“I don’t know if I should move you from danger. But I can’t figure out what the danger is. Maybe you should see if the Watsons left? Maybe you could ride with them.”
“I’m not going nowhere. Not without you.”
“If only we had a car. If I had some more money…”
If my Uptown relatives were here…, I think but don’t say.
“This Katrina is going to be bad. But no worse than the worst storm. The hurricane isn’t the bad thing. But I can’t figure out what is.”
I look about the house. My only home. The radio is on. The TV is loud. Mama Ya-Ya is shouting, shaking her head. Her feet are swollen in her bedroom slippers.
I sigh and say, “Spot, come.” If I’m going to do this, I want company.
I climb the stairs.
I’m hoping she’s not there. Hoping my mother’s ghost fled the storm.
Mama Ya-Ya’s room is dark. I hear wind gently rattling the windows.
I turn on the light.
On the bed is my mother. She’s so light. Seems like a big wind could blow her away. She isn’t solid flesh like me. Everything about her is transparent.
Spot walks towards the bed.
“Spot,” I say.
But the silly dog is sniffing like there’s no tomorrow. He goes right up to my mother’s face. Her cheek is on the pillow; her eyes, open.
“Momma,” I say. Twelve years and I’ve hardly ever spoken her name. I never told Mama Ya-Ya but I used to try and speak with her all the time. When I was a toddler, I’d crawl all over the bed, demanding her attention. From kindergarten class, I brought pictures of my hands in brown and blue paint. In second grade, I showed her how I could make an empty pop bottle sound like a flute if I blew across its top. I asked her questions about my pop, who he was, where’d he go. Sometimes, I’d get so angry ’cause she wouldn’t answer. Or else, she’d just cry. Then, cry some more. After a while I stopped bothering her, just let her be. “Momma?”
Her hand reaches out as if she could pat Spot.
Spot sits, studying her.
I walk further into the room. “Momma?”
She looks like me. I’m startled. For the first time, I really see the resemblance between us—me, being twelve, and her, seventeen. There’s only five years between us now. But as I’ve grown, she’s remained the same. It helps me realize how young she was when she died. Because of me, I think. I turn to go, then, turn back. Mama Ya-Ya has never asked one thing of me. At least never something so important.
I say, “How bad is the storm going to be?”
My mother’s ghost blinks. Her eyes are just as blank as the other ghosts’. Like no one is inside her body.
“How bad? Mama Ya-Ya’s frightened. You remember her? You’re in her bed. She helped you birth me.”
Maybe I should’ve forgotten the birth part, since for my mother, it didn’t turn out well. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t mean to bother you. Just tell me, is the storm going to be bad?”
Spot stands, walks away. Even he sees it’s a lost cause.
“Please tell me. Or if you can’t talk, give me a sign.”
I’m close to the bed. If my mother wore perfume, I’d smell it. Instead, there’s no smell, no movement in the air surrounding her body. There is nothing in her eyes that says she knows me.
“Please,” I say, bothered that I’m pleading.
My mother’s ghost fades.
I’m disappointed. Even more lost than before, feeling every bit an orphan.
I go downstairs. Mama Ya-Ya seems to have forgotten what she asked me to do. She’s sitting in her chair, watching the TV again. The sound is off, and for some reason, it’s scarier, watching the silent twirling spiral twisting on the screen, inching across the blue water, coming closer to New Orleans’s shore.
Sunday
It’s Sunday. EVACUATE, reads the newspaper headline. “Evacuate,” say the TV anchors, looking not so pretty anymore. They look tired, a bit scared. The weatherman is no longer wearing a tie or jacket. His shirtsleeves are rolled up and he’s sweating; his shirt’s armpits are brown. The camera does a close-up of the weatherman’s face. He says, “E-VA-CU-ATE.”
I put the crocheted sofa shawl over Mama Ya-Ya. She’s asleep in her favorite chair. She never went to bed.
I almost turn off the TV, but don’t. Too much quiet might wake Mama Ya-Ya.
I walk through the house. Even though it’s Sunday, there’s no smell of cinnamon-spiced waffles or pancakes. I can’t smell any bacon. (I’m not hungry anyway.)
There’s quiet when there should be pots rattling in the kitchen. Me and Mama Ya-Ya should be at the table, talking up a storm. She should be telling me about signs, about how black crows are freedom birds, symbols for slaves flying back to Africa. She should be telling me how cooking black-eyed peas and greens will bring us money in the New Year. “We can always use extra,” she says every time. She should be telling me why she loved me the minute she laid eyes on me—“You were special, I just knew it”—and how she has never stopped.
Spot slides up to me, his head pushing at my hand. I pet him, scratch behind his ears. “You need to go outside?” I ask, happy to have something to do.
Outside, Spot rushes to his favorite tree and pees. He sniffs every speck of dirt and every tree, happy to be outside. His tail is wagging like crazy.
I sit on the porch steps, watching the neighborhood. I don’t know what to expect next. The sun is dead high in the sky.
Yesterday, some of the neighbors stopped by wanting to know what Mama Ya-Ya was going to do, believing her special powers gave her special knowledge about the storm. I told them, “Me and Mama Ya-Ya are staying put.” I didn’t tell them Mama Ya-Ya was conflicted. Another good word.
Most seemed happy that Mama Ya-Ya was going to stay.
I sit on the porch waiting for something to happen. I want to see Mary and Keisha doing double Dutch. See the men and boys staring under the hood of a car, talking about pistons and spark plugs. See Miss Leeila combing the knots out of her girls’ hair and blowing kisses to her boys.
The neighborhood just seems quiet. Too quiet. The “quiet before a storm,” I guess. I’ve read that phrase before but never knew what it meant. But now all of us, the entire neighborhood, are expecting a hurricane. Even though Katrina’s still out in the Gulf. She’s coming. Closer and closer.
I think quiet before the storm means it isn’t really quiet. Maybe it means only now you can hear birds flying, forming a V overhead. Or that the air has sound. That it whistles, low and deep, as a storm approaches. Quiet before a storm maybe means folks are done hammering wood across their windows and placing sand sacks beside their front doors.
Or maybe it means there’s loneliness. A weird loneliness that is, yet isn’t, real.
I know Mama Ya-Ya says the hurricane is not the problem. But I feel scared, like bugs are crawling up and down my skin.
Mama Ya-Ya has always told me, “Some things are seen. Some are unseen. You see a lot, Lanesha. More than most people. But life, I guarantee, will still surprise you.”
I sigh. I can’t see the future. Though I stare at the sky, I can’t read the storm’s signs.
I whistle for Spot. His big, fluffy feet tell me he’s going to be a big dog.
I hug Spot, then look into his brownest eyes. “What do you see?”
His ears point straight up. He sits beside me on the porch step.
I feel nervous, watching my neighbors readying for the storm. Tonight when it hits, we’ll all be inside our houses. I wonder if they feel like I do. Scared. If they worry about getting hurt or not having enough to eat. Afraid that like the big bad wolf, the wind might blow all our houses away.
Other than the groceries, Mama Ya-Ya and I haven’t really prepared much. I wonder if the saying “Carry an umbrella and it won’t rain” might be true for hurricanes, too.
If I prepare for the worst, maybe the hurricane won’t come.
Besides, that’s what grown
-ups are doing. Preparing.
I’m thinking Mama Ya-Ya can’t afford for me to be a child no more. Since her bad dreams, she seems more a kid. Like she needs me.
I think of all the people Mama Ya-Ya has taken care of in her life—probably hundreds, thousands, with herbs and potions for arthritis, fevers. She’s birthed babies, and when they grew up, helped birth their babies.
And there’s me: 365 days × 12 years = 4,380 days that Mama Ya-Ya has cared for me. No one gave her money. Not even welfare. She could have asked but she didn’t.
“Love is as love does,” Mama Ya-Ya says.
So, I have to decide. Prepare or not?
Prepare.
Grow up. Time for me to make things safe—for me, Mama Ya-Ya, and Spot.
I close all the windows and get planks from the shed in the backyard. Nails, too. I pound and pound. My arms hurt and my planks aren’t so great. Some are crooked and the second-story windows are boarded up from the inside, rather than the outside. But it’s better than nothing.
I roast a chicken the way Mama Ya-Ya taught me. If the electricity goes, chicken will keep at room temperature. Perhaps for two days. It’ll be our un-Sunday treat. Better than beans and rice. But I cook those, too. They’ll take even longer to spoil. My cooking isn’t as good as Mama Ya-Ya’s, but I make do.
Then, I remember there’s an old ice chest in the pantry. If I drag it upstairs, we can have a picnic. I rinse out the chest and fill it with ice cubes from the freezer. There’s still a quart of milk and orange juice left. They’ll keep cool. The chicken, too. I’m excited. I grab carrots. American cheese. There’s broccoli, too, but I don’t grab that.
Behind the margarine, I see a jar of applesauce. Dessert.
There’s a knock on the back door. “Mama Ya-Ya, you all right?”
I open the screen door. It’s Pastor Williams.
“She’s fine,” I say. “Please, come in.” Mama Ya-Ya would want me to remember my manners.
“Lanesha, is it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’re offering comfort at the church.”
“We’re fine here, Pastor Williams.” It’s not that Mama Ya-Ya doesn’t believe in God or church. She believes in many gods just as African slaves did. She says gods live in everything, in the whole wide world, so every place you are is holy.
Pastor looks at me, curiouslike. “I kept praying Delores would bring you to be baptized. She never did.”
“No, sir.” I am surprised that he’s called Mama Ya-Ya Delores.
“Delores and I go way back. Went to school together when we were about your age. Is she all right?”
“Yes, sir. She’s resting upstairs.”
He blinks like an old owl. “You’ve got everything you need? Food? Water?”
“Yes, sir. Enough for a few days.”
“Then, you ought to be just fine. Tell Delores you and she are welcome at the church.”
“I will, but I don’t think she’ll come.”
“I don’t think she will either. She follows faith in her own way. It’s my duty to ask. You come, if you’ve a mind. If the storm gets worse. More than you two can handle.”
“Thank you.”
Pastor Williams turned away. Then, turned back. I could tell he was struggling. Like he couldn’t make up his mind whether to say something or not. Then, he did.
“I knew your mother, too, you know.”
I hold my breath.
“She was a lovely girl. She wanted you very, very much.”
“Did she go to your church?”
“No. But once, she visited me. You were about to be born. She said she liked the peace in my church.”
I licked my lips.
“She didn’t talk much.” He smiled. “She said she liked the quiet, so I just sat beside her. Prayed. A few nights later, you were born. Mama Ya-Ya did let me bury her when she passed on, though. Have you visited her grave?”
I shake my head. I don’t tell him that her ghost is upstairs.
“Let me know if you ever want to go. I’ll take you and Mama Ya-Ya to pay your respects.” He opened the screen door, stepping down the stairs.
“Where?” I say, pushing open the door.
“St. Louis Cemetery, number 2. They have a section for indigents.”
The sun is three o’clock in the sky. The hurricane, says the weatherman, will arrive this evening.
Still Sunday
I gather all the candles, matches, and flashlights we have. I put them in a box in Mama Ya-Ya’s room. I drag extra blankets from the linen closet and put them there, too.
Mama Ya-Ya has not left the bed today. I can tell she’s trying to dream, unlock the storm’s mystery. She looks terrible. She’s worn the same flowery housedress for two days.
“Pastor Williams stopped by,” she says. “I knew he’d come by—always does when there’s trouble.”
I gather my nerve and ask, “How come we never visit my momma’s grave?”
“No need for that. You see her here every day.”
I wince.
Mama Ya-Ya pats the bed. “Come here, precious.”
I sit on the edge of the bed. I breathe her scent in deeply.
“You know dirt don’t hold the dead.”
“I know.”
“Come, let me hold you.”
I lay down and Mama Ya-Ya holds me. Spot lays his paws across our legs.
“Your momma loves you. She’s so in love with you, she’s never left.”
“But she’s not at rest.”
“No. She’s still trying to birth you. Wants to make sure you can survive on your own.”
“Doesn’t make sense.”
“It will.” Mama Ya-Ya squeezes me. “It will.”
I lift onto my elbow and look at Mama Ya-Ya. She looks right back at me.
“You know something,” I say.
“Yes, I know something. But it’s not mine to tell, it’s yours to figure out.”
I feel irritated.
I get up. The sun is now low in the sky. I close my eyes. I can smell wet. Damp, rotting, salty wet. Katrina is coming.
I can tell Mama Ya-Ya is tired.
I go downstairs to make her warm milk.
I also heat water on the stove and pour water into two hot water bottles. I place them in Mama Ya-Ya’s bed and retuck her blanket.
I cook the chicken’s giblets for Spot.
I lock the back screen door. I push a kitchen chair against it. I look around me—the kitchen is clean, quiet, and the refrigerator is filled with food and water.
For a minute, I feel pride. Mama Ya-Ya is still upstairs trying to dream and I have taken care of things. I’m satisfied. Content. Our house is ready for Katrina.
I step onto the porch. The sky is now orange and purple. Sundown is coming.
The air smells like barbecue. Neighbors are grilling beef and pork. I walk to the sidewalk, look left, then right. Now, everybody seems to be outside. The smells are wonderful. Hickory, brown sugar, limes. My neighborhood is partying.
Rudy waves to me. He’s wearing a big chef’s hat. He’s cooking on the Palmers’ grill. “No sense letting meat waste if the power goes out.”
Mrs. Palmer shouts, “You want ribs? You and Mama Ya-Ya?”
“Yes,” I say.
“I’ll bring them over.”
“With potato salad,” says Mr. Palmer from his wheelchair.
Monique shouts, “I’ve got hot dogs. Want one or two?”
“Two,” I answer back. One for me, one for Spot.
At this moment, I want to crush the entire neighborhood in my arms.
Rudy shouts, “Let’s have salsa music.”
“The Neville Brothers,” says Ernestine.
“Blues,” Monique hollers back.
I smile and go inside. Good thing the TV is small enough for me to lift. I carry it upstairs to Mama Ya-Ya’s room.
Plugging in the TV, I tell Mama Ya-Ya all about the party. “We’ll have some good food tonight. Mr
s. Palmer has ribs. See, things aren’t so bad. We’ll be all right, tonight.”
I keep talking and talking, telling Mama Ya-Ya about the food, the music, and about how happy everyone seems. How beautiful the sky looks with its orange and purple swirls.
Mama Ya-Ya doesn’t say much. She can barely keep her eyes open. I don’t know if she’s so tired or so intent on dreaming.
I take a bubble bath. I’ve been saving my cherry bubbles for a special occasion. I think: What can be more special than a hurricane?
When Mama Ya-Ya gave me the bubbles last Christmas, she told me that cherries were a sign for good fortune and sweet character. “Like you, Lanesha.”
When I’m finished, I just want to curl up in bed, with a soft pillow, and sleep without dreams. But I don’t.
I gather up my schoolbooks, my pencils, my purple pen, and carry them to Mama Ya-Ya’s bedroom. I’m almost done, ready for the night.
“Spot, do you need to go outside?” I whisper.
Spot leaps off the bed.
Mama Ya-Ya fidgets and turns in her sleep as Spot and I head outside.
I see darkness on the horizon. Rolling, rolling in like a too warm blanket. Wind has picked up, blowing leaves, causing branches to sway ever so slightly.
There are covered plates by our front door. Hot dogs, ribs, and potato salad. Neighbors have shared extra food. I guess we are surviving this storm together.
The neighborhood is a ghost town. Truly. The street is darker than usual because planks and shutters across house windows keep in the light. No cars are moving down the street. No one’s sitting on porches. Or walking dogs. Not even Aunt Ernestine’s stray cat—the no-name cat—is anywhere to be seen. Everyone is inside, waiting.
But I see ghosts. More than I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
Ghosts are LOITERING. I like that word. STANDING IDLY, LINGERING AIMLESSLY. Me and Spot see them all. Seeing so many ghosts scares me. Before they just were—now they seem like an OMEN: OF BAD THINGS TO COME.
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