How to Knock a Bravebird from Her Perch : The First Novel in the Morrow Girls Series (9780985751616) (12 page)

“I don’t wanna hear that.”

Jackie and Nikki were into it over a game of hop-scotch. I was still in somewhat of a daze so I didn’t get most of what they were arguing about but by that point all their arguments sounded the same. Gimme this...Do that...Let it go...all the same. I probably should’ve wondered why the kids were out but not too far away. I didn’t. Later on I figured out that they were keeping watch. Aunt Clara had given them orders to stay outside while she had a talk with me and to make a serious racket when they saw their daddy coming.

I found her in the kitchen. And the kitchen was sparkling clean, like ain’t nobody ever lived there. She’d been cleaning. That was her thing to do when she was real nervous. She even had a load of clean laundry sitting on the kitchen table that she must have been in the middle of folding when I came in.
 

“Where you go, Pecan?”

I went through the motions of starting supper and she just looked at me real hard like. “Just...around. Helen and me went for a drive.” I tore the plastic from around the chicken and went looking for the meat cleaver.

“I ain’t see her pick you up.”

“I took the bus to her and then we...why?”

“That man called again this morning, didn’t he? Who is he again?”

“Just a friend.”

“Men and women can’t be friends unless he funny. He funny?”

“No. I mean...maybe. How should I know, Auntie?”
 

Bits of chicken flesh flew up in the air and she waited until the racket of blade against bone calmed down and I’d shoved the pan of seasoned chicken parts into the oven. Then Clara snickered and followed me around the kitchen like a bloodhound that just caught his favorite scent. “I been keeping quiet around here for too long. Thinking maybe you’d see your way through this. But you in it deep now.”

“In what, Auntie?”

“In this man. Running off to meet him...God knows where...”

“We just friends.”

“Pecan girl, I reckon you better get to being a damn fine liar if you plan to keep this up.”

“Keep what up, Auntie? How about chicken and gravy for supper?”
 

“Who is he, Pecan? What’s his name? Hmm? Messiah? Tessiah?”

“Where you get that from?”

“Nikki. You know she love to talk. She talk all day about things that ain’t none of her business. She talk just hoping that somebody listening. You know that, don’t you?”

I washed my hands and started in on the laundry. I folded each piece until we had a couple of nice stacks. She followed me around the house as I put stuff away. Clara was determined to get something outta me. She hit me with one question after another. Eventually, I stopped trying to answer them and just shrugged my shoulders instead. It wasn’t really a secret anymore. I didn’t care who knew. Supper smelt so good, that’s what I was worried about. I ain’t want it to burn up.

“HAVE YOU LOST YO’ MIND, PECAN? HAVE YOU?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t think so.”

“You got four babies out there that need they mama! And you got a man that’s crazy.”

“That ain’t my fault. He’d be crazy no matter what I did. Why you don’t talk to him about his craziness? Instead of putting it on me...”

“You a grown woman, Pecan. You know what you doing. You know. You gone mess around and get yourself killed!”

“Least I got to have some happiness before it happened.”

She stumbled backwards into one of the kitchen chairs, clutching her chest like my words had hurt her. Never seen Clara hurt before. If anybody was invincible it was her. Fact was, I thought she’d be happy for me, proud of me even. In my way, I was living my life. Doing what I wanted to do. I was lying, sneaking, and hiding things but it was the most free I’d felt in a long time. Clara ain’t see it like that.

“Don’t be stupid, girl.”

“I ain’t stupid! Heziah...he loves me, Auntie. He really loves me. Ain’t I got a right to that?”

She saw the tears in my eyes and swore sending specks of her spit flying across the room. “You wanna leave Ricky, leave him. Leave him but don’t you dare leave him for another man. Some men big enough to handle that. But your husband, my nephew, he ain’t one of them. You hear me?” She rose up from the chair and her hands dug into my shoulders not willing to accept anything other than a yes ma’am. “I can’t take that. You hear me, girl? I can’t take nothing happening to you.”

“Auntie...”

“Now I know it ain’t fair. Ricky act like a fool on a regular basis. I ain’t gone lie about that but it is what it is. You can’t do this, Pecan. You got too much to lose.”

I watched Ricky that night. Watched him real close, just like folks watch the lion in the zoo, looking for some sign of the wild beast they know is in there but he ate in his own silence. The supper table was always full of giggles and the clanging of spoons and forks and plates. But he just sat there in the middle of it all, not saying a word, not looking at a soul. And Clara sat watching me watch him. He seemed smaller somehow. Not like the man I married. The man who loved to make me scared of him.

“Why you staring at me, Pecan?” His words jarred me back to reality and shut down all other talk at the table. “Hmm?”

“Just wondered how your day was is all.” The girls stared at us like they’d never seen us talk before. I guess it was pretty rare. “What’d you do?”

“What I always do. Train.”

“Why?”

“What you mean why? Because. If I don’t then how I’m gone win? What kinda question is why?”

“I just mean...” I felt real stupid but it had to be said. I couldn’t just sit there and say nothing. So I rushed the words out my mouth like I might chicken out at any second and take them all back. “I justmean itdon’t seem tomakeyou no happier.”
 

“What you talking about, Pecan?”

“Being happy. I’m talking about being happy. You don’t seem...happy.”

“I’m happy enough.” Was his reply.
 

I felt Aunt Clara take a deep breath, waiting for it. It was my opening. To let out my truth, tell him I wasn’t. That I wanted out. Two words. All I had to say was two words and the rest would just come tumbling out. Two words. Two words. But I couldn’t. I sat there, staring at my plate of cold food. But I wasn’t about to give up on it. I just needed more time.

"H
OW
LONG
YOU
’
LL
BE
having your woman’s time?” Ricky asked. His hands were wrapped around me like my body ain’t belong to just me. My nightgown was all bunched up between us and it was driving him crazy. “Huh, Pecan? How much longer?”

“Few days.” I couldn’t think of a better lie and just hoped that when my real time of the month came around he wouldn’t notice.

“Two days, huh? Well that’s it, okay? I can wait two days but then things gotta go back to normal. You messing with my training. Got me all distracted.”

Ricky rolled over to his side of the bed and all the air I was holding in rushed out. I just couldn’t be with him like that anymore. I ain’t want no parts of him nowhere near me. It was all for Heziah now. Every minute it seemed like I was trying to get to him or planning to get to him. I laid in bed just thinking about what I would say the next time he called, what I would wear the next time he saw me, and all the things I wanted to do with him. Nice things. Dirty things. Like Helen told me once that there was this spot on a man’s nether region that would make him go crazy. That if you pressed it just right he’d be yours forever. I wanted to find that spot on Heziah and see if she was right.

“Pecan. Pecan.” Ricky shook me until he was sure I was awake. “You making noises.”

“Sorry.”

Heziah was even in my dreams. Nasty naughty dreams. I woke up a few times a week all sweaty and outta breath. And it only got worse as time went on. I couldn’t wait for the morning to come because I knew he’d call and I’d feel his voice all over me. Clara ran errands in the morning and had folks to see. So, I’d sit down at the kitchen table and twirl the phone cord around and around my finger. By then the only one of my girls that was at home during the day was Natalie and she wouldn’t tell on me. She loved to run from one room to the other taking things and moving them to where they ain’t belong. She’d take a pan or a plate and put one in the washroom then the other near the door. And as long as she ain’t break nothing I was fine with it. It made her happy so I was happy.

Then one day the phone rang and it wasn’t Heziah, wasn’t even for me. They were calling from down south for Clara. Wasn’t until she got home and returned the call that I was sure it was bad news. Could tell just from the tone of her voice. When it was over she tried to scrub down the kitchen counter but her hands were shaking too bad. I took the rag from her and held her hand in mine.

“What is it? What happened?”

“My sister ain’t doing too good.” Clara said it with the toughness anyone would’ve had if they already lost three of their four sisters. “Doctors say she ain’t in her right mind. That she probably been like that for a while and ain’t nobody notice.”

“Oh, Clara...”

“And her worthless no good son—my nephew...he don’t give a damn.”

“That can’t be true.”

“He wanna put her in a home.” She looked toward the table so I pulled out a seat for her. “That ain’t what we do. Family take care a family.”

It was a verdict, confession, and apology all in one. I could see it in her eyes. “You leaving me.”

“You don’t need me, hun. You running things real good on your own. You done grown up since I first came here to stay with y’all. You be alright.”

“No...no I won’t. I need you. You can’t go.”

“Pecan girl—”

“No! You can’t go! I mean...” A lump the size of a grapefruit was stuck in my throat. It had never occurred to me that Aunt Clara might one day leave. “You can’t...”

“Now I’m a grown woman. I’m gone do what I’m gone do. Just like you. I can’t make you do nothing just like you can’t make me. Right now I need to be with my sister.”

I couldn’t see straight through all the tears and hurt feelings. I snatched my hand away from hers and took a little comfort from the hurt in her eyes. It ain’t make sense but I told myself that she had tricked me. Got me to trust her, love her, depend on her, and then she wanted to disappear on me like I was nothing. I thought of all the things she’d done for me and it just made my heart hurt even more. She was mine. I lent her to other folks in the neighborhood every now and then but she belonged to me. My Aunt Clara.
 

“Fine! You wanna go, then go! I don’t need you no way! So go!”

“Don’t be like that.”

But I ain’t know no other way to be. I was no good at goodbyes. I stormed outta the kitchen, stomping and swearing like a chile. Grabbed the phone, locked myself in the hall closet, and dialed Heziah’s number at the store where he worked. For the first whole minute all I did was cry. I couldn’t even tell him what was wrong. He must have thought I was losing my mind. Once I calmed down he talked me into the idea of acting like I was a grown woman instead of a chile. It was the honorable thing to do, he said. That there was too much between me and Clara to let it go like that. Said that I could just pretend it if I ain’t feel it but I should do it because I loved her and she loved me. So I picked my sad behind up off the floor and found Clara rocking back and forth in her chair with Natalie on her lap. They were both fixing for a nap.

“You got something to say?” she asked me.

“I’m sorry. I ain’t mean it. I just...” The tears started to well up in my eyes again so I decided to keep it short and do my best not to look straight at her. “I’m sorry.”

“I ain’t leaving tomorrow. You act like I’m gone be gone forever. I been here for damn near seven—eight years.”

“I know—”

“No, now you gone let me talk.” Clara steadied herself with one foot and raised her chin toward me. “If I’d had a baby girl I’d of loved her just like I love you. And I love this here family and taking care of y’all but I ain’t never want this. I likes my freedom. I like coming and going as I please. And I ‘spect when it come time for it you the one that’s gone be taking care of me. Now I know how you feeling. Like folks just keep leaving you. First your mama, then your daddy...now me.”

“Clara—”

“But I ain’t leaving you. You can’t think of it like that. You gone call me up on the phone and we gone talk about these here kids and Ricky and this Messiah character. I’ma come up to visit when I can. Pecan...girl, you gotta stop crying. You making me feel bad.”

Clara wanted to tell the girls in her own way so I tried to push it outta my mind and go on like normal. It was real hard the first few days but after that I just told myself it wasn’t gone happen. Clara hadn’t mentioned it again so I figured there was a chance she was gone change her mind. Folks did that. Make up their minds to do one thing then change it just as fast. It happened. Why couldn’t it happen to Clara?
 

Then one night I got distracted from putting the girls to bed because Ricky wanted something from the kitchen—toast or crackers or something like that. When I got back to they door, Clara was in there telling them the news. They took it better than me. No blubbering or sobbing, they just looked real sad. But the same old feelings popped back up in me, and I couldn’t stand it. I ended up hiding under my covers.