“Raleigh, what ever happened to Lula?” I wanted to know. “Do you ever want to find her?”
“I know where she is,” he said. “I paid someone once to track her down. She lives in Mississippi. She got married, has a son named Lincoln.” He gave a smal smile that I didn’t like. “I don’t know if she named him for Abraham Lincoln, or maybe he was born in Nebraska. Could be she’s got a thing for Town Cars.”
“Did you go see her?”
“I started to,” he said. “I drove the Cadil ac down to Hattiesburg, burned up al that gas, but I wanted to take the best car. I parked in front of her house and sat there until she came out.”
“Did you say anything to her?”
“No. I just stood there and she thought I was a white man. I could tel the way she looked nervous to see me there and the way she cal ed me sir. I touched my hat at her and she turned around and went back in the house.”
“Raleigh,” I said. “Raleigh, I’l tel you a secret, okay?”
“Al right,” he said.
“Me and my mama do stuff like that. We do it al the time. We cal it ‘surveil ing.’”
Raleigh patted my knee again. “Dana, baby. That’s not a secret.”
“What do you mean?” I could hear the fear in my voice.
“It’s al right,” he said. “I’ve seen you and Gwen a couple-three times in places you’re not supposed to be.”
“Did you tel James?”
Raleigh shook his head. “Why would I do something like that to Gwen? I would never do anything to hurt your mother.”
“Does she know that you know?”
Raleigh shook his head. “It would just upset her. So let’s just keep this whole conversation between us.”
Then he smiled at me with something that I recognized as longing. I felt the rush of it. I breathed in panting breaths.
“Miss Bunny loves you,” Raleigh says. “She doesn’t know it yet, but she does.”
MISS BUNNY HAD been in the hospital for almost two weeks, but she wanted to come home to die. Home was the crooked-frame house in which she had raised her two boys and Laverne, too. The house was gray with a concrete porch. A vine grew up from a trel is on the north end. Raleigh pointed at it. “If it was later in the year, you wouldn’t believe the roses. That’s one thing that I remember from when Miss Bunny brought me home.
Red roses with yel ow insides.”
“Is James already here?” I asked.
“He’s been here two days. We’ve both been sitting with her, but James wanted me to go and get you and bring you here. We wanted you to see her while she is stil herself.”
I sat in the car and waited for Raleigh to open my door, then exited like my father had taught me, right foot flat on the ground and left hand extended to al ow the driver to help me. I hoped that he was watching from the window.
“Careful,” Raleigh said. “Watch out for the ditch.”
The ditch, running where I would have expected curb, was half-ful of brown water. I made a face.
“You are not a country girl, that’s for sure,” Raleigh said.
I didn’t realize my father had come onto the porch until he spoke. “It’s not the country. It’s a smal town.” He held his arms out to me.
I ran into my father’s hug with a little too much speed maybe, because he staggered back two steps. Since we were now the same height, he spoke directly into my ear.
“Oh, Dana,” he said. “I am so gl-glad you made it.”
I have since read in self-help books that people who are not accustomed to affection don’t know how to receive it. I know for a fact that this is a myth. My father held me in his arms on my grandmother’s front porch in ful view of the world, and I enjoyed it. You don’t need a dress rehearsal to know how to lay your head on your father’s shoulder, to inhale his tobacco scent. It takes no practice to know how to be someone’s daughter.
Raleigh said, “How is she?”
“No change,” James said. “We’ve been talking most of the morning.”
“Did you tel her?” Raleigh said, quietly. James nodded.
“Does she want to meet me?” My voice was whispery, so I cleared my throat and tried again. “What did you tel her about me?”
“I told her that you are my daughter. I told her how smart you are.”
“What did you tel her about my mama?”
“We didn’t talk so much about Gwen,” James said.
I didn’t feel right. “Didn’t she want to know where I came from?”
Raleigh said, “Dana, lower your voice. Miss Bunny is sick. She doesn’t need to hear al this fighting. She’s in a bad way. Just let her go in peace.”
“Raleigh,” I said, shrugging off his touch. He pul ed back and for a moment I regretted hurting him. “I am not fighting with anyone. I am just trying to find out what al James told Miss Bunny. I want to know what he told her about my mama.”
James said, “I t-t-told her about you. You are her kin and I want her to lay eyes on you before she goes.”
“But what about my mama?” I said. “She’s important, too.” Raleigh seemed on the verge of tears. “Please stop fighting. Let’s just go inside.”
“You didn’t make my mother out to be a whore, did you?” I asked.
“No,” Raleigh said. “James wouldn’t say anything like that to Miss Bunny. Tel her, Jimmy. Tel her what you said.”
“I told her your mother was dead,” James said. “I told her you were raised by your grandmother.”
“Did you at least tel her you loved my mother? That it wasn’t just a quick thing?”
James nodded. “I told her that I love you, Dana. She knows if I love you, then your mama must be special.”
I shook my head. That wasn’t how it worked.
“Dana,” Raleigh said, “don’t waste Miss Bunny’s time. She doesn’t have much left.”
My father took my hand and escorted me into Miss Bunny’s bedroom, which was separated from the living room by a sheer curtain. Although I had been told how sick Miss Bunny was, I stil expected her to be plump and lemon-scented like a second-grade teacher. I had no idea of what dying real y looked like. The only people I had ever seen with serious il nesses were on hospital dramas, like Trapper John, M.D. Television patients wore lipstick and crisp cotton gowns. When they final y passed away, they were polite enough to close their eyes.
Miss Bunny was sixty-five years old, which seemed old to me at the time, but now that my own mother is nearing fifty, I understand how young my grandmother was when years of hard work, starchy foods, and bad genes caught up with her. She looked ancient, as old as anyone I had ever seen on television or in real life. Her skin was thick and stippled like the peel of an orange and her eyes were murky. The saddest thing was her hair.
Someone, probably Laverne, had arranged it in a dozen pin curls, as though she were preparing to go to a party later that evening.
“Mama,” said James, squeezing my hand. “This is my daughter, Dana Lynn.”
“Come closer,” Miss Bunny said with a voice that was strong and almost man-deep. “Come here, child.” To James she said, “You and Raleigh go on to the Burger Inn or something. Go on. Don’t worry. I’m not going to go to glory before you get back.” She laughed, but no one else did. “Truly.
You two get out of here. You wanted me to meet my granddaughter. How am I supposed to get to know her with you two breathing down my neck?”