”
“I slammed on the brake when I saw the headlights, and then it was a police car.” Coral took the glass Althea offered. “The officer flipped his siren on. I about passed out.”
“I was grabbing the wheel and telling you, ‘Move over! Move over!”
“But I turned the car off!”
They laughed again. Lynda walked in, her rounded stomach showing through the buttons of some red flannel pajamas, and curled up next to Althea on the couch.
“What’s so funny?”
“Oh, we were just remembering old times. Kid stuff.”
“The talent show!”
“Coral’s talent show!”
“Coral had a talent show?” Lynda looked at her sister-in-law.
“No, it was Althea’s game. We used to play it quite a lot. We’d set up a stage in the dining room, or outdoors, and then everyone just performed whatever talent they could think of.”
“Remember when Greg next door popped his shoulder out of the socket?”
“Yeah, that was his talent! He could do ‘weird shoulder.’?”
“Weird shoulder! That was a great one.”
Lynda shifted position, trying to get comfortable on the couch. “So why was it Coral’s talent show?”
“Well, Coral was little. Maybe three?”
“Yeah, I think she was three.”
“And her talents were always pretty odd.”
“Oh yeah. Remember her feet talent?”
“?‘My feet have names!’?” the siblings said in unison. “?‘This one is Petey, and this one is Noodle-ah.’?” Ada hooted.
“I don’t get it.”
Althea saw Lynda’s skeptical look and explained, “That was her talent. Her feet had names.”
“But I was really little then.”
“Oh, yeah, you were small.”
“And that was Coral’s talent show?”
“Oh no. That was later. She was three, and she said she wanted to sing something, so she stood on the dining table, and she belted out . . .”
All four siblings started to sing: “So won’t you plee-eze . . . Be my, be my, be my little baby? Say you’ll be my darling. Be my baby now-ow-ow. A-whoa oh oh oh!”
They could sing. Lynda tapped her foot to the beat.
“I mean, she belted it. We’d never heard her sound like that.”
“She could have been a Ronette. Remember the way she was swishing her hips?”
They all started singing again. Ray stood up and camped his way toward his wife, and Ada took Althea’s hand and pulled her from the sofa to dance a few steps. When they stopped, Ada spoke.
“Yeah, I think that’s the first time I figured out Coral was different from the rest of us.”
Coral shrugged her shoulders. “Come on, stop it. I hate that.”
“I know, but I mean, Coral, your voice was unbelievable.”
Althea wrapped her arms around her sister. “It’s okay, Coral. Ada has wanted to be the baby of the family her whole life.”
“It’s true. I did want to be the baby of the family.”
Coral blurted it out: “Someone gave me to Mama. When I was four days old.”
There was silence. Althea squeezed Coral a little tighter, but nobody said anything, not even Lynda.
She realized they already knew. It had been so hard not to tell them, not to talk about it, all these years. And they knew.
“Mama told you? She told me she didn’t.”
Nobody said anything for a minute.
“Mama never told us anything. She didn’t have to.”
“But . . .”
“Mama wasn’t pregnant.” Ada’s voice went up a notch. “Althea was seven. She would’ve known if Mama was pregnant.”
Coral was crying now. Althea was wiping away the tears with her hand, and Ray had let go of Lynda to sit down by Coral’s feet.
“You’re a one-hundred-percent Jackson,” he said. “That’s what we always knew.”
“But when did you know? Did you all talk about me?”
Her voice cracked. Of course they had talked about her. She talked about them. Still, she couldn’t stand it. Althea was crying now too, Ray looked sick, and even Ada was bouncing on her toes and shaking her fingers the way she did when she was upset. Only Lynda sat quietly, watching.
“Coco, we didn’t talk about you. It wasn’t like that.”
“I mean, we all knew that there was something. We always knew.”
“Always?”
“Well, for a long time. And we didn’t talk about it. Ever. You know how Mama is. She told Althea not to talk about it, and Althea told us, and that was it.”
“And then Ray was here a few years ago, and he was telling us what you were like singing in that club, and we were all so proud of you.”
“And Ada just brought it up.”
“Hey, I’m not the bad guy here!”
Coral looked at Ada, who had tears in her eyes now.
“Coral, it wasn’t like that. It just came out. I just asked Althea if she knew about you, where you came from.”
Tears spurted from Coral’s eyes at these last words.
“Honey.” Ada was piled up on the other side of her now. “Honey, that doesn’t sound right. I just thought Althea would know.”
“Did you?”
“No. I asked Mama when I was younger.”
“I heard you.”
“You heard us?”
“Yeah. For years, I thought someone was going to kidnap me—take me back.”
Ray laid his head on Coral’s knees. It was all she could do to ask, “Did you talk to Mama?”
“We wanted to talk to her, we always say we’re going to ask her, but—”
“We don’t.” Ray Junior and Althea spoke in unison.
This made everyone laugh, as they sat huddled around their youngest sister.