The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois

by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers

  “Belle, you really should be training a more careful eye on her. Her oldest sister already has set a bad example. Lydia couldn’t even get into a good college with those mediocre grades of hers. And then she brought home some ruffian that she married?”

  I looked down at the table; no one was supposed to tell my grandmother that my big sister had disappeared.

  Mama gathered the empty plates, scraping them into a bowl, a girlhood habit she retained from helping her father slop the hogs. She headed to the kitchen as my father announced he hated to break up a great evening, but he had patient files to read; he would call Nana a taxi.

  When Nana lifted her face for a farewell kiss, Daddy ignored her. He walked toward the kitchen and met my mother, who was coming back out with pie. When he kissed her cheek, she closed her eyes and smiled, but later that night she let him have it.

  “Miss Claire raised boys,” she said. “What the hell does she know about my parenting skills?”

  I couldn’t see from my hiding space in the hall, but I expected my mother was rolling her hair, that my father was sitting at the bedside taking off his wing tips. No slip-ons for him, because one never knew when a crack fiend would hit him over the head at that clinic where he volunteered. They could try to steal his shoes, but the double knot would trick them.

  “Baby, ignore her. You see she doesn’t upset me. You know why? Because I don’t even pay attention. You have to learn to flip the ‘I can’t hear Claire’ switch on.”

  He cursed—he was fighting with a knot.

  “That’s easy for you to say,” Mama said. “She doesn’t blame you for anything that goes wrong. No, this whole Lydia mess is my fault. It’s bad enough your mother has been turning my baby girl against me since she was a toddler. Thank the Lord I still have Coco.”

  “Belle.”

  “Oh, so now I’m crazy.” Her voice turned loud and drawled. “So when Miss Claire tells Ailey to wear a hat outside, she don’t mean, Don’t get as dark as your own damned mama. Tell me I’m lying. Go ’head and say it.”

  “Woman, did I call you a crazy liar? Don’t you put that on me.” He would be holding his hand palm down, his placating gesture. “We both know Claire Prejean Garfield is mean as a stomped-on rattlesnake. That’s why I married me a sweet girl.”

  “Don’t you try to jolly me along, Geoff! I’m so tired of your damned mother! I did the best I could to raise Lydia, and she was a good girl until she met that nigger. I tried to tell you about that boy, but no, you couldn’t take my side.”

  “I only said Dante seemed nice enough. I mean, he had bad table manners, but was that really the end of the world?”

  “I told you, I had a dream about him! And my dreams are never wrong. Remember when I used to have those dreams about you, back in the day?”

  “Woman, please don’t throw that up in my face. That was nearly twenty years ago.”

  “I’m just reminding you, don’t make fun of my dreams.”

  “I’m not. You’re not the only one who’s worried. Lydia’s my daughter, too.”

  “But you didn’t carry her in your body. I did.”

  * * *

  It was past midnight, well past the hour when phone calls were allowed in a southern Black woman’s house, but there was repeated ringing. Silence and the phone rang again. It was March, but the nights were still cold and I hopped across the freezing wood floor to answer the phone.

  “Garfield residence.”

  “Baby sister? Is that you?”

  “Lydia?! Where are you—”

  The phone was snatched from my hand. Before my mother spoke into the receiver, she pointed to my room. Go back to bed. I left my door open, and she closed it firmly. But I put my ear to the door and heard her murmuring on the hall phone. I couldn’t make out the words, but I could tell when she’d hung up. Minutes later, I tiptoed back down the hallway until I reached my parents’ open doorway. My mother’s suitcase was open on the bed.

  “I thought I told you to go back to bed,” she said.

  “What did Lydia say?” I asked.

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  “Do you want me to tuck you in?”

  “No, I’m too big.” But I let her follow me into my room. She spread the comforter back over me up to my chin. Was that better? I nodded, and she told me, no matter how big I got, I’d always be her baby girl.

  In the morning, Mama was absent from the kitchen, as was my breakfast. I walked to the refrigerator and opened it, pulling out a package of cheddar cheese and an apple. I told myself this was good. I didn’t have to go to school, and I could eat whatever I wanted, but then my aunt walked into the kitchen, leading Veronica by the hand. She’d already dropped off Malcolm and had come back to get me. This was Aunt Diane’s late morning working at the counseling center.

  Her voice was perky as she exclaimed she’d brought me a blueberry muffin and a sandwich. I followed her out to the car and watched her wrangle Veronica into the car seat and tell her yes, she still had to sit there. “Please be nice for Mommy. Don’t be naughty.” Before she turned on the ignition, Aunt Diane told me my mother had flown to Georgia.

  “But don’t worry, we’ll be staying with you. Won’t that be nice? Just like a big slumber party!”

  “When is Mama coming back?”

  “I don’t know, darling.” She smiled and handed me the paper lunch sack. “Have a great day! I’ll see you this afternoon.”

  My aunt stayed in Coco’s room with Veronica, while Malcolm slept on the living room couch. My father spent more time at the hospital, only coming home to sleep or change clothes. He’d leave with paper sacks filled with Aunt Diane’s blueberry muffins or banana bread.

  Every evening, my uncle came by for dinner, which meant some kind of soup and a big green salad, because my aunt didn’t believe in stuffing the body at night. Uncle Lawrence would sit with Aunt Diane on the couch, though when he tried to get her to go down to the basement with him—because he had something very important he wanted to talk about with her—she pushed his shoulder impatiently. She asked him couldn’t he control himself for a few days? Did everything have to be about him and his needs?

  I didn’t sleep well while Mama was away, waking in the dark. The long-haired lady from my dreams was back. She took my hand and led me to a small clearing surrounded by trees, where she pointed to a grassy spot. I sat beside her. Unlike years past, I couldn’t see her face, though, and she no longer urged me to make water. We only sat together on the grass.

  Every night at nine, Mama called to tell me she and Lydia were fine, though she couldn’t put my sister on the phone. After a minute or two, she would tell me she didn’t want to run up the bill, so she wouldn’t hold me, but she loved me and please be good for my aunt. Don’t cause any trouble. When Mama hung up the phone, I’d call Coco’s dorm room at Yale, uncaring of long-distance charges.

  “So what the fuck is going on?” Coco asked. “She still hasn’t told you? Daddy neither?”

  “Uh-uh,” I said. “I barely see him, and every time she calls, she just says she’s all right, Lydia’s all right. That’s it.”

  “This is some certified bullshit. Did you ask Auntie what’s going on?”

  “Like she’d ever tell me, if Mama won’t. All she does is give me pancakes or muffins.”

  “At least you get a good breakfast. I know you hungry from all that soup and salad.”

  “Well, Auntie is a white lady, so she can’t make collard greens.”

  “You better not let Auntie hear she’s white. She thinks she’s an honorary sister.”

  We laughed, and then Coco turned serious again. “Shit. I knew that dude was some fucking trouble when I saw him.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “I had a dream about him.”

  “You sound like Mama.”

  “It is what it is. Okay, let me go. I gotta test tomorrow.”

  It was an early Sunday afternoon in May
when my mother returned. Outside, the chill in the morning air finally was gone and the rosebushes in our tiny front yard were no longer sullen and bare but budding into promise. My aunt and I sat on the couch in the living room, watching Meet the Press. Malcolm sat in the armchair, holding his sleeping sister on his lap. She was napping too late, which meant she’d be up all night looking to play and acting ugly when her mother insisted it was bedtime.

  The key jiggled in the front door, and my mother stepped inside. Seconds later, Lydia followed. Mama’s greeting was casual, as if she hadn’t been gone for two months, but everyone else in the room cried their surprise. The noise woke Veronica, who began to clap her hands and laugh. I rushed to the foyer, hugging my big sister. When I put my arms around her, she was so skinny her bones dug into me.

  I craned my neck, looking into the foyer.

  “Where’s Dante? Did he not come with y’all?”

  Neither of them answered, and when I asked my question again, Mama told me act civilized and let folks get in the door. Don’t be bum-rushing. They’d just come off the road and she had to call our people. They needed to know my sister and she had arrived safely, and then she had to call my father.

  She squeezed my aunt around the waist.

  “Diane, you can call your man first, though.”

  A half hour later, my uncle arrived. His clothes were rumpled, his curly, salt-and-pepper hair grown over his eyes. He shook his keys dramatically. Come on, he said to my aunt. She could leave her car and pick it up tomorrow. Just come on, and no, he didn’t want to stay and eat. This had gone on long enough. But my aunt overruled him. It was Sunday, and my mother was cooking an early dinner. Wouldn’t it be lovely to sit down as a family, all of us together? My uncle called his wife’s name, but she kept sitting on the couch.

  “You can leave if you want,” Aunt Diane said. “But I’m hungry, and so are my children.” She gestured to my cousin, who was standing, holding his sister. She told Malcolm sit down. They weren’t going anywhere, not yet.

  An hour later, my father came home and called out from the foyer. One of his colleagues was covering for him at the emergency room, but he had to be back by midnight. When he saw my sister sitting on the steps, he opened his arms. Hug his neck, he ordered. She stood up slowly. Walked hesitantly into my father’s arms. He hugged her close, then pushed her away.

  “Don’t you scare your daddy anymore. Don’t you scare him like that again.”

  “I promise.”

  “All right, now. You know us middle-aged Black men got bad nerves.”

  Lydia giggled, and he pulled her back in. Kissed the top of her head, until my mother came from the kitchen. Then he trotted to my mother, his round stomach bouncing. He picked her up, and her feet dangled for seconds.

  “I feel a poem coming on!” Daddy shouted.

  “Oh Lord. Somebody come get this Negro.” But Mama couldn’t stop smiling. She laid her head against his chest and raised a hand to rub his belly.

  There was plenty heavy food for dinner. My mother’s meat loaf, macaroni and cheese, sweet potatoes, corn bread, and the mandatory collard greens. My sister hunched her thin shoulders, concentrating on her plate. She’d been so quiet since her arrival. I’d followed her up to our room, pushing my dirty laundry off the twin bed that used to be hers. Wait just a few minutes, I’d told her. I’d get some fresh sheets and change the bed, while she’d murmured that was all right. Don’t make any trouble.

  I didn’t worry about her silence at dinner. I was just happy to see the faces of my mother and sister, and to eat real, seasoned food. At the table, I smacked my lips gratefully at the taste of garlic and onions and paprika, as Mama urged my sister to eat. She reached over with a knife and fork, cutting the meat loaf into pieces.

  My sister ate a very small bite. “Mmm, this is good.”

  “I know it’s your favorite, darling. There’s banana pudding for later.”

  Lydia ate another small bite, then put her fork down. She apologized for her lack of appetite, but Mama told her it was just exhaustion from that long drive.

  After another half hour, my uncle began making loud hints that it was time to take his family home. Mama told him stay awhile. There wasn’t any hurry, and plenty of food and sweet tea. When he insisted it was time, she made him sit down for a couple more minutes. Let her pack up some plates before they left. She’d made an extra pan of corn bread. She knew how he loved some corn bread.

  After the rest had left, my sister excused herself. I followed her, leaving our parents cuddled up on the couch. Their whispers broken only by soft laughter. The sound of their many kisses. Up in our room, I tried to talk to my sister, but she was still quiet as she hung up clothes from her suitcases and slipped into flowered pajamas. When I asked her where had she gone, and what about Dante? She slipped beneath the covers of her bed.

  “I’m tired, Ailey. I don’t feel like chatting.”

  She turned her face to the wall. Her breath deepened into sleep, but I lay in my own bed, unable to rest. The air conditioner came on roaring. When I slipped into the fog of a dream, the long-haired lady was there.

  * * *

  That June was strange. No farewell sleepover at Nana’s the night before she and Miss Delores traveled to Nana’s cottage on Martha’s Vineyard for the summer. And no rising with my mother to pack the station wagon for our own trip to Chicasetta. No sticking my head out the window to watch as we drove away from our house with my mother scolding I better put that head back in the window before I had an accident. Mama informed me there would be no summer in Chicasetta. She’d been gone from her husband too long after spending so long down south with Lydia, and she didn’t want to leave my father again, not so soon. Besides, I needed to get back to a routine anyway.

  “What about Miss Rose? What about Uncle Root?” I asked. “They’ll miss us!”

  “You can call them every Saturday. And this is a perfect time to catch up on your reading.”

  Nothing made me grind my teeth more than spending an entire summer in the City. I missed the chance to walk outside, to see sky and earth and trees. Lydia must have felt even worse, because there was no vacation for her at all. She had to enroll in summer school at Mecca University to retake two of the classes that she’d failed the previous year. She was diligent, rising at dawn. She would wake me and pad down the stairs, while I followed, wrapped in a blanket. In the kitchen, I begged for a cup of coffee, and she poured in cream and the brown sugar from the box saved for baking. She laid out bacon on a cookie sheet and mixed up biscuits, pressing them into a smaller pan. Soon, Mama would join us, scrambling eggs, pouring in the same heavy cream, sprinkling dried things and cheese into the mixture, and stirring up a large pot of grits.

  Another hour, and Daddy would sit down to the hearty meal, still sleepy from a night working the emergency room. My mother would eat her bland breakfast, grits with a banana, and they’d read their identical morning papers, because neither liked to share. Before heading out to his practice, he would pause at the door of the kitchen, sniffing deeply. Bacon smelled so good, like the memory of young love.

  “Your father thinks he’s a poet,” Mama would say.

  “I was in another life,” he’d reply.

  During the days, I surprised Mama by helping with housework before going off on my own to read. In the evenings, Lydia would sit on the living room couch and I’d settle between her knees on a floor pillow, and Lydia would scratch and oil my scalp.

  “I’ma cut off all this hair, Ailey. I need me a curly wig.”

  “Give me that comb so I can burn those strands. Don’t you put no roots on me.”

  “You sound like Miss Rose! She’s always thinking somebody’s trying to root her!”

  “Don’t she, though?”

  We watched tapes of television shows that I’d recorded on the VCR. I had two years of Dynasty on tape, and I kept a running stream of commentary to catch Lydia up. Alexis Carrington was our girl. She knew how to fling insults a
nd hands like she had some Black in her.

  If we didn’t watch television, we went to our room, lay on opposites sides of Lydia’s bed, and took turns reading out loud to each other. Lydia had all of Alice Walker’s books, but The Color Purple was the one she’d read eight times. It was like visiting Chicasetta every time she read it. When it was Lydia’s turn, she had different voices for each character, and it was like when we’d gone to see the movie. I’d only been twelve, but that winter break Lydia had lied that she was taking me to see Out of Africa. Mama had quizzed us when we returned. What was the plot? It was about Africa, we said. Yeah, yeah, and a white lady and a white man. A love story, and it had a really nice ending. Happily ever after. We repeated the story at dinner, but when Mama went to the kitchen with the dishes, Coco had whispered she was onto us. She’d read Out of Africa, and unless the movie had seriously changed the story, it should have been depressing as hell. The protagonist had syphilis.

  Nana returned from her vacation on Martha’s Vineyard in late August, a week before I began classes at my new school. The public schools already had started, and so had Lydia’s regular fall classes at Mecca. Nana called nearly every day, extending an invitation to me, but I didn’t want to give up my time with my sister. I finally had Lydia back, and if Mama didn’t exactly treat us as adults, she didn’t intrude on our time together. At Sunday dinners, Nana made her displeasure known. She gave monosyllabic answers when Aunt Diane or Malcolm tried to engage her in conversation and pushed away little Veronica when she tried to sit on her lap. And she made snide remarks about Lydia needing summer school. As for me, Nana monitored the amount of food on my plate. It wasn’t ladylike to take second portions, and my being tall couldn’t hide the fact that I should drop twenty pounds.

  She waited until Mama served dessert before announcing she wanted to go home. Yes, now. No, she didn’t want to drink a cup of tea, and Daddy would sigh and push back his chair.