"How long since you knew?" I asked.
"That Cliff was suffering from dementia?" Hattie asked. "Five years since the diagnosis, but more like nine since he started forgetting things."
"You his sole caregiver?"
"Connie Lou helps," she said. "And Stefan, this last year or so he"s been home."
"How"re you getting by?"
"Cliff"s railway pension and the Social Security."
"Enough?"
"We make do."
"Hard on you, though."
"Very," she said, and pushed back at her hair. "And now all this with Stefan ..." Hattie stopped, threw up her hands, and choked out, "He"s my miracle baby. How could my miracle baby ..."
I remembered Nana Mama telling me that the doctors said Hattie and Cliff would never have children, and then, in her thirties, she"d suddenly gotten pregnant with Stefan.
I put my plate down and was about to go over to console her when Ali ran in, said, "Dad! I swear to G.o.d, there"s like a gazillion lightning bugs outside!"
CHAPTER 8.
WHEN I STEPPED out onto the front porch, it was long past dark, and through the screen I could see fireflies everywhere, thousands of them, like I hadn"t seen since I was a boy. I flashed on images of Uncle Clifford teaching me and my brothers how to catch them with gla.s.s jars, remembered how amazed I"d been to see just how much light two or three of them could generate.
As if reading my mind, Aunt Hattie said, "You want me to get him a jar, Alex?"
"That would be fine."
"Got a big Skippy jar in the recycling," she said, and she turned to fetch it.
We all went outside into Aunt Hattie"s yard and watched the fireflies dance and blink like so many distant stars. I felt warm seeing Ali learn how to catch them, grounded by something I"d thought I"d lost all those years ago.
Bree hooked her arm through mine, said, "What are you smiling about?"
"Good memories," I said, and I gestured at the fireflies. "They were always here in the summer. It"s ... I don"t know."
"Comforting?" Nana Mama asked.
"More like eternal," I said.
Before my wife could respond, the shouting began down the street.
"You f.u.c.k with us, that"s what you"ll get!"
I turned to a searing image that locked me up tight.
Well down the block, beneath one of the few streetlights on Loupe Street, two African American boys in their teens struggled against wrist bonds that led to a rope line controlled by three older boys dressed hip-hop. The two at the front were white. The one at the back was black. All three seemed to be taking s.a.d.i.s.tic pleasure in dragging the two younger boys along, taunting them and telling them to move if they knew what was good for them. It smacked of a chain gang and that galled me.
I glanced at Bree, who looked as wronged as I felt.
"Don"t you go sticking your nose in there now, Alex," Aunt Connie warned. "That"s a hornet"s nest, that"s what that is. Just ask Stefan."
My instinct was to ignore her, to run down there and stop the barbarism.
"Listen to her," Aunt Hattie said. "They"re some kind of local gang, and those younger boys are just getting initiated."
They"d taken a left on Dogwood Road and disappeared by then.
"But they had those boys tied to a rope, Dad," Jannie complained. "Isn"t that illegal?"
That was the way I saw it. Those boys could not have been the age of consent. But I swallowed at the acid taste in my mouth and forced myself to stay in my aunt"s front yard, surrounded by fireflies and the North Carolina night sounds, the tree frogs, the cicadas, and the hoot owls, all so strangely familiar and menacing.
"You said ask Stefan about the gang," Bree said.
Aunt Connie glanced at Aunt Hattie, who said, "Don"t know the particulars, but I think he had some troubles with them over to the school. So did Patty."
"Who"s Patty?" Bree asked.
"Stefan"s fiancee," Aunt Hattie said. "And another gym teacher at the school."
"What kind of troubles did Stefan have at the school?" I asked Naomi.
My niece yawned, said, "You"ll want to hear it from him in the morning."
Ali was yawning now too. And Nana Mama looked ready to snooze.
"Okay, let"s call it a night," I said. "Get moved in."
I hugged Aunt Connie and turned to do the same to Aunt Hattie, who seemed nervous. In a low voice she said, "I want you to be careful, Alex."
I smiled, said, "I"m a big boy now. Even got a badge and a gun."
"I know," she said. "But you"ve been away an awful long time, and you may have tried to forget, but this town can be a cruel place."
I was aware of old emotions stirring deep in me, like lava starting to swell in a long-dormant volcano.
"I haven"t forgotten," I said, and I kissed her cheek. "How could I?"
Aunt Connie and Naomi stayed behind to help Aunt Hattie clean up. I led my family back across the cul-de-sac toward our bungalow and heartache.
"They"re nice," Bree said. "Sweet."
"They are that," Nana Mama allowed. "My, isn"t the air cool here, though?"
We all agreed the Starksville weather was a far cry from a DC summer.
"Sad about your uncle," Jannie said. "I guess I"ve never seen someone, you know, not like Nana."
"Not like me?" my grandmother said.
"Sharp, Nana," Jannie said. "You know."
"Still in possession of my faculties?" Nana Mama said. "That can be a blessing and a curse."
"Why a curse?" Ali asked when we reached the car.
"There are some things in a long life that are best put aside, young man, especially at night," she said softly. "Right now, this old, old lady needs a bed."
Jannie took her into the house and I started unloading the car. My daughter came back out to help me while Bree got Ali to sleep.
"Dad, what causes someone to age one way and someone else another?" she asked.
"Lots of things," I said. "Genetics, certainly. And your diet. And whether you"re active, physically and mentally."
"Nana is," Jannie said. "She"s always reading or doing something to help out, and she takes all those long walks."
"Probably why she"ll live to a hundred," I said.
"You think?"
"I"m betting on her," I said, pulling the last heavy bag out of the trunk.
"Then I am too," Jannie said, and she followed me through the screen door onto the porch. "Dad?"
"Yeah?" I said, stopping to look back at her.
"I"m sorry for being such a b.i.t.c.h on the ride down," she said.
"You weren"t a b.i.t.c.h. Just a little testy."
She laughed. "You"re kind."
"I try," I said.
"What"s it like? You know, coming back here after so long?"
I set the suitcase down and looked through the porch screen at the fireflies and the lit windows of my aunts" homes, and I sniffed at some sweet smell in the air.
"In some ways it seems remarkably unchanged, as if I left yesterday," I said. "And in others, it"s like there"s a whole other life here now, and my memories don"t apply at all, like they happened to someone else."
CHAPTER 9.
DESPITE THE DRONE of the ceiling fan over our bed, I stirred every hour or so as trains rumbled through Starksville. Shortly after dawn, I woke for good to the sound of blue jays scolding in the pine trees behind the bungalow.
Lying there by Bree, listening to those shrill calls, I flashed hard on myself when I was very young, no more than four or five. I"d been lying in bed, blankets over my head but awake, while my brothers were sleeping. I remembered the window had been open, and there were birds chattering. I also remembered being scared by the birds, as if their calling was what had made me want to hide beneath those covers.
That sense lingered with me even after Bree rolled over, threw her arm across my chest, and groaned. "Time is it?"
"Almost seven."
"We"ve got to get earplugs."
"That"s high on my list too. Still disappointed not to be in Jamaica?"
"A whole lot," she said, her eyes still closed. "But I like your aunts, and I like you more than a whole lot. And I think it"ll do Jannie and Ali some good to be in a small town for a while."
"Damon gets some of that at his school," I said.
She nodded. "I can see that."
My older boy, Damon, had taken a job as a junior counselor at an annual summer basketball camp at Kraft, the prep school in the Berkshires he attends. That same camp had led him to the school and gotten him a scholarship. Damon giving back to the program had been ample reason for him to miss this trip, but I hoped he was going to come down for a weekend visit at least.
"Shower time," I said, throwing back the sheets.
"Hold on there, buster," Bree said.
"Buster?"
"I don"t know, it seemed appropriate," she said, smiling.
"What do you have in mind?" I said, snuggling up to her.
"None of that," she protested good-naturedly.
"Busted Buster."
Bree tickled me, laughed. "No, I just wanted you to get a few things straight for me."
"Such as?"