by Renée Watson
At first I think maybe Ava isn’t going to say anything. Maybe she is not ready to forgive me or talk to me. But after a while, she says, “I’m sorry, too.” Then she says, “For everything.”
“And I accept your apology,” Nina says.
We all start eating again, and we get to talking as if there was never anything that silenced us.
Nina says, “Mom, can we visit Uncle Charles and Amara in Oregon one day?”
And with that question, I start telling them about all the things there are to do, all the places we could go: Multnomah Falls, OMSI, Oaks Amusement Park. And that’s just a few. “We could do a day at Seaside Beach. There’s all kinds of things to do there, like ride bumper cars, feed the seals—oh, and there’s a candy store there that has the best saltwater taffy.”
“Okay, okay, slow down,” Dad says. “Clearly, Amara will be the tour guide.” I hear him whisper to Aunt Tracey, “Leslie and I can cover airfare for the girls.”
Grandpa Earl says, “A Baker family gathering next summer. I like the sound of that.”
We order dessert, and soon the table is covered with bowls of peach cobbler and plates with slices of sweet potato pie. Aunt Tracey starts telling stories about Dad again. She tells us how in the summertime the fire hydrants would be turned on and they would play in the water, splashing each other and playing tag. And how Grandpa Earl and Grandma Grace took them to see the Christmas tree lighting every year at Rockefeller Center. Then, she tells us stories of Dad breaking her dolls and all the shenanigans they’d get into. “Listen, ladies. There are pros and cons to having a brother.” Then she says, “But I admit, we’ve had more good times than bad.”
The stories continue, with Nina and Ava sharing their own tales of sibling shenanigans. We laugh the kind of laughs that make the strangers at other tables look at us, the kind of laugh that burns my eyes and makes my stomach ache. This is the kind of laughter I am having when, through my blurry eyes, I see Grandpa Earl touch Dad’s shoulder, and Dad doesn’t become a statue or pull away. Instead they look at each other, keep laughing, keep smiling.
We don’t want the night to end, but there is a long line of customers waiting to be seated. Aunt Tracey says, “After-party at Dad’s?” and we head back to Grandpa Earl’s.
Once we’re at the house, we sit in the living room listening to more stories about Dad and Aunt Tracey’s childhood. Grandpa Earl is sitting next to Dad, and they are going back and forth tag-teaming on a story about the time Dad snuck out of the house and got caught. Both of them laughing so hard they can barely finish the story.
I leave for a moment, go upstairs, and get the tape recorder. I don’t want to ask formal questions, just want to get this candid moment of everyone laughing and talking. I push the Record and Play buttons. Capture all this joy.
19
The smell of sizzling bacon, eggs, and pancakes floats through the brownstone. Dad must be cooking. A real breakfast. Not oatmeal. I walk into the hallway, and just when I get to the edge of the stairs, I hear Grandpa Earl and Dad talking and so I don’t go down. I just sit at the top of the stairs listening to words like “sorry” and “I forgive you” and “I’ve always loved you” and “I want you in my life,” and I think about how much I love words. How mighty powerful they are.
I get ready for the day, putting on my Jordan Retros 1. Today is the Slam Dunk Contest, and Dad is taking me, Nina, and Ava. Aunt Tracey comes, too. When we get to Barclays Center, Nina and Ava are all big eyed and shocked because they didn’t know we’d be sitting in Nike’s private suite. “So, wait,” Ava says, “we can just get as many snacks and drinks as we want?”
Aunt Tracey says, “Well, yes, but no. Don’t overdo it. We’re guests here.”
Dad says, “You’re my guests. You can have as much as you want of whatever you want.” We each get a wristband and go inside the room. “Let’s get you all your gift bags before we get our seats,” Dad says.
Nina opens her bag first. “All of this is for us?” she says. “Thanks, Uncle Charles.” She takes out a set of headphones and the newest iPad and holds up the All-Star T-shirt to her body, seeing if it fits. “Thank you,” she says again.
Aunt Tracey looks through her bag. “Charles, you are spoiling us. What am I going to do when you leave?”
We all keep digging in the never-ending gift bags. Ava and I go over to the food table and fix our plates. There’s all kinds of food on the table, so much that I hope more people are coming because this looks like a lot of food for just the people in this room. Ava and I sit with the rest of the family, who are still not eating.
One of Dad’s coworkers comes over and introduces himself, telling us how much Dad talks about us at work, how he’s so honored to finally meet us in person. I know I am smiling so hard right now, but I can’t hide feeling good knowing that when Dad travels I am never far from his mind. “All right, so who you rooting for?” the man asks.
Nina and Ava answer, “East Coast,” at the same time.
“And you?” he asks me.
“Same,” I say.
“Really now?” He shakes his head, pretending to be disappointed. “I gotta go find me some West Coast people.” He laughs and walks away, saying, “Enjoy the weekend,” as he makes his way to mingle with another family.
Just as the announcer’s voice booms through the stadium introducing the start of the game, my phone buzzes. I take it out and see that Hannah is calling. “Hello?”
“Amara, where’s your dad? I’ve been calling him, but he won’t pick up.” Hannah is talking fast, and there is panic in her voice.
“We’re at Barclays Center for the Slam Dunk Contest. He’s right here,” I tell her. “Hold on.” I walk over to Dad, who is taking a picture with some of his coworkers. “Dad, it’s Hannah.”
As soon as I say that, Dad grabs the phone and walks out into the hallway where it is quieter. I follow him, even though I know he wouldn’t want me to. He is too distracted to even notice I am there. He walks halfway down the hall, finds a quiet spot, and leans against the wall. “Is she okay?” he asks. And then so much silence I can barely keep my heart inside my chest. He is nodding and saying, “Uh-huh, okay. Okay,” and pacing back and forth. Then he says, “We’ll fly out as soon as we can.” Dad hangs up the phone, looks at me, and says, “We have to go. The baby is coming.”
Saying goodbye is rushed, and I feel like I am forgetting something because I packed so fast and didn’t double-check the closet or do one last look-through of the room like Mom always does whenever we travel with Dad and stay in hotels.
Dad carries our suitcases downstairs and loads Aunt Tracey’s car. He comes back to give hugs to Nina and Ava, and then he hugs Grandpa Earl. Long, tight.
When they let go of each other, Grandpa Earl looks at me, says, “My sunshine, come here,” and he opens his arms wide for me.
I hug him, and he is holding me so tight I think I will feel this hug long after I am out of his embrace.
“Bye, Amara. I’m glad we got to hang out,” Nina says. “Can’t wait to visit Oregon.” She hugs me.
Ava and I say our goodbyes next. After we hug each other, she says, “I hope everything’s okay with Aunt Leslie and the baby.”
“Thank you,” I say.
Aunt Tracey says, “It will be fine. Leslie is at thirty-six weeks. That’s not full term, but it’s not dire. She’ll be okay, she’ll be okay.” I am not sure if Aunt Tracey believes herself. She repeats it again and again in the car on the way to the airport. “Everything is going to be fine. The baby will be fine. Thirty-six weeks isn’t so bad.”
These are the only words spoken in the car. Dad is texting and listening to voice mails and texting some more with Hannah. I am sitting in the back seat saying goodbye to New York as it flashes past me. Already I miss this place, but I am anxious to get home. The whole way to the airport I whisper a prayer for Mom, for my baby sister, for all of us.
20
While Dad and I were suspended in the
air, flying in the space above the clouds, so close to heaven that our prayers were sure to be heard, Mom gave birth to my baby sister.
Tadala. Tadala means “we have been blessed.”
She is five pounds of breath, a tiny girl who cries all night and sleeps all day, who made Dad weep when he first held her in his arms. She likes it when I hold her. I know this because she never fusses when she is in my arms. I am already her favorite, and she’s only known me for a few days. Already I love her more than a few days’ worth of love.
Today is the first day she is home, and we get to see her without tubes and out of the incubator that looked like a bubble made out of glass with its small hole only big enough to slide your arm in and hold her too-small hand. Now, I can hold all of her. “You can’t hold her all day,” Mom says. “She’s going to be spoiled rotten.” Mom takes Tadala from me, but holds her for a little while before putting her in her bassinet. All day, this is what we do—hold her, feed her, change her, hold her, feed her, change her.
This time, when Mom puts Tadala in the bassinet for a nap, Mom goes to sleep, too. Dad tiptoes in the kitchen, fixing a late lunch—which is actually just reheating the feast Titus’s mom brought over. She’s been bringing food over to the house every few days to help out, even though Mom and Dad insisted that she didn’t have to do that. The gray sky has been pouring out rain all day. Dad and I eat lunch together in the kitchen, listening to the noisy raindrops splash and crash onto the windowsill, the pavement. When we are finished, he gets up from the table and says, “Come with me. I want to show you something.” He walks upstairs.
I follow him to the attic. It is a spacious room with a low ceiling but big enough for me to stand without having to bend. Dad is hunching, lowering his head. He bends over and pulls the chest that Mom never lets me open into the center of the room.
“Open it,” Dad says.
I think maybe this is a trick or something, but he just looks at me until I twist open the lock. Inside the chest there’s a quilt made with only black-and-white-patterned fabrics.
“Your grandma Grace made that,” Dad tells me. Under the quilt, there is a treasure of journals of different shapes and sizes. Some thick like books, others thin with spiral wire tying the pages together. “These belonged to your grandma,” Dad says. “Aunt Tracey sent them to me the year after she died.”
Dad picks up one of the journals, the one that is made of black leather with a small gold clasp on the side. “My mom didn’t write poetry, but she recorded everything. In the mornings, before the sun was up, she would sit at the dining room table with her ginger tea, writing.” He hands me the journal.
I open it and read out loud, let Grandma Grace’s words flow through me, let her tell me, in her own words, our story.
21
Our suitcases are due next week. Mom cleared off the dining room table so I could use her workspace. The cherry-wood suitcase sits in the middle of the table. I have the photocopied pictures from Grandpa Earl’s album, and I’ve printed some of the photos from my trip to New York. I even have a few from a walk I took around my neighborhood here in Beaverton. All the images are glued down on the top and bottom of the suitcase, covering the lining. I’ve stuffed the side pockets with a few of Dad’s old tapes, scraps of fabric, and bundles of lavender. I’ve put some of my poems inside, too.
I’ve decided to make the bottom of the suitcase look like the cosmogram at the Schomburg Center. My artifact is Dad’s tape recorder. I put it in the center, take a blank cassette, and pull all the tape out of it, so it can pour out the open cassette door like a river with many streams. The rivers represented in my display are the Columbia River and the Harlem River. And just like Langston, I’m representing places that are important to me, where I have roots: my grandma’s kitchen, my grandpa’s sitting room, my school’s library, the table in the kitchen where I eat with Mom and Dad, the Schomburg Center, 125th Street, Frederick Douglass Boulevard, Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon. Some of these places I am still getting to know, some of these places I have known all my life. All these places made me, are making me.
MY SUITCASE CARRIES
Grandma’s recipes:
a little bit of this, a little bit of that.
Ginger for tea, brown sugar for oatmeal.
A deep pot for stews and soups, an iron skillet
for everything else.
Instructions for stretching a little into a whole lot.
Grandpa’s southern drawl,
his slow walk and brown fedora.
A handful of caramel candies and always
peppermint, coffee beans, and cocoa powder.
Old records with jazz moans scratched in the vinyl.
Mom’s bundles of lavender for drawers and closets.
Coconut oil for hair, for skin.
Candles to chase away darkness.
How she makes beauty out of every thing she touches.
Her knowing even when no one has told her.
Dad’s verbs and nouns,
his tapes and notebooks—
a record of his soul. His voice
always comforting me, telling me I am loved as is.
Gray skies and Oregon rain,
the beep-beep-beep of New York streets.
Rivers and roots,
protests and prayers.
All these things
I bring with me.
Author’s Note
My personal story is very different from Amara’s, but there are some things we have in common. One is our love for Oregon and New York. These two places are home for me, and I enjoyed bringing them together in these pages. Like Amara, I am fascinated with family history, oral stories, and learning about my ancestors. My mother tells me I was her “why child.” Always asking questions about the who, what, when, where, and why of a place—of us.
I grew up in a family of storytellers, so answers to my questions were easy to come by. I remember many family gatherings ending with my aunts and uncles reminiscing about what used to be. I loved laughing at the tales my Aunt Mary would share about the shenanigans she got into with my mom and their ten siblings. In every retelling I found myself. I realized who I was more like, where I got my creativity from, whose personality was completely opposite or just like mine. This oral history also taught me about the strength and resilience that was passed down generation to generation, and it made me feel powerful and capable of achieving anything, of overcoming any obstacle I might face. It even taught me how to fail—how to get up after failure and keep going. No family is perfect, and mine has its share of heartbreak and even shame. Knowing this has taught me how to love unconditionally and how to forgive. I have also learned that some family are the people you choose. Like Amara, I have the loving family I was born into, and I also have very special friends who are like family. I am so grateful to have both.
Speaking of my family and friends, I’d like to thank a few: thank you to Jennifer Baker, Ellen Hagan, and Lisa Green for such support while I worked on this book. Our writing dates kept me going. Kori Johnson and Linda Christensen for reading and rereading drafts and offering feedback. And always, thank you to my editor, Sarah Shumway, for your keen editorial eye, patience, and care.
And to my maternal grandparents, to whom this book is dedicated, so much of who I am is because of you. I carry you with me every day.
The Suitcase Project
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Interview a special adult in your life. Choose interview questions from the list below.
□ When you were my age what was something you really, really wanted to do?
□ Tell me one story about your mom or dad.
□ What is the name of the city you grew up in? Did you like living there?
□ Who was your childhood best friend? What did you do together?
□ Do you know the meaning of your name? Do you think it accurately describes you?
□ What is something you are proud
of?
□ Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give to yourself when you were my age?
□ If your life had a soundtrack, name four songs that would be on it.
□ What does family mean to you?
□ What do you hope your legacy will be?
WRITING PROMPTS
□ Take a classic poem (like Amara’s father did with Langston Hughes’s “Mother to Son”) and write your own version of it
□ Write a poem listing the people, places, and things in your neighborhood
□ Write a praise poem for a family member or friend
□ Write a poem about a favorite place
□ Write a poem about your family tree
□ Write an apology poem
□ Write a letter to a person who has died. What do you want to ask them? What do you want them to know?
□ Research the year you were born. Find out what entertainment (music, movies, television shows, etc.) was popular, what was happening politically. Write a poem using the facts you learned. Start the poem with the line, “When I came into the world …”
□ Write a poem or letter to your future self. What do you want to remember? What do you want to let go of? Who do you want to be?
□ Make a list of the Top 10 Things you are thankful for.
ITEMS TO INCLUDE IN YOUR SUITCASE
□ A photo from your childhood
□ A photo of your family
□ Two inspiring quotes
□ An item that represents the music you love to listen to
□ An item that represents a special place you have traveled to or would like to travel to