Angie nodded continually, as if her bobbing head could somehow stop Lana’s tears from falling.
“I hope people still order a lot of the show’s pieces,” said Lana. She folded her arms. “I think they will.” She gave Angie a big, professional smile. “Thanks for all your help today.”
Angie was still nodding as she left Lana standing there; she couldn’t get out of the store fast enough, ran across the parking lot, gratefully slammed shut the door of her car, relieved to be back in her cocoon. She pushed play on the cassette player, and breathed relief as the sounds of Fela’s sinewy horn and hypnotic rhythms filled her ears, soothing her throughout the drive home.
The kitchen smelled like old times, but her mother looked new, with her freshly arched eyebrows and dewy skin, her light-hearted aura. She was playing a cassette that Denise and Angie had compiled for her last birthday. All female jazz singers. Right now, Dinah Washington sang of this bitter earth, may not be so bitter after all and her mother hummed along to the music as she cooked. Angie enjoyed watching her mother drop the cornmeal-covered catfish into the sizzling oil. Denise was out with friends, taking advantage of her last night in town. Her mother slid a piece of fish out of the skillet onto the awaiting plate, paper towel beneath to catch the excess oil.
“Lord, I need to pack,” she said. “My flight leaves at ten tomorrow morning.”
“I can help you after dinner,” said Angie as she poured a Coca-Cola for herself, another for her mother. They ate together at the dinette table, Angie enjoying the fish’s crispy saltiness.
Her mother stood to clear the table and Angie joined in. Together they moved to the kitchen sink, scraped plates. Her mother turned on the faucet, poured Palmolive into the water. Angie watched the soap bubbles form.
“You know, I wanted to talk to you about this Atlanta trip,” said her mother.
Angie swiped at a plate. She didn’t want to hear it.
The phone rang, a reprieve. Her mother dried her hands on the madras dishtowel and answered it. Angie quickly washed more plates as she listened. “Hello? Hi, what’s going on? In the morning. First thing, yes. Louis, I told you about this, weeks ago. Well no, I can’t, sorry. Get Jennifer to come in. In a few days. I don’t know exactly. Of course, don’t I always? OK. Uh-huh. Bye.”
Nanette returned, took a plate from Angie. “I swear, that man acts like he’s so helpless.”
“Dr. B., I take it.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Angie washed a glass, rinsed it, handed it to her mother.
“I can’t tell you what a relief it’ll be to get a break from that office,” said her mother. “I’m sick of it.”
“I know,” said Angie. She grabbed a skillet, began scrubbing.
“I’m not so sure you do. How much I’m ready for a change.” Her mother hesitated. “I feel like I’ve been stuck here, just stuck in one place.”
Angie waited, illogically hoping that maybe she’d gotten it wrong, maybe the circled houses in the newspaper didn’t mean what she thought they meant.
“This trip to Atlanta is a little more than a visit.”
Angie scrubbed away, resigned. “I know.”
“Do you?”
“You’re planning on moving there.”
“Well, I will be damned,” said her mother. “How did you figure that out?”
“I just knew,” she lied. “And I’m sorry you didn’t think you could tell me the truth.”
“To be honest, I didn’t know how you’d react.”
“What does it matter? Looks like you made up your mind already.”
Several seconds passed as they washed and dried the remaining dishes in silence.
“Well, there’s still a lot to work out. What to do with this house for one.” Her mother paused. “I know you’re still figuring out things yourself, but if you want to join me—”
“No, I do not.” Angie shoved a pot into her mother’s hands.
She could see Nanette was taken aback by her harsh tone. “OK, that’s fine.”
“You talk about me trying to be like Ella?” Angie fumed. “Look at you. Denise lives in Atlanta, so you’re moving there. Whatever she thinks you should do, you do it.”
“It wasn’t her idea, it was mine.”
“How could you even think about moving there? You hate the South! That’s what you always said.” Angie was worked up now. “Remember Emmett Till? You were pregnant with Ella and you made the mistake of looking at that picture of him lying in his casket? His brutally beaten, bloated face! And the sight of him upset you so much, you almost had a miscarriage.”
“Yes, but—”
“And you said you vowed then that if you ever got out of the South, you were never going back.”
“The South of 1956 is not the South of today,” said her mother. “And Atlanta isn’t exactly the deep South. It’s thriving, with a sophisticated black mayor and new everything. When I went there for Denise’s graduation—” here her mother paused, obviously still pained that she’d missed seeing her daughter walk across the stage—“I liked it. The black middle class is doing so well there. And the weather is nice.”
“Is this about Dr. B.?”
Her mother looked startled and Angie felt a sick satisfaction.
“Denise told me,” she said.
Nanette stared at the dishwater. “That’s one reason, yes.” She looked back up at Angie, brazen, daring her daughter to judge her. “But that’s not the only reason.”
“Is it that guy from your high school days?”
“Franklin?” Her mother laughed nervously. “Oh shoot, who knows what’ll come of that? I haven’t seen that man in thirty years.”
“Then why?” pleaded Angie. “Why?”
“Because it’s something I’ve wanted for a long time honestly, to live somewhere else. I used to talk to your father about moving, but he didn’t want to hear it. ‘Leave Hazel Park Raceway?’ he’d say. ‘For what?’ So we stayed.”
“You’re blaming Daddy?”
“I’m not blaming anybody, Angela, but you asked me and I’m telling you. Samson felt this was the best place for him to run horses, so this is where we moved, and this is where we stayed.” She sighed. “With him, the horses always came first.”
“That’s not true! He put us first!”
“He was gone six months of every year. But OK, I’m not gonna mess with your memories on that. You were so young.”
“But I remember a lot. I remember him being there, holding me, playing with us.” It rose suddenly in her, Angie’s need to defend her father, against the man from her mother’s high school days and Dr. Benjamin. “Look at how he spent all that time teaching Ella to ride.”
“He did,” admitted her mother. “He spent too much time on that, if you ask me. Trying to make her into a jockey.”
“She loved it,” said Angie.
“She loved getting his attention. And he loved the idea that he could say he, Samson Mackenzie, had a daughter who was gonna be the first black female jockey ever.”
“What’s so wrong with that?”
“He badgered her about her weight. I didn’t like that. I tried to tell him to leave her alone. You can’t do that to a girl, you got to be very careful around that subject. I know.” Her mother shook her head. “I do believe that was Ella’s biggest problem, him criticizing her ‘cause she wasn’t the perfect weight to race a horse.”
Angie’s fury grew at the thought of her father being blamed for Ella’s problems. How could her mother be in such denial?
“That wasn’t her biggest problem,” said Angie. “You leaving her down South was.”
Her mother looked at her. Angie could see that she’d hit a nerve.
“That was Samson’s idea too,” said her mother.
“But you let him. You followed him up here.”
<
br /> “Yes, I did. I had my doubts about it; it was a hard decision, but the aunts were so happy to keep her, they begged me and I thought it might be better for Ella to stay put, rather than drag her up North. Lord knows, I didn’t know what to expect up here myself.”
“But you left her there for two whole years!”
“It didn’t do her any real harm.”
“Things happened to her down there,” said Angie.
“What kind of things?”
“Things.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“She said the aunts didn’t watch her as closely as they should have.”
Realization flickered across her mother’s face. She looked stricken. “Well, I didn’t know anything about that. Ella never said a word.” She put the dishtowel back on the door handle of the refrigerator. “And at this point, some things I don’t need to know.”
She walked out.
Angie felt horrendous. She followed her mother into the bedroom. “I can still help you pack, if you want.”
Her mother shrugged. Angie picked up a blouse, began delicately folding it, placed it into the suitcase.
“The whole point, everything I did, was to give her a better life,” explained her mother. “I hope you understand that.”
Angie grabbed a nightgown, started folding. “Yes, I know Mama.”
“How was I to know that she’d take that opportunity and squander it on dope?”
Angie couldn’t believe her mother didn’t understand, after all this time. “It wasn’t her fault,” she said.
“Well whose was it? Lord knows, she didn’t have it to do.”
“Maybe she did.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You got more secrets that she revealed only to you?”
“We used to talk about a lot and—”
“I’m listening.”
“Maybe she felt abandoned when you left her.”
Her mother swatted her hand at the air, dismissive. “That’s nonsense. The aunties were very good to her. In fact, they spoiled her rotten. And what does that have to do with her becoming a heroin addict? Nothing.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I studied this stuff in school, OK? Feeling abandoned can often lead to drug addiction. It can happen.” Her mother glared at her. “I learned that in my psych classes,” Angie added, but already she regretted saying it.
“So you blame me.” Her mother threw her new peach-colored dress into the suitcase.
“No. I mean, it’s just—” Angie stopped mid-sentence.
Her mother threw in the other new dress. Angie felt awful. Those lovely dresses would become all wrinkled now. She wanted to say something, but could only watch as her mother threw more things into her new floral luggage.
Tears fell from Nanette’s eyes. She’d seen her mother cry only twice before, and both times at funerals. Angie worried about those new dresses, worried about tear stains dropping onto the linen. She didn’t know what to do.
Nanette looked over at Angie, eyes glistening. “You’re right. It was my fault.”
“Mama, I don’t blame you,” she insisted. “Really I don’t.”
Her mother pushed down the lid of her suitcase with finality, looked Angie in the eye. “But not because we left her down south. That wasn’t it. It was my fault for leaving the South at all.” She snapped the suitcase’s locks in place, one at a time. “I never should’ve moved to this god-awful place, where they just throw drugs into every black neighborhood like it’s Christmas candy.” She pointed to her own chest. “You think it doesn’t haunt me? How none of your cousins down south got hooked on dope? Well it does.” Her mother sat on the bed. “I came here to make a better life for her and the place killed her.”
“That’s not true Mama!” Angie sat next to her mother. “That’s not true. A car killed Ella. A car in Lagos—”
Her mother shook her head so hard, her face blurred. “Lagos didn’t kill her. Detroit did.”
She put her hand on her mother’s arm. Her mother flinched.
“Please, leave me alone. I’m through with it.”
“Mama, I—”
Nanette turned, inches from Angie’s face. “Did you hear me, damn it!? I said I’m through with it!”
She stood, a drop of spit from her mother’s mouth on her nose. She watched as her mother shoved the suitcase onto the floor. It hit with a dead thud.
“Close the door behind you,” said Nanette.
Angie did as she was told. Once behind her own closed door, she lay on the bed, stared at the ceiling, tears sliding sideways, face hot with shame.
EIGHT
The next morning, her mother stood by the front door, suitcase in hand. “I’ll see you when I get back,” she said.
Angie nodded. She wanted to say, “I’m sorry,” but the words wouldn’t come.
Denise tooted her car horn in the driveway and their mother headed out. Angie went to the door, waved goodbye. Denise lowered her car window. “Don’t throw any wild parties now that you got the house to yourself!”
“Don’t give me ideas!” said Angie, forcing a playful tone for her mother’s benefit.
Nanette got into the car. Angie waved frantically, desperate to apologize yet not wanting to do so in front of Denise, time running out.
Her mother waved back. “Be safe.” She got in the passenger side. Angie watched as the car rolled out of the driveway and down the block. She waved again, knowing they couldn’t see her.
As soon as she re-entered the house, she started prepping. By day’s end, she’d set up an appointment for her travel shots, purchased a plane ticket on her credit card, withdrawn money from the joint account she shared with her mother—careful to take out only her portion of the insurance money—and found out where she’d have to go during a layover in New York to get a visa-stamp in her passport. The next few days were a flurry of work, preparation for her trip, work, prep. She told Lana she’d be leaving for a while. Lana promised Angie she’d try her best to hold the job for her. “You’re one of my best salesgirls,” she said.
When her mother called to say she’d be staying in Atlanta for another couple days, (“Just over the weekend, back by Monday”), Angie faced a dilemma. She’d selected her departure date, June 14, based on her mother being back. Now she’d be leaving before her mother returned, unless she changed her ticket. She didn’t know what to do.
To calm her nerves, she reread Ella’s letters. Like sacred texts, the familiar words had a restorative effect. They transported her back to those precious few months, years before, when everything had been in front of her. Ella was well and seemingly happy in Nigeria, and Angie was in college, newly in love, and thinking of visiting her sister on the continent. After a long time of worry over Ella, she’d felt the space in her world open up, came to know her own capacity for joy. She’d gotten her life back.
She dozed off and when she woke up the letters were scattered across her bed; one had fallen to the floor. As she carefully retrieved them, kissed each one, she decided not to change her travel plans.
The morning of her flight, Angie sat on the sofa and stared at her new American Tourister luggage. She’d been determined to limit herself to one bag, but it was bulging. She hadn’t really known what to take, had finally settled on a few crinkly Indian skirts, jeans, tops, a nightgown, and a plethora of toiletries. Plus the gold pen and journal Ella had given her as a high school graduation present. And all of Ella’s letters. It dawned on her that there’d be two long plane rides and at the last minute she threw in Toni Morrison’s new novel Beloved and Ella’s favorite novel—an old paperback copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude.
She picked up the phone, started to push the buttons for Denise’s number, stopped. She tried again. Her sister answered on the third ring. Gospel played in the background.
“Hey!�
�� said Denise. “Is everything OK?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I’m just asking, Angie. You are there alone.”
“Everything is fine,” she said. “Let me speak to Mama.”
“She’s not here. She’s out having breakfast with that guy Franklin. I think they’re actually getting along really well!” Denise was obviously tickled. “Can you believe it? After all these years?”
“Wow,” said Angie, oppressed by the news. “I guess you’ll have to tell her bye for me.” As she said it, Angie realized she preferred things this way. She hadn’t known how she was going to tell her mother herself.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m leaving for Nigeria today.”
“You’re what?”
“You heard me.”
“Wait a minute. Does Mama know?”
“Yeah, we discussed it.”
“She didn’t say anything to me about this. I mean, she mentioned you talking about it, yeah, but—”
“Maybe she doesn’t tell you everything after all,” said Angie.
Denise sighed, exasperated. Angie had heard that sigh all her life, that you’re-five-and-a-half-years-younger-than-me-and-so-immature sigh. “Look, when Mama gets back, I’ll have her call and you two can discuss this.”
“I can’t wait until she gets back. My flight leaves at two.”
“Girl, you can’t just up and go across the world, to Africa of all places, just like that!”
“Yes I can.” She paused. “Tell Mama I love her, OK?”
“Whoa, Angie. You’re not even gonna say bye to her yourself?”
“You can do it for me. And tell her I’m sorry, OK?”
“For what?”
“She’ll know. I gotta go.”
“Listen! Call as soon as you get there!”
“Denise, the phones over there don’t always work,” she said, totally unsure whether this was true.
“Check in with the US embassy as soon as you arrive, you hear me? And do not let anything happen to you over there! I cannot bear the thought of delivering more bad news to Mama.”
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