Imani All Mine Read online

  I thought I might cry, and I ain’t want nobody to see. I was thinking about Imani. That she’d spent the day being touched by strangers who ain’t know nothing about how I loved her. How could they know? When they seen her like that. And she was going to be alone. Again. In the night. All closed up in a drawer.

  But I didn’t cry none when I got upstairs. I laid across the bed with my face in a pillow. I could smell Imani in it, and I stayed there until Frankie come up. I’d fell through some hole in time, because it was dark out and it sounded like there was a party going on in the house.

  The stereo was on downstairs playing some old seventies song like Uncle Willis nem like, and so many people was talking, they voices all run together in a blur.

  Frankie had his arms full of toys he got from out front. Where you want them? he ask. I told him I ain’t care, and he put them in the crib. Frankie say, Junior nem say can we come in here? Them mosquitoes eating us up outside. I told him they could.

  Kente was the first one through the door. He say, All them old people done took downstairs over.

  Coco say, Old people? My mama only thirty-two. Talk about your own mama. She old as hell.

  Eboni was going to sit next to me on the bed, but Peanut act like he was crazy. He pushed her all out the way and dove onto the bed next to me.

  Eboni say, See you, big head boy, you ain’t had no home training. Up in people house tearing up they furniture.

  He say, Forget you. This a place I been wanting to get to.

  Eboni say, Please, you was just up in here this afternoon.

  Peanut say, Not on the bed. If your Mama could see me now, Tasha.

  Frankie say, If Aunt Earlene want to see you now, she can just come up here.

  Junior was passing his pop bottle around, and Kente, Eboni, Peanut, and Coco took a drink. Coco passed it to me and I took a drink. It was nasty. But when Frankie ask for some, I turned the bottle up to my mouth and drank it all. Almost a half bottle, and it made my stomach all warm in one instant.

  By the time I went to bed, all the edges had been rubbed off me, and I felt all smooth and light. Like I was floating. Like I was walking on water. When I laid down in the bed, with Junior and Frankie on the floor below me, I floated right out the window and off into the night.

  I ain’t get a chance to be with Imani until three days later, at the wake. We got there early and parked around the back. I ain’t want to get out the car.

  Mama say, It’s all right, Tasha. We all going in with you, and the casket closed. Me and Aunt Mavis seen to that.

  But I couldn’t go in just then.

  Mitch say, Why don’t you just wait in the car for a while? Take some time to yourself. It’s still early. Somebody will come get you.

  Frankie ask, Can I stay with you, Tasha? I’ll stay with you.

  Junior say, Leave Tasha alone.

  I say, He all right. He can stay.

  Mitch rolled the windows down.

  When they left, Frankie ask me, You scared to see Imani?

  I say, We ain’t going to see her.

  Frankie say, in a soft voice like a baby, I know we ain’t really going to see her, but I want to talk to Imani when we go in. Junior say he was going to slap me if I do it. Mama say Imani can hear you all the time even if you talk without moving your lips, because when you get to heaven you get super power hearing.

  I say, Aunt Mavis ain’t even say that.

  Frankie say, Not like I say it, but I’m not telling a story. Want some Red Hots?

  I told Frankie I ain’t want none, and he poured some in his mouth.

  Uncle Willis come back for us soon after that. He took one hand and Frankie the other. Out front the funeral home, so many teenagers was on the sidewalk, it looked like a school had just let out right there. There was a line to go inside. I ain’t seen none of my friends, but I seen some of my teachers. Mrs. Poole was standing with Mr. Diaz, my Latin teacher, and these secretaries nem from the office. Two of my teachers from middle school and Mr. Toliver was all standing off to one side.

  Mr. Toliver come right over soon as he seen me. He had on sunglasses and he hugged me real hard. I am so sorry, Tasha, he say. His voice all tight. His face all tight like he was going to cry if there was any looseness anywhere in him. Mr. Toliver ask Uncle Willis if he was my daddy. I told him who he was, and Mr. Toliver cleared his throat and went on about me. Tasha is a fine student. A fine girl. If there is anything. Anything I can do. Don’t hesitate to call. My number is in the card, he say, and handed a card to Uncle Willis. Uncle Willis thanked him, and we went inside.

  Being family, we ain’t have to wait. I was surprised the funeral home was so small. There was a entry hall with a church pew full up with people. The main room was painted in this soft pink and lit dim. I counted about seven or eight rows of folding chairs. All filled. Uncle Willis say there was a row saved up front for the family. People was steady coming in around us and leaving around us.

  One of the Paterson Brothers introduced hisself to me. He was a short dark man with a half-bald head. His breath smelled like Sen-Sens. He say he would take us all down front. Like we had such a long way to go. But he parted the crowd, which pulled back like a wave. It was hot in the room, like the heat was on, and it was hard for me to breathe. I pulled air into me. But it didn’t seem to come in any farther than my mouth. My feet stopped when I seen the tiny white box with Imani picture sitting on top of it.

  I let Mama nem decide everything for the funeral except two things. Things I wanted to have because I knew Imani would like them. First, Miss Lovey was going to sing at the funeral. I thought it would be nice for a preacher to speak. The one from Eboni nem church. Mama ain’t want that. In a way, Mama was right. That preacher don’t know Imani. He ain’t bless her. He wouldn’t be able to say nothing personal about my baby. But I thought Miss Lovey singing would be personal. The other thing I decided was the dress Imani would wear. The purple one she’d wore for her birthday. Wasn’t nobody going to see it. The picture of her wearing it on her birthday was going to be there.

  It was the picture that made me stop the night of the wake. It’s crazy how you know things and don’t know them all at the same time. I knew I was never going to see Imani again from the second I seen her on the floor in Mama bedroom, but until I seen her picture sitting on the coffin, it seem like I ain’t really know. it. The real knowing, the deep-in-my-bones knowing, took the breath from me. Stopped my feet. Uncle Willis and Frankie pulled me along, and my feet moved. Not because I wanted them to. They moved slow and my legs got a weakness in them. A baby step. A baby step. We moved right up to the coffin and passed it. I ain’t cast my eyes at it direct. I looked at the floor as we come near it.

  Frankie say, Hey, Imani, we here. And Junior reached out from the front row and slapped Frankie upside his head. Uncle Willis slapped Junior on the shoulder with his free hand.

  Junior say, I don’t see why you hitting me. Frankie the one said something stupid.

  We all sat down while Aunt Mavis say, through her teeth, Stop acting like crazy people in public.

  My friends was sitting in the second row. Eboni say, We got here early. We had two extra chairs in the front row, and I ask Peanut and her to come and sit up front with us. Frankie ain’t like it when Peanut ask him to slide down. I heard him say, Ya’ll ain’t no kin to us. But he moved.

  I never been to a wake before. I ain’t really know what was going to happen. What I was supposed to do. It was two hours of people I knew and ain’t know giving me hugs. Crying. Shaking they heads. Rushing by the coffin or stopping to look at Imani picture for a long time. Some people brung toys. Pressed cards into my hands. Touched Frankie on the head when he say, Imani my cousin. Shook Uncle Willis, Junior, Mitch, and Peanut hand. Rocked Mama and Aunt Mavis in they arms. Kissed Eboni on the cheek.

  When the night was just about over I heard this sound. This moan coming from the back. Low at first, but louder and louder, until it come out of the throat that held it.
A wail. Like a voice long lost in the wilderness. I looked back to see who it was. It was a girl about my age. I ain’t know who she was, but she changed the night. Touched the pain right below everybody skin. I could hear more moaning. And more moaning. And cries escaping from the tiny lit room into the dark of the wilderness I could see out a single round window. Mama and Mitch was crying. I could hear them. Knew what they sounded like crying together. Near and far. I ain’t cry.

  I ain’t cry at the funeral neither. Mama fell all apart. She was the one who cried so hard, she couldn’t hardly sit up. Mama was the one wailing. She was the one moaning. The one kicking. Aunt Mavis had to hold her up. Mitch had to hold her up. They pressed in close to her, and I sat on the other side of Aunt Mavis. Fanning. Lifting tiny waves of heat off her. That returned and returned.

  The closest I come to crying was when Miss Lovey started singing. Miss Lovey words flowed into me. Echoed in me. Shaking me from the inside out.

  She sang:

  Why should I feel dis-cour-aged,

  Why should the shad-ows come,

  Why should my heart be lone-ly,

  And long for heav’n and home,

  When Je-sus is my por-tion,

  My constant Friend is He;

  His eye is on the spa-row,

  And I know he watch-es me.

  I wanted to hold them words in me. To have them fill me up. But when Miss Lovey finished with the last note, while it was still hanging in the air like a bird, them words had already gone from me. And I was empty.

  I laid down that day while there was still blue in the sky and woke up in the dark with Mama laying next to me. Empty. Even with her hands on me. Fearing for me. Worrying for me.

  Mama don’t know the power in her hands. She think her hands done failed because I don’t be talking. That’s why she let Eboni come and bring her two twins to our house. I like to hold the girls and smell the tops of they heads. They smell like Imani. Not just they grease but the inside of them I can smell. The greenness of they life. The sweetness.

  Mama even let Peanut come to see me in my room. She don’t ask me a bunch of questions, neither. She let him come right up the steps. Peanut like it. Mostly me and him talk and listen to music. Maybe Mama know, maybe she don’t know. That me and him even done it. Twice. Right in this bed. While she sat downstairs watching TV. I wasn’t a woman with Peanut neither time. Just a child with my eyes wide open watching the shadows of trees blowing across the ceiling.

  I ain’t really talk to Peanut when he was over. I ain’t had nothing to say to him. I don’t have nothing to say to nobody, even though I know they all still waiting for words to come out of me. But there just ain’t none. They was snatched from me the night my baby left this world. Maybe Mama nem think I can just wish them back. But they don’t know I wish every night.

  With Mama hands on my back, still late in the night, I be looking outside my window at this one lone star hanging in the sky. I been watching it a long while now. How it rise in the dark and slide across the sky into the silver blue of dawn. I keep my eye on it. I hold it in the center of my eye and spend the night wishing for more than I can ever tell them. More than I’ll ever be able to say.

  ELEVEN

  Here Is the Church

  I AIN’T SET OUT to come to New Light this morning. My feet brung me. They carried me there when I left the house. Like they knew it was where I should be. Like they knew more than my mind. All I was wanting to do was get out the house. We moving today. I don’t want to be home for that. To see how me and Imani lives can be carried away in such small boxes.

  Mama ask me this morning, Where you think you going with all this work to do?

  Mitch say, Let her go, Earlene. We can manage.

  Not nam other word came out Mama mouth. She threw her hands up and walked away from me.

  Mama disgusted with me, anyway. My name been bitter in her mouth ever since I told her I’m pregnant. She ask me the same thing she ask me when I was pregnant with Imani. You happy now?

  I don’t know why Mama even ask me that. She not happy now. I hear her some nights before she come to bed with me. She be with Mitch downstairs. Crying. She try to do it soft. To not let me hear. But I hear. Because it’s a crying filled with craziness. A crying that take hold of you and don’t let go until it’s through with you. Until you empty.

  I looked once. Just once. They was sitting close up on each other on the couch. And I seen both of they faces in the dark. For the first time I seen in Mama face that she love Mitch. Her face was like a full moon. From where Mitch was sitting, he couldn’t see it. I don’t know if Mama ever show that face to him. The one I seen. But maybe Mitch know Mama love him. Maybe he can hear it in her when they all alone and he find the secret place in her that is small small small. A place open just for him.

  Mama know I ain’t happy. There ain’t nothing that look like happiness in me. Maybe that’s why, when she ask me, she ain’t slap me like she did when I told her about Imani. Mama ain’t lift a hand to me in love or hate. She be acting like I done slapped her, though. Sent her tumbling into my future, where she don’t see no dream she have for me coming true. Mama ain’t got no more dreams for me. This baby has took them all away.

  I was past tired this morning when I got to church because I had walked and walked. Without thinking about how far I was going. If I knew where I was going, I could’ve just got on the bus. But I ain’t know. My feet was leading me through the streets where folks was washing cars, sitting on they porches, going into corner stores, barbecuing, climbing the steps of churches. I went past dealers. Some of them leaned up against buildings like they was tired, and I seen some of they clients. Them gray zombies looking like they wasn’t going in no real direction.

  And kids. I passed by so many of them. Little girls ready for church wearing dresses with lace, ribbons flying in they hair. Boys in dress pants and shirts, ties knotted like big fists at they skinny necks. Little girls and boys ready to do nothing but play. They was on almost every block with they jump ropes and they jacks and they hopscotches done in chalk. With they bikes and they balls and skates. With girls singing and clapping they hands to the same songs I used to and boys arguing about what they was arguing about when I was little. Who was out, who was in, who was tagged, who was safe.

  I ain’t even notice the sun was getting higher and higher in the sky. Pouring heat into my head. I knew I needed to stop because I was seeing spots. Tiny little worlds was spinning around in front of me when I heard music. Soft music rolling up the sidewalk. Just the edges of it. Creeping in on me. Cool on my feet. And my feet followed it. Wanting what was in the middle of the music. Wanting what was on the other side of it.

  Eboni and Miss Lovey been trying to get me to come to church with them. They both ask me since the funeral, but I told them I ain’t feel like it. Neither one of them could get me to do what my feet did this morning.

  As I stepped inside the cool cool church, I was struck blind by the darkness of it. It’s darker than I remembered. Thick with bodies blocking out the light. The wholeness of the organ music hit me full in the chest and I felt myself falling back. Falling like I was heading out of time. A flash of white come up alongside of me. A usher. She caught me up under the arm to show me to a seat. I wasn’t going to let her lead me. Not one step. Because I wasn’t staying. I wasn’t dressed to sit with them people. I had on shorts and a T-shirt. But my feet moved on. Past rows of benches. Past the moon overhead and the man in it. All the way to the front, where I could see the preacher clear.

  He was dressed in a long black robe trimmed in gold and already wiping sweat from his face like he was hot. Like he been preaching a long time. He waved his hands and the music stopped. Sudden. Taking the church into a quiet place. Taking me there, too, while the preacher started out talking in a soft voice about waiting on the Lord.

  He say, I’m not going to keep ya’ll here all day. My time is running short. My time is winding up, but I can’t let you go just yet. The
Lord won’t let me let you go just yet. Not until I tell you. Not until I tell you. Not until I tell you. About waiting. On him. He want you to stay. He want you to wait. I’m not the one who asking you to wait. It’s nothing but the Lord.

  The preacher say he going to read out the book of Isaiah. Chapter forty. Verse thirty-one. He say turn and find that passage. A old lady who was bald on top of her head shared her Bible with me. She let it rest part on my lap and part on hers. I ain’t look in it as the preacher read:

  But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

  The preacher say, You know, church. We a waiting people. We a people who will wait on anything. He say if we ain’t believe him, go past a check-cashing center on a payday. Go by there on the first or fifteenth of the month. He say, Line be out the door. It be raining, snowing, sleeting, hailing. But ya’ll wait. Am I lying?

  No, say the voices. We wait.

  Church, we going to wait on some money. Let that Lotto jackpot hit ten million dollars, and watch out, the preacher say, getting loud. He ducked down and jumped back up. I say, watch out now. Ya’ll folk forget about the street number. Ya’ll forget about the Pick Three, Pick Four. Ya’ll ain’t thinking about what to play straight. What to box. What to knickknack patty-whack. Ya’ll going to wait in that Lotto line. I’m telling you, Jez-us could come back, and ya’ll wouldn’t get out the line to see him. Some of ya’ll might slap him if he tried to bogart ahead of you. Am I lying?

  The dark answered, You telling the truth. You preaching.

  The preacher wiped his face, his neck. Ya’ll with me. Stay with me. Stay with me, sisters, because I know some of you out there waiting. On some man. On some half a man. To treat you right. And you, brothers, too. Some of ya’ll waiting on some trifling woman. To treat you right. Ya’ll wait on somebody to change. Wait your whole life. But you won’t spend one second waiting on the Lord. Anybody got a Amen to that?