Momma hops out and calls after him, “Don’t go too far!”
I get out, and Uncle Carlos meets me with a perfect Uncle Carlos hug—not too tight, but so firm that it tells me how much he loves me in a few seconds.
He kisses the top of my head twice and asks, “How are you doing, baby girl?”
“Okay.” I sniff. Smoke’s in the air. The good kind though. “You barbecuing?”
“Just heated the grill up. Gonna throw some burgers and chicken on for lunch.”
“I hope we don’t end up with food poisoning,” Momma teases.
“Ah, look who’s trying to be a comedian,” he says. “You’ll be eating your words and everything I cook, baby sis, because I’m about to throw down. Food Network doesn’t have anything on me.” And he pops his collar.
Lord. He’s so corny sometimes.
Aunt Pam tends to the grill on the patio. My little cousin Ava sucks her thumb and hugs Aunt Pam’s leg. The second she sees me, she comes running. “Starr-Starr!”
Her ponytails fly as she runs, and she launches herself into my arms. I swing her around, getting a whole lot of giggles out of her. “How’s my favorite three-year-old in the whole wide world doing?”
“Good!” She sticks her wrinkly, wet thumb back in her mouth. “Hey, Auntie Leelee.”
“Hey, baby. You’ve been good?”
Ava nods too much. No way she’s been that good.
Aunt Pam lets Uncle Carlos handle the grill and greets Momma with a hug. She has dark-brown skin and big curly hair. Nana likes her because she comes from a “good family.” Her mom is an attorney, and her dad is the first black chief of surgery at the same hospital where Aunt Pam works as a surgeon. Real-life Huxtables, I swear.
I put Ava down, and Aunt Pam hugs me extra tight. “How are you doing, sweetie?”
“Okay.”
She says she understands, but nobody really does.
Nana comes busting out the back door with her arms outstretched. “My girls!”
That’s the first sign something’s up. She hugs me and Momma and kisses our cheeks. Nana never kisses us, and she never lets us kiss her. She says she doesn’t know where our mouths have been. She frames my face with her hands, talking about, “Thank the Lord. He spared your life. Hallelujah!”
So many alarms go off in my head. Not that she wouldn’t be happy that “the Lord spared my life,” but this isn’t Nana. At all.
She takes me and Momma by our wrists and pulls us toward the poolside loungers. “Y’all come over here and talk to me.”
“But I was gonna talk to Pam—”
Nana looks at Momma and hisses through gritted teeth, “Shut the hell up, sit down, and talk to me, goddammit.”
Now that’s Nana. She sits back in a lounger and fans herself all dramatically. She’s a retired theater teacher, so she does everything dramatically. Momma and I share a lounger and sit on the side of it.
“What’s wrong?” Momma asks.
“When—” she begins, but plasters on a fake smile when Ava waddles over with her baby doll and a comb. Ava hands both to me and goes to play with some of her other toys.
I comb the doll’s hair. That girl has me trained. Doesn’t have to say anything, and I do it.
Once Ava’s out of earshot, Nana says, “When y’all taking me back to my house?”
“What happened?” Momma asks.
“Keep your damn voice down!” Ironically, she’s not keeping hers down. “Yesterday morning, I took some catfish out for dinner. Was gonna fry it up with some hush puppies, fries, the whole nine. I left to run some errands.”
“What kinda errands?” I ask for the hell of it.
Nana cuts me “the look” and it’s like seeing Momma in thirty years, with a few wrinkles and gray hairs she missed when coloring her hair (she’d whoop my behind for saying that).
“I’m grown, li’l girl,” she says. “Don’t ask me what I do. Anyway, I come home and that heffa done covered my catfish in some damn cornflakes and baked it!”
“Cornflakes?” I say, parting the doll’s hair.
“Yes! Talking ’bout, ‘It’s healthier that way.’ If I want healthy, I eat a salad.”
Momma covers her mouth, and the edges of her lips are turned up. “I thought you and Pam got along.”
“We did. Until she messed with my food. Now, I’ve dealt with a lotta things since I’ve been here. But that”—she holds up a finger—“is taking it too damn far. I’d rather live with you and that ex-con than deal with this.”
Momma stands and kisses Nana’s forehead. “You’ll be all right.”
Nana waves her off. When Momma leaves, she looks at me. “You okay, li’l girl? Carlos told me you were in the car with that boy when he was killed.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m okay.”
“Good. And if you’re not, you will be. We’re strong like that.”
I nod, but I don’t believe it. At least not about myself.
The doorbell rings up front. I say, “I’ll get it,” put Ava’s doll down, and go inside.
Crap. Chris is on the other side of the door. I wanna apologize to him, but dammit, I need time to prepare.
Weird though. He’s pacing. The same way he does when we study for tests or before a big game. He’s afraid to talk to me.