The Kindest Lie

by Nancy Johnson

  “You know I saw you throwing snowballs at Ruth Tuttle’s car yesterday.” Granny poured unsweetened tea into a mason jar.

  “I didn’t do anything,” he said, hoping to sound innocent. He didn’t want to talk about Miss Ruth. He wanted to keep her all to himself for now.

  “I’m not blind.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me. This little delinquent didn’t get home until ten o’clock last night,” said Auntie Glo, who stood in the shadow of the hallway glaring at Midnight. Flaming red hair fanned her face and she stuck out her tongue with the silver stud piercing. Too lazy to make breakfast herself, she appeared whenever she heard Granny in the kitchen.

  “It’s none of your business what time I got home. You’re not my mother,” he retorted.

  “Midnight, you know better than to talk back to an adult. Show some respect in my house.” Granny leaned against the door frame, too unsteady to stand for long.

  “Are you okay?” Midnight asked, concerned. Ever since his mother died, he worried about Granny dying, too. At night while she slept, he sometimes tiptoed into her room to watch her until he saw the slight rise and fall of her chest or heard her faint breathing.

  “I’m fine, son. You know I just need to eat after I take my insulin. Now wash the dishes for me. I’ll be in my room.” Granny had already turned to head to her bedroom, carrying her breakfast with her.

  “Gloria, come in here. We need to talk,” she said.

  Auntie Glo glared at Midnight and followed Granny, closing the door behind them.

  The door was thick enough to support Midnight’s weight when he pressed his body against it, but thin enough to hear some of what was said on the other side. Nicky sat on the living room floor and played with wooden blocks. He made noises, trying to get Midnight’s attention.

  “You got to be quiet,” Midnight hissed, and put his finger to his lips.

  Nicky yelled louder.

  “I changed you. I washed you. I know you’re hungry, but you got to wait. Now shush.”

  Midnight grabbed Nicky’s pacifier from the countertop and stuffed it in his mouth. There was no time to rinse it first. Returning to his place against the door, he listened to the women talking. Usually, they complained about money, how Auntie Glo never had any and Granny didn’t have enough left over after rent, utilities, and the expenses for the store.

  “Business has been so slow lately, and I don’t know how long I can afford to keep the store open. I sure hate to do it, but I don’t have any other choice.” Then Granny said something else that Midnight couldn’t quite hear when her voice got softer.

  “He’s a pain, but where’s he going to go?” Auntie Glo asked.

  He couldn’t make out Granny’s answer. He pressed his ear as hard as he could against the door, but her voice was muffled.

  The next thing he heard Granny say: “Butch isn’t working and I’m already taking care of you and little Nicky. I just can’t do it anymore.”

  “They made me cashier at Save A Lot,” Auntie Glo said. “But it’s not enough for me to get my own place yet.”

  “Yes, I know. Lord, I wish Hannah were here. Midnight needs his mother. I hate to uproot him and I know it’s far, but I don’t see another way.”

  A hard rock stuck in Midnight’s throat. It hurt to swallow. Maybe Granny was sending him to join Daddy at Drew’s apartment, even though she called it a hellhole. But it only took fifteen minutes to drive there, so it wasn’t that far. Where else could he go?

  Grabbing his coat, Midnight ran from the house, past the corner convenience store, across the snow-covered railroad tracks to Pine Top, the tiny section of town between Pratt and Grundy where dads tossed footballs on front lawns with their kids. Midnight heard shuffling behind him and there was Bones. When he slowed his pace, they ran alongside each other. A haphazard set of snow prints followed them, a record of the chaos neither could seem to outrun.

  Nine

  Ruth

  Standing on this side of her childhood house, Ruth remembered leaving in her old Pinto at seventeen, with no baby, yet still heavy with her burden. When she had come home once on college break during the winter holiday, she had tried not to look at anything too long, moving in and out quickly enough to avoid any fresh stabs of guilt. One thing she did recall from that trip home was the house, its yellow paint faded and peeling in places.

  Ganton had been cut off at the knees, folding in on itself, knocked down too many times to stand up straight again. A broken beer bottle and an empty Cheetos bag poked out of the snow next to one driveway on the corner. Mama told her that house had become a Section 8 rental property with a revolving door of tenants who had no ties to the community or investment in its upkeep.

  But the neighborhood held good memories, too. Ruth and Eli used to own these streets. Six years older than she, her brother did everything first: ride a bike, go to school, lose teeth and grow new ones. But long past the point of it being cool, Eli still hung out with his kid sister. They drew blue and yellow chalk lines on the asphalt for hopscotch games and skipped down the street to chase the chimes of the ice cream truck. Back then Ruth didn’t understand what it meant to be poor. Every house for as far as she could see stood tall and proud, one no better or worse than the one beside it.

  What if Xavier had come with her on this visit? She pictured him at home in their living room with his feet propped up on the ottoman, watching football. Had she let her fears irreparably damage her marriage?

  It had been four years since Ruth had been home. She only returned then with Xavier to be married at her home church by Pastor Bumpus, the preacher who had baptized her. A few hours in Ganton, just long enough for the ceremony, and that was it. She hustled Xavier out of town as soon as they said their I dos. It didn’t matter that he wanted to see the house where she’d grown up. That house seemed so meager, and crazy as it sounded, she feared its walls might tell her story, revealing that she’d been a pregnant teenager.

  Now the house was bathed in a warm, earthy brown. Ruth and Xavier had spent months poring over color wheels for their own new home renovation, and if she had to guess, this paint color had to be some variation of Moroccan Spice. There was no Christmas wreath on the door, but that wasn’t surprising since Mama thought the holidays were too commercial anyway, only about the almighty dollar instead of the Almighty Himself.

  Icicles hung suspended from the aluminum siding, one of them crackling before falling silently in the snow. After Ruth rang the bell twice, the front door grunted and then cracked open only as far as the short chain would allow. She remembered that space between the screen door and the main one, where flies went to die during the summer.

  A face peered through the small opening before the door shut. As Ruth held the screen door open, the chain jangled and then the door opened fully, and Mama stood there with her eyes wide as a baby deer’s.

  “Child, what are you doing here?” Mama touched her granddaughter’s face with one rough hand, gripping her chin tightly. “Is everything okay?”

  Seventy-eight years in this world had taken a toll on Mama, her jaws drooping more than they used to, making the folds in her neck more pronounced. Her hair nearly all white and pulling away from her temples. How had she aged so much in the last four years?

  “I’m fine, Mama. Nothing’s wrong. It’s almost Christmas. It’s good to be home.” Ruth bent to kiss her cheek.

  Then a voice came from the dark hallway. “The chain is hooked to the flapper just fine, but I still can’t get that dang toilet to flush.” The deep voice probably belonged to a plumber, Ruth thought.

  Mama was blocking Ruth’s view and kept glancing back to the hallway, adjusting her housecoat. The man continued on about the toilet, his voice getting closer until he appeared there in the foyer. A light-skinned man in nothing but his boxer shorts and black socks that sagged at his ankles. His knees reminded Ruth of two golf balls.

  An uncomfortable, almost guilty look flashed across Mama’s face, as if she were a ch
ild who’d just stolen a cookie before dinner and had the evidence of crumbs on her mouth.

  The strange man spoke first. “Um, um, R-R-R-Ruth.”

  His stammer jolted her memory. “Dino.” He had been one of Papa’s closest friends and had stuttered for as long as she’d known him.

  Mama used to call Dino high yellow and joked that the only way he got any ladies was by being a pretty boy back in the day, with that wavy black hair that lay flat without gel. Now his back curved more than it used to years ago, his body betraying him as Papa’s had. She hadn’t even recognized him at first. “It’s been a long time.”

  “It’s mighty good to have you back in town,” Dino said, his voice dragging like the sound of an audio recording playing at half speed. He looked from Mama to Ruth.

  “Don’t you have somewhere you need to be?” Mama said, flinging the belt of her housecoat to shoo him away. When he leaned over to peck her lips, she turned her head to sidestep the kiss and said, “Now stop with all that foolishness and get dressed and get on out of here.” She wouldn’t look at Ruth.

  With a sheepish grin, he glanced down at his half-nakedness and headed toward the bedrooms.

  Once Dino was out of earshot, Ruth said, “What’s going on between you two?”

  “Now you hush with that nonsense. Not another word. You know you’re not too old for me to put you over my knee.” Mama laughed nervously.

  Ruth chose to drop the subject, but seeing Dino in Papa’s house didn’t sit well with her. Did he have a key to the house? More important, had he spent the night? The idea of another man walking on Papa’s floors, sitting on his furniture, eating food from his fridge, and sharing a bed with his wife unnerved her.

  “Take your boots off and put them here.” Mama grabbed a newspaper from a nearby table and spread it on the floor of the foyer. “You know I don’t like you tracking that mess through the house.”

  “I know.” Ruth stomped her leather boots on the plastic runner to shake off the brown slush. “The house looks good, Mama. I see you had it painted.” And to Ruth’s amazement, she spotted a small, unassuming Christmas tree in front of the living room window.

  “The church has a widows’ ministry now. They sent a couple guys over to paint last year.”

  Mama’s slippers scooted across the linoleum as she headed to the kitchen. Ernestine Tuttle was a big-boned woman but more lopsided than anything. Her breasts hung low on her belly with no butt to balance things out. The whole of her propped up on bird legs.

  The kitchen was small and dimly lit, the table set for four like it had been when Ruth was growing up—a seat for herself, Mama, Papa, and Eli. As she was looking around, a sharp pain shot through her right leg when she banged it against the open oven door. “Shit! Ouch!”

  “Watch your language. You not here two minutes and you already cussing. You know better than that in this house.”

  “Sorry, Mama, but why is the oven door open?”

  “Trying to get some heat in here. Furnace went out a few days ago.”

  First the toilet and now the furnace, too. How was her grandmother living there with no heat in thirty-degree temperatures? Ruth thought about how little Polly had died after her parents used an alternative heat source.

  “Why didn’t you call me? I could’ve sent you the money to get it fixed.” Her voice rose; she was frustrated with herself more than her grandmother. She had never sent money home, and the one time she offered, Mama had shut her down.

  Her grandmother closed the oven door. “Never mind all that.”

  “Come to think of it, the landlord should be making all the repairs on the house. You should take him to court if he isn’t. I have some lawyer friends who could advise you.”

  Mama waved her off. “I told you to leave it alone. I don’t like getting mixed up with lawyers. Now let me look at you.” Mama took a seat at the kitchen table and Ruth sat beside her. At the opening of her grandmother’s robe there was a flash of green paper, and Ruth stifled a laugh remembering how Mama treated her bra like a bank.

  The older woman’s fingers glided across Ruth’s twists, rubbing each patch of fuzz. “I’ll make an appointment to get your hair done while you’re here.”

  The renaissance of the natural hair movement had failed to impress Mama. In Ruth’s sophomore year in high school, she begged Mama to take her to a place in Indianapolis she’d read about where a woman called Lady Simone locked hair. Instead Ruth ended up on the bedroom floor in a headlock between Mama’s knees with a hot comb scorching the back of her neck.

  “How are they treating you on the job?” Mama said.

  “Just fine,” she lied. “I’m developing a formula for our number-one detergent brand.”

  “I’m real proud of you. But you know they’re not going to have you on that job for long with that wild hair.”

  “They hired me for my brain, not my hair. And my hair isn’t wild.”

  “Now look. Don’t let wild hair hold you back. They won’t come out and say anything to your face. But you’ll hear that your work isn’t quite up to par anymore. You’ll think it’s something you did or didn’t do. All I’m saying is don’t give them a reason to start messing with you.”

  Ruth took her grandmother’s hand into her own. “I know what I’m doing. My hair isn’t a problem at work. Trust me.” She laughed and added, “As long as nobody touches it.”

  “Don’t you forget, we made a lot of sacrifices to send you to Yale so you could make something of yourself. We gave up a lot.” What she left unsaid was the part about the baby born eleven years ago in this house.

  A code existed in Mama’s mind, one of expectations. She didn’t care about impressing the neighbors. She never relied on Ruth’s success to elevate her own stature. A practical woman like Mama believed in doing what was necessary to survive.

  If it wasn’t hair she fussed about, it was music. In high school, when Ruth would bounce in front of the mirror to some Biggie Smalls beat, Mama’s voice was never far. You better sit your tail down. That booty music won’t get you into college or make you an engineer.

  Emerging from the dark hallway, Dino appeared in a pair of red-and-black plaid slacks and a tan overcoat. He slung a bag over his shoulder. An overnight bag. How often did he sleep here?

  “You don’t have to leave on my account,” Ruth said, wanting him to stay so she could ask him a few questions about his relationship with her grandmother.

  “No, he’s ready to go.” Mama practically pushed Dino toward the front door.

  The man shrugged and threw up a hand to wave goodbye to Ruth. Even though her life had changed dramatically when she left this house and this town behind, she had just assumed Mama’s world had stayed the same. But it hadn’t. The secret about Ruth’s baby hadn’t been the only one the old woman had been keeping. As if anticipating a barrage of questions and eager to avoid them, Mama quickly busied herself in the kitchen, peering into the refrigerator. She hid her face behind the door of it as if to wall herself off from her granddaughter’s probing, judgmental gaze.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “If you’re cooking, I am.”

  Ruth pulled the two jars of blackberry preserves from her purse and handed them to her grandmother. “I thought you could use these for breakfast.”

  “You know I can. Thanks, baby.” Mama put the preserves on a shelf in the narrow pantry. “I didn’t know you were coming so I didn’t cook, but I do have some chicken soaking in the fridge for tomorrow. I can fry it up now, though.”

  In a large aluminum pan, Mama poured flour and sprinkled in salt and pepper.

  “How come Xavier didn’t come with you?”

  Ruth figured Mama would ask. Keeping her voice even, she said, “He has a new marketing campaign he’s working on and couldn’t get away.”

  “Not even for Christmas, huh?”

  “No, it’s a high-profile assignment, so he’s extremely busy.”

  Mama had met Xavier the day of the wedding and h
adn’t seen him since. When she first laid eyes on him, she pulled Ruth aside and said his hands were too clean, too smooth, and way too pretty to be of any use to a woman.

  Just before Ruth walked down the aisle, Mama whispered, “Baby, you sure he ain’t got a little sugar in his tank?” It would take time for her to get used to a grandson-in-law who worked in a corporate office instead of the factory floor like most of the men Mama knew.

  After dipping the chicken in buttermilk, they took turns coating each piece with the flour mixture before carefully dropping them in a deep pan of hot oil. The chicken sizzled, and hot grease leapt from the pan.

  “I don’t want you getting burned, so I’ll take it from here,” Mama said.

  Ruth walked over to the oak buffet table where Mama used to display her granddaughter’s perfect attendance certificates and report cards, but only when she got all A’s. She swiped her finger across a layer of dust on top of the old record player that had gone silent when they laid Papa to rest.

  Leather-bound books by James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, and Richard Wright lined the shelf; she remembered Papa reading them to her as a little girl, along with the works of Du Bois and Douglass. Mama and Papa fed history to her and Eli, filling them with it as if they’d need reserve nourishment when the world left them withered, broken, and hungry.

  On the wall above the buffet, Mama displayed framed pictures of Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr., and President Kennedy, the other Holy Trinity for old Black folks. But the faded portrait of Kennedy was missing, and in its place was one of President-Elect Obama, in a new ornate brass frame.

  Standing in front of the photograph of the incoming president, Ruth felt a warmth wash over her. Her son would be growing up in a country led by a Black man. She hadn’t seen her son since the day he still fit in the palm of her hand, and as much as she tried to forget at times, she couldn’t help but resurrect dreams for him that had begun with soft whispers to her swollen belly and sometimes a silent wish made on a starlit night.