Pieces of Why (7 page)

M
ONDAY MOR
NING
,
I sat at the kitchen table stealing glances at the Sunday paper, which Ma had brought home a day late. She could take papers for free if there were leftovers, and she always brought a stack for wrapping stuff.

There was an article about the baby.
POLICE
ANNOUNCE LEADS
. Above the article was a picture of the baby's mother at the funeral, sagging into the arms of the people supporting her on either side. Her face was turned up to the sky as if she were sending God an ocean of fury.

Maybe God deserved her anger. Or maybe the person who did the carjacking deserved it and God was getting a raw deal. I didn't know.

I closed my eyes and breathed deep, but Ma interrupted, her voice stern.

“Tia, your toast is getting cold.” Ma came over and shut the paper with a slap. Then she threw it into an empty box, and carried the box to her bedroom.

“I was reading that,” I called after her, but she didn't answer, just came back and sat down across from me. I thought for sure she was going to say something about my father. She was finally going to tell me everything. I took a deep breath, my chest tightening, willing it to happen.

“Want to play Scrabble?”

What?

“Uh, I-I,” I stammered. “I guess so?”

“Great.”

Ma got up and took the game out of the hall closet, then set up the worn board I'd picked up at a yard sale. Ma drew the tile with the most points, so she went first. She took her time studying the letters, then placed them on the board.

M-U-T-E

I drew in my breath. Had she done that on purpose or was it a coincidence?

My hand hesitated above my tiles. I had a blank one, which I used as a V to make E-V-A-D-E. The word had been on my vocabulary list last year in English.

Ma pursed her lips, taking a long time before putting her next word down on a double letter score. E-A-R-N

Earn? What the heck did that mean? A surge of fury washed over me. Didn't make any sense to be angry about a Scrabble word, but I couldn't help it. I didn't have good letters, so all I could do was place an O next to her N to make N-O.

Ma made a huffing noise. “That's not much of a word,” she chided. “You can't do any better than that? Doesn't leave me much to work with.”

“This is a game,” I snapped. “Why should I help you win?”

Ma's eyes shot up, and she raised an eyebrow at me. For a long moment, the two of us sat there with our eyes locked, and then Ma scowled and made M-A-D.

To which I added N-E-S-S.

M-A-D-N-E-S-S. “Double word score,” I said.

Ma shook her head. I couldn't decide if she was angry or not, but then she used my S to make Y-I-P-E-S

“Yipes?”

“It's in the Scrabble dictionary,” Ma said. “You can check if you want to.”

I stood up. “I don't want to play after all.”

“Okay,” Ma said, frowning. For a long time, neither of us said anything, but finally Ma sighed. “Maybe we could do something else.”

“Like what?” I asked, sinking into our living room couch and crossing my arms over my chest. Right then, I didn't want to do anything with Ma ever again, but then she said the one thing I couldn't resist.

“Like . . . maybe we could bake that woman some bread.”

I looked up quick, sure that I must have heard her wrong.

“What did you say?”

“The woman in the newspaper,” Ma said. “She and her
husband live around here. Sometimes when people are grieving, other people bring them meals.” Ma paused. “I suppose it's awkward, but—”

“Please,” I interrupted. “Let's do it.”

Ma sat still, like she was already regretting her offer. “Bread takes time,” she warned. “It's not quick and easy the way cakes and cookies are . . . not if you make it from scratch. You have to mix the dough, then knead it and punch it down, then let it rise, knead it and punch it down again. It'll take us all day, and you know I've got to nap since I'm working the night shift tonight.”

“You can nap while the dough is rising,” I said, trying not to sound too eager.

Ma walked into the kitchen, opening cupboards, searching for ingredients.

“I don't even know if they'll want something from—well, if they'll want it. But we could leave it in their mailbox if it would help you to stop dwelling.”

I nodded. “It would.”

Ma pulled items out, one by one. Flour, sugar, salt, baking powder.

I walked over and hugged Ma tight.

“Thanks,” I said, but Ma just shook her head.

“Don't thank me yet. We've still got all the work to do.”

Ma was right about baking bread. It really did take all day, but by evening our house smelled so good, I thought I might burst. We'd made three braided loaves: one for the baby's family, one for us, and one for Ms. Evette. Plus, we'd made a dozen clover leaf rolls from the extra dough. Ma and I had eaten ours hot out of the oven with melted butter and a dusting of cinnamon, and I had more rolls wrapped in a dishtowel next to the braided bread we were taking to Keisha's. I held the whole package in my arms and it warmed me straight through.

Every Monday night I slept over at Keisha's while Ma worked the overnight shift. Ma walked me there before she went to work, and then on Tuesday morning, Ms. Evette walked me to my lesson with Ms. Marion before she caught the streetcar. It was a perfectly coordinated schedule that we'd kept every summer for years, but now all I could think about was dropping off that warm, crusty bread.

“Can we bring it over right now?” I asked.

Ma paused a moment too long.

“There isn't time,” she said. “I'll drop it off on my way home.”

“But couldn't we just . . .”

Ma's eyes flashed. “No back-talk, young lady.”

I wanted to argue that I hadn't been back-talking, but we'd had a fun day baking, so I didn't want to ruin things with a fight.

“Sorry,” I said at last. “It's just . . . you won't forget, will you?”

Ma's face relaxed. She took the bread off the counter and placed it inside the big canvas bag she carried to and from work. “I won't forget.” Then she leaned over and kissed me on top of the head. “You did something real nice today, Tia girl. Now you've got to let the adults handle the rest, you hear?”

I felt the warm rolls pressed up against my body. Slowly, I nodded.

“Promise?”

Could it be th
at easy?

“I promise.”

Ma let out a long, loud breath. Louder, I bet, than she'd intended.

“Good,” she said. “That's real good.”

That night, me and Keisha, Ms. Evette, Dwayne, and Jerome ate fresh clover leaf rolls with our pork chops and greens. Jerome said, “Mo, mo, mo,” and pointed at the bread, and we cut into it even though Ms. Evette had said we were going to save the loaf for breakfast. Everyone mmmm'ed until I blushed, and Dwayne said I could cook for him anytime.

After dinner me and Keisha watched
The Next
American Superstar.
We draped ourselves over the couch and plotted how we'd convince people that we were old enough to
audition when the show came back to New Orleans. Dwayne was giving Jerome his bath in the next room and I could hear the sound of splashing.

Keisha was hanging upside down off the side of the couch, but she sat up when the commercials came on. “You know,” she said to her mother, “we need to enter all sorts of contests if we're going to make it big. How else will we get discovered? Khalil and his friends are putting together a band and they're going to audition when
The Next
American Superstar
comes back to town.”

Ms. Evette was sitting in the beige easy chair, under the tall lamp, carving a baby bird for a necklace. She barely looked up. “Mmm-hmm.”

Dwayne came out carrying a soaking wet Jerome, bundled in a thick towel, and Keisha and I both kissed his sopping brown curls.

“Night-night,” we said, and Jerome waved.

Dwayne handed him over to Ms. Evette, who reluctantly put down her whittling to get him into his pj's and read him books before bed.

“Dad,” Keisha said when her mother was gone, “do you think Tia and I could enter some contests? We've got to become famous while we're still young and cute.”

Dwayne's face went blank.

“What are you talking about?” he said. “You mean you're not superstars already? Not a one of you is famous yet?”

Keisha giggled and I grinned.

Dwayne shook his head. “Because I thought you were. I mean, I hear you two doing your
top sec
ret
handshake all the time, and—”

“Dad!”

“—I hear you all singing away upstairs.”

Dwayne twirled around with one hand in the air, jutting his hips from side to side. “Like a pyramid, oh, I'm a pyramid,” he sang in a crazy high falsetto. “Got my pretty bow in my hair, and my tight jeans on—”

Keisha tackled him around the waist and the two of them fell laughing into a heap on the floor. I laughed too, and for one crazy moment I imagined it was
my
father there, laughing and tickling, singing in falsetto and dishing up the love.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
the apartment was quiet. Dwayne wasn't up yet, Keisha was still in her pajamas, and Ms. Evette, Jerome, and I were sitting around the kitchen table eating thick slabs of toasted bread with strawberry jam. Jerome had jam all over him—even in his ear. Ms. Evette was reading the morning paper and she didn't look happy.

“Says here they've arrested two young men for that carjacking,” she grumbled. “'Course it's two black men, so who knows if they've got the right people or they've just got the most
c
onvenient
people.”

She set the paper down with a shove and sipped her coffee. I was burning to look at the article, wondering if there might be pictures of the men and whether I'd see the bad in their eyes. But I forced myself to sit still and wait until she was done. When I finally got a look at the paper, there weren't any pictures at all. Just two names:
Tarik Miller, 29,
and
Rondo Waters, 24
. Who were they? Did they have families? Kids?

“Do you know how many African American men are falsely imprisoned each year?” Ms. Evette was saying. “Too many. Precious young men, stolen from this community. It's a shame.”

From the living room, I heard Keisha groan. “Ma,” she complained, “it's too early for this lecture. I haven't even had breakfast yet.”

“That's not my fault,” Ms. Evette scolded. “Get dressed, get your butt in the kitchen, and eat something.”

Keisha shuffled in, rubbing her eyes. Jerome tossed a bit of toast onto the floor and she leaned over to pick it up, tickling him under his chin.

“You're such a stinker,” she said as Jerome tossed more toast.

Ms. Evette watched them, and at first her face was still hard and grumbly, but then she smiled as Jerome put a bit of soggy toast in Keisha's mouth and Keisha sputtered, spitting it out real fast. Ms. Evette chuckled, and it was as if I could see the exact moment she'd moved on from the news.

“Come on,” she said, cleaning Jerome off with a washcloth and then lifting him up from his high chair. “Time to catch the streetcar.” She nodded to me. “Let's get moving, hon. Keisha, you eat something healthy. And don't play your music too loud. Your dad's sleeping.”

Dwayne had been out of work for a long time, but
sometimes he was able to pick up a night shift at the Autocenter. They paid him cash under the table so he wouldn't lose his unemployment.

Keisha nodded and I sighed, thinking about my lesson with Ms. Marion. Normally, I couldn't wait, but I was dreading this one. I knew she'd have something to say about me handing my lead over to Mary-Kate at June Fest.

I said good-bye to Keisha as Ms. Evette put on Jerome's tiny sneakers and grabbed her briefcase. Then I followed them out of the apartment and down the steps. It was bright and sunny, and a cool breeze made the banana trees wave. We walked real quiet for a couple blocks before Ms. Evette glanced my way.

“I've missed your singing,” she said. “You've been some quiet these past few days.”

“I have?” I said, as if I hadn't felt the loss like a punch to the gut. Singing was my favorite thing in the world, so why didn't I want to do it anymore?

Ms. Evette laughed. “Okay,” she said. “You be that way if you must, but just remember that I'm not so senile yet that I don't remember what it was like to be your age. Lots of changes going on.”

I blushed, knowing she meant stuff like having crushes on boys and wearing a bra.

“I know,” I said, trying not to stare at the spot where the car had been.

“Good,” said Ms. Evette, stopping in front of the New Heaven Baptist Church. “Now you open up and sing in there, you hear? And be careful walking home.”

I pushed a dried palm frond on the sidewalk with the toe of my sneaker.

“I will,” I mumbled, and then I reached up and put my fingertip on Jerome's because he was pointing at me as if he wanted to tell me something. “Bye-bye,” I told him, before ducking into the church building.

The inside of the New Heaven Baptist Church was musty and dark. The stained-glass windows didn't let in any real light, so whenever I stepped inside, it felt like another world. I was glad Ms. Marion lived too far away to do lessons in her home like other teachers. Even after everything that had happened, I still loved the dark wood pews and red velvet seat cushions. I loved the smallness of the sanctuary and the closeness of the pulpit. Felt like you could see everything there was to see, so there would be no surprises.

Except it hadn't worked out that way, had it?

Ms. Marion was waiting for me up front, like always, and my stomach clenched. I walked down the center aisle real slow and when I reached the piano, I made a show of finding the envelope with her payment in it.

Ms. Marion looked me over, top to bottom, and I waited for her to tell me how disappointed she'd been in me at June
Fest, and how the choir had been depending on me and I'd let everyone down. I waited for the lecture about how great singers never gave up, even when life was hard.

Ms. Marion paused. “Tia, how's your mama?”

That was the last thing I was expecting. My eyes opened wide. “Good, I guess,” I said. “Same as always.”

“I see,” said Ms. Marion. “Didn't she go to church here a long time ago? Evette tells me they used to be in the choir together.”

I shook my head. “Not here,” I corrected. “They sang together in their high school choir.”

“Ahh. And does she still sing?”

“No, ma'am.”

“How about your father?” Ms. Marion asked. “Does he sing?”

I just about choked on my own spit.

“He's . . . he's in . . . prison,” I sputtered.

Ms. Marion nodded. “I know, child,” she said. “But even in prison, people can still sing.”

She might as well have said the sky was purple.

Ms. Marion raised one eyebrow. “Would you like to talk about your father?”

I didn't answer. My stomach was too busy doing somersaults.

Ms. Marion nodded like she'd figured out something important. “You see what happened there? First, you had a
voice, talking to me and answering my questions, and then that voice just disappeared, didn't it?”

Ms. Marion took my hands in hers. “You know something, Tia?” she said. “You are the best singer in the entire choir. In fact, you're the most naturally talented child I have ever met.”

I looked up quick, and she smiled.

“Don't tell the others I said so, but it's true. Out of that skinny little body of yours comes a sound so large, it gives me goose bumps. But I think you've got yourself blocked up, am I right? Saw it happen with my own eyes.”

Shame crawled up my neck, and Ms. Marion sighed.

“Have you done any singing since last Thursday?”

I shook my head and felt the tears welling up in the corners of my eyes.

“And I bet you think if you could only get your mind to stop churning, everything would be fine, wouldn't it?”

I swallowed hard, thinking about my father and Danielle, and how all I'd been doing was dwelling on the miserable facts.

“Ms. Marion?” I asked. “Do you believe in the stuff we sing about? I mean, about God being good and people going to heaven when they die? Do you think those songs are true, or did the people who wrote them just not know about all the bad things that happen in the world?”

Ms. Marion held up one hand.

“Oh, child,” she said, “you can't imagine all of what those people knew.” She took a deep breath. “Most of what we sing is gospel. Do you know where gospel music comes from?”

I shook my head.

“Started with slavery,” Ms. Marion said. “Imagine you were taken from your home and your family and everything you knew, and all you had left was your memories and your music. Think how that music would bubble up out of your soul.” Ms. Marion took a breath in through her nostrils and then she sang.

D
eep river, my home i
s over Jordan,

Deep
river, Lord, I want
to cross over into c
ampground,

Oh, don't
you want to go to t
hat gospel feast,

Th
at promised land whe
re all is peace?

“Slaves would sing as they worked in the fields, and little by little the Christian message made its way into those songs. Lord knows how anything beautiful could have come out of those troubled times, but it sure did.” She shook her head. “It sure did.”

I thought that over. “So do you think they believed it?” I asked. “The good parts, I mean?”

Ms. Marion scratched her chin. “Well, you're talking about millions of people. I'm sure some of them sang out of hope, and some of them sang just to make the time tolerable. But what matters is what
you
believe.”

“What if I don't know?”

Ms. Marion lifted my chin. “'Course you don't know,” she said. “You've got to work it out.”

My heart sunk, but Ms. Marion shook her head. “As for me? I don't think the world is a bad place. And I don't think a person can be completely bad either.”

That caught me off guard, but Ms. Marion held me still with her eyes.

“You know, sometimes if you're having trouble creating something beautiful, you've got to find the joy in your life. Focus on the good things.” She sighed. “But I know that's easier said than done.”

I thought about gunshots piercing the air and a girl my age who'd never get to grow up. But then I thought about Dwayne's firm hand at June Fest and Jerome covered in strawberry jam. Saturday morning feasts and favorite songs that could still make me smile.

Ms. Marion handed me back the envelope with Ma's money in it. “Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to give you time to figure this out. I won't expect you at lessons until you're ready. Come to rehearsals and listen in, but we'll tell everyone you're having throat problems. If you need me, you know where to find me.”

I was torn between disappointment and relief. I hated missing even one lesson, but for the first time in days I felt as if I might be able to sing again. I stuck the envelope in my
pocket, thinking that Ma would never admit it, but she'd be glad to have that money back.

“Thank you, Ms. Marion.”

Ms. Marion gathered up her things. “Well, go on then,” she said, nodding for me to head out.

Reluctantly, I left the enclosure of the dark church, moving out into the sun, then through the shade, and finally into the sun again. The whole time I saw myself as if from above, moving through the shadows and the sunshine, unsure if I'd ever come to a stop, but hoping I'd land in the light.