"You"ve changed," Angela said, a.s.sessing her. Her grandmother"s face was much more playful than Angela ever remembered, her eyes brighter. And the way her body moved, so unrestrained! From the way Gramma Marie"s chest jiggled, she couldn"t be wearing a bra. This was not the same Gramma Marie who had sat primly in her library while she tutored in Sacajawea, wearing the same navy blue skirts and white blouses day after day.
"We don"t wear only one face," Gramma Marie said, shrugging. "I let you see one or two of mine, the ones you needed to see. The rest belong to me."
"You should have told me, Gramma Marie," Angela said, with more sadness than scolding.
Gramma Marie"s smile faded. "Yes. I should have," she said, and nodded briskly, as if to say,Yes, but let"s be done with it. It"s behind us now. She patted Angela"s rump hard, something else she"d never done. "Next time, I"ll know."
Angela scoured the crowd for other familiar faces. Gramma Marie took her arm and steered her away from the bonfire; steering her the way Corey had at the Fourth of July party, when he gave her the ring.
"Fleurette, you know, will be sorry she missed you," Gramma Marie said. "She"s always bragging about you so. You would think she was the one who raised you."
"I"ll stay and see her."
For the first time, a frown blemished Gramma Marie"s face. When Angela saw her grandmother"s frown-an old woman"s frown on an inexplicably young woman"s face-she felt more than a p.r.i.c.k of pain. This time, the pain burned. Bad memories were waiting to erupt in her.
Gramma Marie squeezed Angela"s arm to pull her from her thoughts, clicking her tongue against her teeth. "Don"t look so sad,cher," she said. "I"d love for you to stay, butje peux recevoir personne. I"m not allowed any guests. See the dirty looks? They"re jealous of you. Your own blood! Don"t be fooled, because it isn"t nearly so lively here all the time. Today is special. Today, we"re celebrating a miracle."
Angela saw a young, dark-skinned girl in pigtails run in front of her before disappearing into the lively crowd. She knew that girl, too.Mama, she thought, amazed. Angela tried to follow the girl"s dress, but her eyes lost her in the maze of colors. As she gazed at the celebrants, Angela"s feet shuffled to the rhythms. She wanted to dance with them!
"Do you know what you did?" Gramma Marie asked her.
She had felt Papa Legba embrace her. She knew that much.
"I think so," Angela said. "Is it gone?"
Gramma Marie raised her hands over her head, swinging her head with delight. She snapped her fingers. "Yes, yes, the One With No Name won"t trouble us again. See how we"re blessed with the favors of thelwas? We are no longer exiled. But that"s the start, not the finish. G.o.d is smiling on us. This is a miracle day."
"What"s the miracle?"
Gramma Marie playfully b.u.mped her nose against Angela"s. Angela couldn"t get used to this new incarnation of Gramma Marie, so girlish and excited. This woman felt more like a girlfriend than her grandmother. "You choose," Gramma Marie said.
"Me? Why me?"
"You were brave enough to let me ride you, so you banished thebaka. You preserved the line. You choose your miracle today."
Angela couldn"t choose a miracle. She didn"t dare hope for one. She wanted too much. The sadness trapped inside of her was working its way free. Angela sighed, shaking her head. "I don"t know if I believe in miracles, Gramma Marie."
"What! You"re afraid to believe in amiracle, but not afraid to believe in thebaka?" Gramma Marie"s girl-face frowned again. "I should have taught you better."
A woman cackled loudly from the crowd near them, and Gramma Marie turned to shout at the woman in Creole, waving her arms in annoyance. Angela had rarely heard Gramma Marie raise her voice, either. She would love to have spent a day withthis woman, to have known her.
Gramma Marie turned back to her, shaking her head. "Fleurette is laughing. She was always telling me, "You didn"t show that childwho she is." Everyone knows best! But you"re ready now, Angela. It"s time." Her eyes gleamed with pride, as if she were gazing at a newborn. Gramma Marie hugged her again, swinging energetically back and forth."Adieu, cher. You were brave today. I knew you would be."
Adieu?Suddenly, Angela"s mind tumbled with unanswered questions. She locked her arms around Gramma Marie"s back, resting her chin on her shoulder, refusing to let her go. "Not yet. I miss you," she whispered.
Gramma Marie looked at her face, surprised. "Why? We talk every day."
That was true. A part of her was talking to her grandmother all the time. "Yes, but..."
"Come visit us here. Bring food, from time to time," Gramma Marie said.
"And rum!" an old man shouted, waving his cane, and there were waves of laughter.
Angela felt suddenly cold. She wrapped her arms around herself, glancing toward the trail that would take her to her grandmother"s house. Despite her unanswered questions, she was eager to go. There were too many faces she had hoped to see here and hadn"t, people more dear to her than family she had never met. The ache of that disappointment grew worse the longer she stayed. This celebration was beautiful, but she had not been invited. She didn"t belong here.
"I"m going now," she said, kissing Gramma Marie"s sweaty neck.
"Yes, you go on home!" Gramma Marie said, dancing her way back into the crowd, closer to the fire. "On your way, think about that miracle. You"ve earned it. Don"t put it to waste."
Trying her best to believe in miracles, Angela set out on the worn trail home.
Miracle.
And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered him to his mother.
-LUKE:7:1415.
Where there is mud, there must be water.
-WEST AFRICAN PROVERB.
Thirty-Five.
JULY2, 2001.
ANGELA SAT AT THE TABLEon the backyard deck, waiting for her dizzy spell to pa.s.s.
s.h.i.t on me,she thought, taking deep, even breaths. What was wrong with her?
The dizziness had overwhelmed her in the house, making her nearly swoon over her pot of jambalaya on the stove, but it seemed to be gone now. Maybe it was nothing, she thought. Whatever it was, it hadn"t been any match for the fresh air outside.
Before Angela stood up, she gazed out at the green awning of trees that grew north of her, toward The Spot. She had been able to name most of the trees when she was in high school; cedars and Douglas firs and western yews, all of them pointed out carefully by Gramma Marie, but she rarely thought of them now. She"d spent too much time away from her land. In the time she"d been here this summer, she hadn"t taken the first walk by herself, too busy working the phone or cooking or shopping or supervising Corey.
And Tariq, of course. Tariq was her toughest challenge.
"Do you love him, Angie?" she asked herself aloud. "Does he love you? Because if there isn"t love here, these bedroom games have to stop. Neither of you is looking for a f.u.c.kbuddy."
The longer she sat outside in the fir-heavy air, the more Angela"s thoughts sharpened, as if she"d been living in a misty, undefined version of reality until now. She"d been trying so hard to make these past two weeks with Tariq work, she hadn"t bothered to ask herselfwhy . She and Tariq had been separated for four years, and they were supposed to pretend this was a friendly visit? If this experiment turned ugly, Corey would be caught in the middle again. He"d already seen them break up once. Sitting outside in the late-afternoon air, Angela made that vow to herself: She had to ask herself what she really wanted, what she really felt. What was best.
As she walked through the back door to the kitchen, Tariq was standing in her path, his shoulders almost as wide as the doorway. She jumped, startled by the sudden sight of him.
"Sorry," she said, her heart racing, as always. "You scared me."
"Just checking to see if you need help with dinner."
Tariq was not a cooking man except on the grill, so his offer sounded as conciliatory as he"d meant it. Tariqwas trying hard, bless him. Maybe he was trying harder than he ever had. But his presence in the doorway made her uncomfortable. As if he were blocking her.
"Thanks, but I just have to pop in the cornbread," she said. "Where"s Corey?"
"Still in his room. Want me to bring him down?"
Angela was about to say yes, since she"d rather let Tariq battle Corey"s moodiness, one of the perks of having another parent in the house. Corey had been withdrawn the past few days. But as Tariq stepped back and Angela closed the door behind her, she changed her mind.
"Maybe you should put on the cornbread, Tariq. I"m going to talk to him."
"He goes through a teenage funk every once in a while. I just ride it out. If we get out to the city and see a movie tomorrow, he"ll be fine."
A teenage funk. That could be it, but Angela didn"t think so. Corey had beenglowing when Tariq first came, but his mood had shifted wildly since the day he"d sc.r.a.ped his arm falling off that horse. There was obviously more to that story, and she was tired of Corey"s evasiveness. More than that, though, she was worried about him. Something was wrong. She"d always been able to count on Corey"s appet.i.te, but he barely ate at mealtime. This didn"t feel like any of the other times her instincts had warned her about Corey. This was very different.
"I just want to be sure," she said.
"Want me to come with you?"
"No. I think I"ll try it alone."
Tariq smiled, deciding not to argue. "Your call, Snook." Angela had been glad to hear Tariq use her old pet name in her bed last night; but this time, it grated on her. He had lost the right.
Upstairs, Angela knocked on Corey"s door, her old room. She heard him scurry around like a crack dealer trying to flush his stash, she thought. Her instincts roared. "Corey?"
"Coming!" Corey called hoa.r.s.ely. Will Smith he was blasting on his CD player, but she heard him close a desk drawer, then she heard the squeaky hinge of his closet door. She tried the doork.n.o.b, but it wouldn"t turn. "This door isn"t supposed to be locked," she said.
He was hiding something. Maybe it was only an embarra.s.sing teenage masturbation moment, but it could be anything.Anything. Corey might get away with murder at Tariq"s house, but he would not get away with it here. "Corey, open this doornow."
The door opened.
Corey had gone upstairs only about an hour ago, but she felt her insides melt when she saw her son, a feeling that had nothing to do with worry or anger. Justlook at this boy, she thought. He was three inches taller than she was. There was a whisper of a fuzzy moustache above his upper lip. His eyes twinned hers. His frown was identical to Tariq"s, except gentler at the edges. The sight of her son amazed her. She felt herself thinking a prayer, something she hadn"t done in years:Thank you, G.o.d, for giving me this boy. Thank you so much.
How could she have relinquished the raising of her son for almost four years? Nowonder Corey was so angry, she thought.
"What, Mom?" Corey whined, a toddler with a man"s voice. "I"m taking a nap."
Angela gazed into his room over his shoulder, her eyes drawn to the window, where a shadow played through a tiny gap between the curtains. Was that movement out there? Angela touched her son"s warm cheek with her palm, then nudged her way past him into his room. "Honey, I want to visit with you a little while," she said.
He barely gave her s.p.a.ce to pa.s.s."Visit?" He repeated it as if it were a foreign tongue.
"Yes, visit," she said. "Is that all right with you?"
His stonelike face, staring at her, clearly said no. Often, that look had been enough to turn her away, to silence her, to shut her out. But she was never again going to be afraid to mother her son. She could find ways to be more kind, but she would have to fight back.
"I thought it was time to eat," Corey said, stalling her.
"Soon," Angela said. As she walked into his room, her eyes took in as many details as she could: his closed notebook on his desk, CD cases, a duffel bag half-stuffed into his closet. She thought she saw an old-fashioned walking stick pushed back in the closet, barely within sight in the cracked door. She"d never seen that in here before. She"d have to ask him where he found it.
For now, though, her priority was the window.
The thing was, the closer she got to the window, the worse it smelled. She couldn"t pinpoint the scent the way she might if it were old meat or a rotten egg, because it wasn"t any kind of scent her nose knew. In a strange way, it almost seemed that she wasn"t smelling it with hernose, but another one of her senses. Whatever was outside that window didn"t smell right.
Angela walked to the curtains and threw them open. The window was closed, but the branch outside was shuddering and bouncing as if a great weight had just sprung from it. The branch thumped against the closed windowpane.
"Corey, was someone out there?"
He looked confused now instead of only irritated."What? Like who?"
Her instincts told her he was telling the truth; if someone had been there, he hadn"t known. Not yet, anyway.
It wasn"t time for him to see yet,came a faint whisper in her mind, one so quick and slight that she did not question it.He would have seen after dinner. Angela locked the window tight, but before she closed the curtains again, she stared out fondly at the walnut tree, whose branches were laden with unshed green walnuts. She remembered like yesterday when Myles Fisher had carried his crazy b.u.t.t up here, asking her to the prom. Thinking of Myles, Angela felt a keen sadness she forced herself to release. Wherever Myles Fisher was, she wished him well.
Then, Angela turned to her son. She sat on his unmade bed, patting the spot beside her.
"Sit down, honey."
Corey"s mouth fell open. He looked both surprised and full of dread. "What?"
"We have to talk."
"About what?"
"About you and the way you"ve been acting. You"re worrying me. Something happened the day you fell off that horse, and you"re not telling me. You"re a terrible liar, Corey."
He shrugged. "Mom, I don"t know-"
"Corey, I"m notblind . You"re too smart to think you came from stupid, so tell me what"s bothering you. Does it having something to do with Tariq? Are you upset he"s here?"
His face softened, suddenly earnest. "No, Mom. It"sgreat he"s here."
Angela nodded, smiling. That was good to hear. If she wasn"t trying to make this work with Tariq for Corey"s sake, then why else? She just had to figure out a way to do what was best for Coreyand best for her. Since Corey had never sat beside her, Angela stood up again, walking toward his closet. This time, he grabbed her arm to stop her.
"No, Mom. That"smy stuff. Don"t go in there."
"Corey, you"re hiding something from me. Why?"
She saw his face break. She"d seized on an inner conflict, and he was crumbling. He didn"t answer, so she went on. "Honey, I know this feels unfair to you, but Iam going to look in that closet if you don"t start talking to me. Do you hear me?"
"That"s not right."
"That may be, but that"s the way it is."
"Mom, why do you have to act like this? Why are you in my face?"
"Sweetheart, I"m here so you cantalk to me. Why is that so hard for you?"
That was when she noticed it: Corey was wearing a gold ring. He followed her eyes, and his face crumpled with disgust."d.a.m.n..." she heard him whisper. He stared at the floor, and she saw him blink as if he were about to cry.