What Lies Beyond the Veil(Of Flesh & Bone #1)(3)

“We there.”

This is my first time visiting Lansing, Nia’s second. Her first was before I was born. We have lots of family in Lansing, but we’re here to visit Momma’s daddy, who I guess we s’posed to call Granddaddy. Momma said we all gon’ stay here for the rest of the summer, before school starts back. My eleventh birthday is bout a month away, and Nia gon’ turn fifteen the week after. When I pointed that out, that these would be our first birthdays away from home, away from Daddy—Momma’s smile disappeared, just for a second, but then it was back, pasted in place like somebody glued it there crooked.

Momma pulls into the driveway and Carol Anne groans, either from exhaustion or from the bump-bump-bump of the gravelly road. As she parks, I try to remember the last time I seen my granddaddy. It was years ago, probably when I was bout seven, back when I used to wear my thick hair in two ponytails parted right down the middle with Blue Magic hair grease making it shine and Pink lotion laying down my edges. It was Nia’s favorite style, so it was my favorite style. Then Nia started wearing her hair in two different ponytails, one on top and one on the bottom like a unicorn. Back then, Granddaddy came to visit us once in Detroit, when there was a funeral for somebody on Momma’s side of the family. I chew my thumb and try to remember the dead person in that casket. The dead arm laying on the dead chest that I could only see when standing on tiptoes. That picture fades now into the image of dead Daddy, but this was long before that. Back when I still thought dead people in caskets ain’t belong to nobody. They were always just dead people, not nobody’s kid or friend or daddy.

“Okay, okay, I’m up.” Nia stretches and yawns. But I’m still stuck remembering the itchy lace dress I wore to that funeral, the dress that Momma loved, and eating the last piece of sweet potato pie before Nia could. I peek out my finger-smudged window at the little house squatting at the end of a long driveway. The biggest thing I remember from that other funeral was meeting my granddaddy. He wasn’t bad, but he never smiled, and he never talked that whole day long. I decided he couldn’t speak, like maybe he lost his voice in an accident. I imagined all the possibilities, til he finally grumbled hello in a voice low and deep as thunder.

“Come on, girls, let’s get out!” Momma is cheerful, but Nia moans. Granddaddy’s house will make the third place we’ve lived in the six months since Daddy died. The more we move around, the more I forget stuff. Like the pattern of my wallpaper in the old house on the dead-end street. I’m starting to forget what it feels like to have a home at all.

I swallow and fight back tears as I climb out the car, slow. Momma don’t like it when I cry so much. And Nia teases me, calling me Crybaby KB when I do. The K is for Kenyatta and the B for my middle name, Bernice, which was the name of my daddy’s grandma. Nia started calling me KB when I was a baby. I have other nicknames like Kenya and TaTa that I like better, but KB is the one that stuck.

Gravel crunches under my shoes and something rustles in the bush ahead. I search for the noise as we march up to the tree-shadowed house like soldiers, but don’t see nothin’. Just before we reach the wooden porch, wrapped around the house and sloping in the dirt, Granddaddy comes outside to meet us. His skin is dark as a moonless night with hair brushed in black and gray patterns, and a heavy limp that dips and jumps and dips again.

“Why he so bent over and wobbly?” I whisper to Momma. She swipes me on the bottom and flashes me The Look. I been gettin’ The Look from Momma all my life—not nearly as much as Nia, but enough for me to know exactly what it’s s’posed to mean.

“Hush your mouth,” she hisses. I wonder why it’s a bad question but know better than to ask. These days, asking too many questions is just as bad as crying.

“I bet he need a cane to walk, cause he so old.” Nia is suddenly beside me and trying not to let Momma hear her giggle. I giggle, too, happy to get an answer, and happy it’s from Nia.

Just like I remember, Granddaddy don’t speak, only opens his arms to say, Come on in. Nia drags her feet as she walks, so I drag my feet, too. But Momma walks quick with her very best smile stretched cross her face. She is first up the steps, and is fixin’ to hug Granddaddy, but he seems nervous and moves out the way. So she stands next to him instead, with that other smile for when she’s mad but has to act happy cause we at church.

“You remember Nia and KB.” Momma offers us up like treasures, but Nia got a hole in the knee of her pants and my too-small shoes are black with mud. Granddaddy looks at Nia first, then me. It’s quiet, like a test. He stops on my face and looks straight way in my eyes. I wanna look away, but I notice his eyes got tiny spots of dark in the part that’s s’posed to be white.

“Kenyatta,” he grumbles. It’s the only word he says to me that day.

The house is silent and smells like a mix between the old people that kiss my cheeks at church, and the tiny storage unit where all our stuff lives now. I’m surprised there’s framed photos of me and Nia and Momma on the tall mantel. I wonder why Momma never brought us to Lansing before. I guess cause it’s so far away. It took us two hours to get here, and another with pushing. I keep looking and see plenty of other pictures, but no more with us or Momma. Some of the people in the pictures look just like Momma, even though I don’t know them.

“Let’s take a look around,” Momma says, but I keep my own pace as Momma and Nia and Granddaddy move ahead.