Page 42 of Wings of Ebony
The night’s events replay in my mind like a horror flick. I can’t believe Ms. Leola knows about “those magic folks.” How long has she known? And what does she have to give me? From who? I have so many questions. It’s odd knowing that someone from back home has even the slightest whiff of my life in Ghizon. It’s like my two worlds are crashing together and I don’t know if I need a helmet. And if I do, where to find one.
Tasha’s fork is still scraping her plate as if she can really grab every last crumb if she angles the fork just right.
“Now I know you two got some room forthis!” Ms. Leola’s got a plate in each hand with a wedge of pound cake on top dripping with a lemon glaze, her signature dish. Yes, cake… after breakfast.
I don’t know where I’ma put it, but I’ma put it somewhere. Lemon swirls in my mouth as the cake melts on my tongue. So dense, yet so moist.
“Eat on up and there’s plenty more. Now that you rested, I’ma find this box I have for you.” She smiles. “When yo daddy gave it to me he said to makesureI ain’t lose it.”
I choke, coughing. “Aasim? It’s from Aasim?”
“I guess that’s his name. Tall chocolate thang, thin dreads? Good looking, always wore a tailored suit, looking like a young Idris.”
Oh god. “I guess.”
“Look, I don’t know the man. But I did know yo momma. She was like a daughter to me and she loved him and trusted him an—”
“—and she’s dead.”
Ms. Leola exhales and it’s heavy. “I don’t know why things happened the way they did. I’m so sorry, baby, and I know ain’t nothing I can say gon’ make it right. That kind of pain don’t get better. You just sort of learn to live with it. Be stronger because of it.” She wags a finger. “But what Idoknow is that your momma made me promise if something ever happened to her, I was to find your father, so I did.”
I shove the scraps of food on my plate away, appetite gone. “S-so, it was you?”
“Hear me out, now. Yo momma came in here ’bout a week before she died. Something had her real upset, now. She’d been crying. I could tell, but you know how she is. She acted like she was just fine, like she had it all together. She gave me these coins, look like pure gold. She looked me dead in the eye and told me if anything ever happened to her, to take those two and press ’em together and it would summon yo’ daddy. Now, I ain’t know nothing about no magic or who he was, but you best believe when I saw her body”—her voice cracks—“lying in that doorway like that”—she sniffles—“I came here and didexactlywhat she asked.”
I don’t know what to say. She’s not lying. She wouldn’t do that. This, I guess, was my mom’s dying wish. That I go to Ghizon, ripped from my sister, taken from everything I know. I hate it. Even now, knowing it’s what she wanted, I still hate it.
“I don’t know what to say.…”
She rests a hand on my shoulder and I go warm all over. This is the closest thing I have to a mom at this point, and even if I don’t get it, she honored Moms’s words. Can’t fault her for that.
“It’s always gon’ be things in this world we just don’t understand. And baby, for me, that was one of ’em.” She walks off into the kitchen and her voice is dimmer. “Now, when yo daddy came and got you that next morning, he told me tomake sureI give you this here. Now, IknowI put it in here somewhere.”
A chair screeches across the floor.
I dash into the kitchen. “Please don’t climb on nothing, Ms. Leola. Can I help reach something?”
“Child, I got this.” She steps up on the chair and my heart about stops. I hover there spotting the chair like the base in a cheer squad pyramid.
She strains, reaching, and her robe hangs long from her arms, colors swishing in the air like a goddess. She reaches from one too-high shelf to the other. “I had some boys from the neighborhood move y’alls stuff into that back room, but this here was different. Had to go throughso muchtrouble to get it, too. But I gave your daddy my word and I intend to keep it.”
She plants both hands on her hips. “Not up there. Where did I…? If I can’t find it, them boys coming to do some housework for me today. They probably seen it.” She bites her tongue. “Oh,maybe I put it… give me a second.” She steps down from the chair and finally my pulse returns.
She leaves the kitchen, heading down the hall. “Yep. It’s back here.”
Tasha comes in the kitchen and sets her plate by the sink.
“Ahem.”
She looks at me and without a word collects all the dishes and starts washing.
“We ain’t ’bout to start embarrassing Moms just because she ain’t here no more.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m just so full.” She chuckles. “Ijustwoke up and I already wanna nap.” The cat purrs at her ankles but catches a splash of sudsy water and runs off. Fine by me. The way Ms. Leola is ’bout her furniture, I’m surprised she let Cupcake come inside at all.
The doorbell chimes.
“Tasha, get down the hall in a bedroom,” I say. I don’t know who it is but I ain’t taking no chances. “Shut the door and lock it.”
