What Lies Beyond the Veil(Of Flesh & Bone #1)(35)

“No, she ain’t get no job at all.” Granddaddy rubs one hand with the thumb from his other, first in slow circles but then faster. “Like I said, she was begging for a headshot for a while. But I kept saying no, mostly cause I ain’t know nothing bout letting my little girl be on TV. And with her momma gone . . .” His voice trails off like he got lost in his thoughts.

I sit up straighter, try to look right in his eyes, but he keeps looking away. “So, if you kept saying no,” I ask, “how did she get this picture?”

Granddaddy snaps out of it and, much to my surprise, laughs. “Well, have you ever tried to tell your momma no? It’s not an easy thing to do.” Now I laugh, too, cause I know what he means. Momma is always smiling and usually nice, cept when you try to tell her no.

Granddaddy continues. “I came home from work one day and found your momma sittin’ on the couch, holding this picture in her hands. I could tell she was upset bout something before I could even tell what she was holding. She stood up, told me that she disobeyed my rules and got the headshot from some man she met at the mall.” Here, Granddaddy pauses. I bet the memory hurts, cause Granddaddy slams his eyes shut.

“I looked at the photo”—Granddaddy takes it from my hands and looks at it like it’s his first time—“and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.” I see tears forming puddles in his deep eyes. “She looks just like her momma, always has.” I think he’s gon’ cry, but his tears are tiny soldiers, perfectly balanced on the edge of a steep hill. I need to learn his secret for keeping ’em up on that hill.

“So, what happened?” I wanna hear the rest of the story. Granddaddy silently folds his hands cross his lap and scoots over just a little bit, so we’re no longer touching. His face is still sad, maybe too sad to talk, like he got a lump blocking his voice, just like mine.

“I made a mistake,” is his quiet response.

“What did you do, Granddaddy?” I can’t imagine what could be so bad that they would stop hugging when they see each other.

“I . . .” He stops, stares at the back of his cracked hands. “I told her I ain’t even wanna hear nothing bout it.” He swallows, hard. “Then I threw the picture down on the ground and”—Granddaddy pauses—“I left. She was the most excited I had ever seen her. And I acted like I ain’t even care.”

Listening to his story reminds me of the ways Daddy tried to keep Momma from doin’ what she loved, too. Seems like her whole life has been bout doin’ stuff for other people, but not doin’ the stuff she actually wanted to do herself. Realizing this makes me sad for Momma, but I also can’t help but feel bad for Granddaddy, who is still staring at his hands. I don’t know how to respond without making Granddaddy feel worse. “Why?” I finally ask. Looking at him now I can see he does care, seems like a lot, so I can’t understand why he would pretend like he don’t.

“Sometimes, Kenyatta, parents make mistakes. I was afraid of so much back then. Having a daughter, not having a wife.” Granddaddy shakes his head. “I ain’t wanna lose my little girl, too.” Grown-ups don’t usually tell me this much, especially not quiet Granddaddy, so I consume each of his thoughtful words greedily.

“So, what did Momma say?”

Granddaddy chuckles. “She said, ‘Just tell your friends I’m a star,’ and stormed out the room before I could. We ain’t talk for a whole week after, then when we did, it was never quite the same again. She thought I ain’t believe in her. I thought she wanted to leave me. We couldn’t find our way no more, after that.” Granddaddy folds his hands cross his lap, pulling each fingertip with another as he talks.

I consider everything he said, tryna make sense of it all. “But why did she say to tell your friends she was a star, if you told her she couldn’t even try?”

“Well, she knew that, and I knew that. But that was just her way of saying she ain’t need me no more. I stopped her that time, but I ain’t ever stop her again.” Granddaddy takes one last look at the photo, so wonderful and heartbreaking, then sticks it back between the pages of his Bible. I wonder how long he’s gon’ keep it there, before he puts it back in the photo album. Or maybe it was never in the album to begin with. Maybe it always lives in his Bible, where he can look at it and regret.

“I bet Momma ain’t mad no more,” is all I can eventually say. But even I know that what happened to Momma and Granddaddy can’t be changed. Just like two Christmases ago, when Momma finally saved enough money to buy us the TV we’d been begging for, but then Daddy took it away. I don’t know what he did with it, but I know it was him, cause I heard Momma yelling at him bout it the next day. That was the first time I heard her use that word, fiend, but not the last. And I can’t be sure, but I think this is something like that. A girl and her daddy, and something that seems small but is too big to ever get through. It can be that way, with daddies.

Me and Granddaddy don’t say no more words. I try to think of something to count, but truth is, I just wanna leave. I think bout Granddaddy making Momma feel like he ain’t care, and it makes me feel sad more than anything else. Momma is grown-up and probably don’t care no more bout headshots or being on TV. But I can’t be sure, and the thought of Momma alone in Detroit and sad fills my head.