HOW’S NIA?
Porsha thought about it. Fine, I guess. Same ole. You know Nia.
She still datin all those men?
Yes.
Mamma shook her head. She keep that up, she’ll be a used bill. Out of circulation.
Mamma and Porsha laughed above the river-running faucet. Truth in wet laughter. Where is everybody? Porsha said.
They ain’t here. Mamma washed dishes, scrubbing hard, like they were made of iron. She rinsed them spotless under the running water. Lined up the cleaned dishes like soldiers in the drainer. Quieted the water. Porsha had seen it all before. Mamma, a woman of settled habits.
How come nobody’s here this late at night?
Mamma dried her hands on her apron. Hatch over at Abu’s house. She removed the apron and draped it over a cabinet arm. A plume of steam whistled from the teapot’s spout. Mamma killed the flame, lifted the pot with a holder, and poured two cups. She lifted the cups and placed them on a plastic serving tray.
Need some help?
Sit back down. Mamma carried the tray and the cups over to the table on creaking knees and set them down dead center. Then she placed one cup before Porsha and one before herself. She pulled her chair out from the table and eased into it. Nobody’s here, she said. Praise the Lord. She smiled into the steam of the tea she had made. I got some peace finally. Nobody to clean up after. She broke open two packages of artificial sweetener and poured and stirred them into her tea.
You deserve it. Tea steamed up into Porsha’s face. She scooped two spoonfuls of sugar into her cup. She sipped tea hot and sweet on her tongue. Where’s Dad?
Mamma raised — yes, raised, as if the hand were a machine; the fingers long and thin, the veins taut spokes beneath the skin — her steaming cup to her lips. Out of town. He went looking for John.
John?
Yeah. A few days ago.
What’s going on?
Mamma tasted her tea. Ask him that.
Dad ain’t called?
You think I been sitting around here waiting for him to call?
Porsha thought about it. You never knew what to expect when those two got together. Like two lil kids. Maybe all brothers are like that. She looked at the globes of Mamma’s breasts. Dad remembered and told, Mamma would hold the infant Porsha to her breasts and recite all the places the baby would travel. Where did they go?
Well, John run off to that march in Washington, then Gracie come callin here at two or three the next morning sayin that she ain’t heard from him.
Is that all? … What she expect?
I don’t know what she expect. She thinks John disappeared.
Disappeared?
Her exact words.
Porsha shook her head. He disappeared all right. Wit some woman. Beneath her sheets. Between her legs.
Mamma sipped her tea.
Think after all these years she’d know.
Well, she don’t know. That’s why Lucifer up and run off to New York or Washington or wherever the hell he went.
Mamma, calm down. Porsha rubbed Mamma’s rough hand — veins like ropes. You know John. And you know how they is together.
Mamma said nothing.
You’d be surprised if they acted any different.
Well, Mamma said. Well. She sipped her tea.
Porsha played the silence. I saw Inez the other day.
When?
Monday.
How is she?
Worst.
Well, Mamma said. Well.
She said that John had been out there.
You can’t believe a word Inez say.
I know.
Mamma sipped her tea.
Though the night was cool, the kitchen was so hot it was hard to breathe. Porsha had something to ask. Her body trembled. Mamma. She blew on her tea.
Yes?
Did Clarence call?
Who?
Clarence. Deathrow.
No. Why you askin me?
Jus wonderin, that’s all.
What, you ain’t heard from him?
Did I say that?
You don’t have to say it.
The phone rang. Mamma took her time about answering it.
Porsha leaned back in the chair and stared into the empty kitchen. In the quiet, she could hear ghosts flit across the ceiling, bump into walls, tiptoe from room to room. She touched each pearl of her necklace carefully like sore teeth. She thought about it all as if the thought would be answered in the asking. Whether by will or circumstance, a man leaves much when he leaves his own bed. She found much satisfaction in the idea. She heard Mamma approaching down the hall. She finished her tea, hoping that heat and taste would remove any trace of the thought from her face.
She’s dead, Mamma said. She leaned her shoulder into the white refrigerator.
Who? Who’s dead?
Lula Mae.
Porsha said nothing.
Now I have nobody.
Part Three SOUTH
40
THAT’S NOT WHAT I SAID, Gracie said.
Well, what did you say?
Sheila, you think you know everything.
You jus don’t want to admit when you wrong.
And you always right.
I didn’t say that.
I know what you said.
I—
The flight attendant brought them both cups of water.
Sheila drank — the water was cool going down; it brought her back to herself — and thanked. Gracie drank but said nothing. Her heavy Bible rested like a paperweight on her narrow lap to keep her from blowing out of her seat. She sat on the aisle. Sheila had allowed her that. Her comfort and more comfort in the knowing. But Gracie was ungrateful, face frowned up as if the water was poison.
Can I get yall anything else?
No, Sheila said. Thank you.
Just call.
The plane hummed through the deep sky. The sisters sat in remembering silence.
He’s a good boy, Lula Mae said.
I know, Gracie said.
He’s a good boy, Sheila said.
She jus said that. You my mamma too?
Well—
She’s right. He would make you a good—
Sides. He ain’t no boy. He a man.
Marry him.
Nawl.
Why not?
I don’t want to, that’s all.
Quit thinking bout yoself.
Who said I’m thinkin bout me.
Think about—
I don’t care.
But—
Why don’t yall jus leave me alone.
Sheila looked at the sea of shifting clouds outside the small window. Traveling clouds. Great flocks of memories. Flurry of claws. She fastened her seat belt. They would be landing soon.
THE MEMPHIS HEAT almost pushed her back onto the plane. She’d left home only an hour ago. The sky was sharp and clear and hot in the morning silence, telling you that, yes, you were someplace else. How many times in the last months had she made this trip? Now, she saw the pattern complete, first stitch to last. Lula Mae on loan, body and soul, both to be returned to her creator.
How you, Miss Pulliam? the white nurse said.
I been better.