Like Derek. Jada had never intended to fall in love with him. It had been all about the sex. Like it had been with the others. Since her freshman-year relationship ended badly with a boy who couldn’t commit if he were sewn to his girlfriend, she only entered relationships that promised to be beneficial to her financially or sexually. That meant three things to her: one, she was not interested in becoming emotionally involved, opting to see the men on a rotating basis. It also meant that she was perfectly okay with sleeping with a married man if she were attracted. Finally, it meant that she would only date white men. She entertained thoughts of sleeping with black men, but often, if they had any money, it was tied up in some plan for entrepreneurship or worse, some baby mama. White men could satisfy both her craving for the physical and the financial. Hooking up with Derek happened in a perfect storm: he was white, from a well-off family, her first married man, and he caught her when no other men were on her dating horizon.
Jada zoomed down the interstate toward the Byram exit. The small city outside of Jackson had grown up almost overnight, much to the dismay of Jackson’s city leaders who wanted to consume Byram in its body. The town had been so rural when she was a little girl attending church. Her grandmother had moved her and her sister Regina to South Jackson when she was ten, but they had maintained membership in the town’s little country church. As she drove down quiet roads, lined on one side by a speckling of small, older houses, trailers, and the occasional new stone houses, and on the other side by fenced-in yards corralling horses and cows, a few cars joined her on their way to one of the many country churches. Jada marveled at how quickly things can change. One minute she was surrounded by the signs of city life with the stores, wide pavement, and multiple cars, and then, a few miles down the road, she was in the midst of rural life. One minute she was unattached and unconcerned about any man in her life, and then, a few weeks down the calendar, one man was all she could think about. She didn’t like it at all, but like the city leaders of Jackson, she was powerless to stop its progress.
Jada went on to church, but she’d already had her worship service, complete with prayer and praise, outside of Derek’s house. If anyone had asked her about why she did this every Sunday, she would have told them she was keeping tabs on her investment, but really she didn’t know why she did it. Sometimes it worried her, but she didn’t dwell on it long.
After church she drove to her grandmother’s house. Nana had been too ill to attend church for the past few months. Jada took her a CD of the day’s sermon.
Her grandmother had never been a big woman. Jada inherited her height and size from her grandfather, a man she had never really gotten to know since he died when she was five and her sister seven. By all accounts, he was a big, jovial man who worked hard for his family until the day he died. In fact, he was at work at the Pepsi bottling plant when he had his fatal heart attack.
But Nana was a thin woman who stood at five feet even. She had a big presence, always unafraid to stand her ground and make people acquiesce to her will. Now, however, Nana looked small, in her pink flowered nightgown, lying in the hospital bed they moved in when she came from the hospital. Her steel-gray hair, usually pulled back into a single thick braid, was loose and unkempt. A thin sheet covered her legs, but nothing else. Her eyes were closed when Jada came to the bed and sat in the chair that had been vacated by the home health care nurse when Jada entered the house. The chair was still warm.
“Hey, Nana,” Jada almost whispered. It was hard seeing the woman who raised her like this. She fought against the lump rising like dry yeast in her throat.
Nana opened her eyes, the color of watered-down coffee. She rolled her head over and looked at Jada with those eyes. “Hey, baby.” Her voice was scratchy and airy at the same time.
It is hardly a voice, Jada thought. “How you feeling today, lady?”
She smiled weakly. “Fair to middlin’.”
Jada smiled back. “Well, the nurse said you’ve had a pretty good day.”
“Humph. Did she have the day? How is she going to pronounce my day good?”
Jada laughed, glad to see Nana had not lost her spunk, even in her illness. It gave her a little hope; maybe she wouldn’t have to face losing her grandmother so soon. She knew it was selfish. Nana was over eighty years old and she was tired. She had been through sharecropping, Jim Crow, struggles to vote, struggles to work. Her home had been attacked by white racists and later by black gangbangers. She had raised two daughters and later two granddaughters. She bore witness to the devastation of losing a child and then, a few years later, a spouse. She had seen her brother and her sister as well as two parents move on to glory. Now, her body was old and shutting down, diabetes and hypertension demanding more of her than was their due. But they were claiming her nonetheless. Jada knew she deserved rest, but Nana was the core of her earth; without her she would spin hopelessly off her axis. The back of Jada’s throat stung. Her cheeks grew hot, and she knew if she didn’t stop it now, she would soon be a sobbing mess lying in Nana’s bed. She switched her thoughts to wondering what Derek was doing.
“How is she?” a whispered voice asked, rousing her from her pleasant thoughts. It was Regina.
“She’s fine,” Nana answered in a voice strong enough to convey a hint of annoyance.
“I’m glad to hear it, Nana.” Regina leaned over the bed and kissed their grandmother on the forehead. Then she hugged Jada. “How long have you been here?”
“Just a little while. I came from church.” Out of the corner of her eye, Jada saw her grandmother smile. She knew it would please her to hear that she went to church. Her sister rolled her eyes.
“Have you had anything to eat, Nana?” Regina asked, clearly trying to steer the conversation to some other topic.
“I ain’t hungry.”
“You have to eat, Nana,” Jada gently chastised, losing some of the hope she had before. If Nana didn’t eat, she would not have strength to stay around. It wasn’t a good sign that she didn’t want to eat. “At least drink one of your shakes.”
“Okay, baby, I’ll get one a little later. You girls sit down and tell me what’s going on with you.”
Jada sat back in her chair while Regina pulled up another chair beside her.
“I saw that new Tyler Perry movie,” Regina offered.
“I likes that Tyler Perry. Madea cracks me up,” Nana half-chuckled.
“Who did you go with?” Jada asked.
“Tayshun.”
“You two have been going out for like a month now. Is this serious?” Jada teased.
Her sister pushed her playfully in the arm. “Who knows, you might be a maid of honor soon instead of just an old maid.”
“Don’t worry about me; I get mine,” Jada boasted.
“I do worry about you, baby,” Nana interjected quietly. “I wish you would find a good man you can settle down with, have me some great-grands. I don’t want to leave you here by yourself.”
“She has me, Nana,” Regina said.
“You can’t do for her what a man can do, Gina.”
“Nana!”
“I’m sick and old, Gina, not stupid. I remember what your grandpa did for me.”
“Nana, I’m not old enough for this conversation,” Jada laughed.
“You too old to be by yourself.”
“She’s picky, Nana. She don’t like ’em too dark. Really, she likes ’em, you know...” Regina turned one of her palms faceup and rubbed her finger across it.
“White?” their grandmother shrieked. “Oh, Lawd Jesus, where did I go wrong?”
“It’s fine, Nana. I’ve dated black guys before.”