What Lies Beyond the Veil(Of Flesh & Bone #1)(4)

Next to the pictures on the mantel are tiny statues. They are all kids, weird-shaped but kids, with skin the color of tar and hair nappy like mine. Some are playing, some asleep, and some ain’t doin’ nothin’ but looking. The one I like best is two girls, one braiding the other’s hair. They both have pretty faces, like the singing angels in our church’s Christmas pageant. I always wanted to be one of them angels, just like Nia was, but when I auditioned, I ain’t get the part. Instead I had to be a goat, sweating in a fuzzy costume and peeking out at the angels, all with hair braided and tied in bows, and makeup they could wear just that day.

At the end of the room is a giant bookcase, and I stop to look, even though Momma and Nia keep on with Granddaddy to see the rest of the house. The bookcase leans to one side, like it might bend over from the weight of so many stories, with the leaning side propped up with a thick Yellow Pages. Beside it is a big raggedy couch, dirt-smeared red and with a big dent right in the middle, cross from a giant, muted TV with an antenna sticking out the top. At the motel, the tiny TV was impossible to turn on and fuzzy once it started, so I hope we can watch this one. It’s a strange thing to be so important, a TV, but it reminds me of them late nights tucked in Momma’s elbow, of Scooby-Doo and Animaniacs with Daddy on weekends before we even got outta bed. Him and Momma would make room for me right in the middle of the fluffy covers, and I would lay there til they made me get up, pretending to watch the bright images lighting up the screen. Truth is, I mostly just liked being right there in that small space where I fit perfect.

“Time to eat.” Granddaddy is suddenly beside me, pointing to a square table in the dining room. We sit down without talking, Granddaddy and Momma on the ends, me and Nia between. Granddaddy made hot chili with beans, and corn bread with a hunk of melting butter on top. It’s a funny meal for a hot day, but I’m hungry so I slurp burning bites from my spoon. Then I ask for Nia’s food when I’m done, cause she’s barely eating. I watch Granddaddy as I eat, cause he don’t eat, neither. He watches Momma. He watches Nia. Then he watches me. I lay my head down by my bowl, like when my teacher makes me put my head down in class for finishing my work too quick.

After I finish both bowls and Momma finishes one bowl and Granddaddy and Nia finish nothin’, we all stay at the table. We don’t talk, just sit. Momma and Granddaddy read the newspaper, even though it don’t seem like Momma is doin’ much reading cause her face keeps gettin’ all scrunched up and sometimes her eyes stay closed awhile after she blinks.

“So, how is Sister Stephens?” Momma breaks the silence, setting down the newspaper and turning toward Granddaddy. “Still head of the usher board?” She clasps her hands together while she waits.

Granddaddy finally says, “Yeah,” and nothin’ else. Momma sucks her bottom lip into her top lip, just like Nia does when she’s annoyed with Momma.

“Isn’t it almost time for the big family picnic?” Momma tries again. She sits up taller and rests her elbows on the table, but all Granddaddy does is nod. Momma frowns, and they both go back to reading.

I wanna get up, but Nia stays put, so I stay put and count the statues I can see in the kitchen. Thirty-seven, then I’m bored. I try to make faces at Nia, but she’s too busy rolling her eyes. Momma says one day when she rolls her eyes, they’ll get stuck.

“Well, I guess I’ll get going.” Momma folds her newspaper and stands. Nia looks confused and then scared. I drop my spoon into the empty bowl and it makes a loud, metal thud. Granddaddy don’t look up from his newspaper.

“Going where?” Nia asks. Momma don’t speak, only looks at Nia, then me, with wet eyes. Nia says, “I’m going, too,” and stands up. I stand up, too, but Momma shakes her head.

“You girls will stay here with your granddad,” Momma says. “I have to go take care of some business.” I look down fast, before Nia can see my tears. But then I see she’s crying, too.

“But-but . . . when you coming back?” I wail.

Momma takes a breath and lowers her head. “I don’t know yet, girls. But you will love it here, I promise.”

“No, Momma!” Nia screams. She rushes to Momma, buries her face in the soft place in her neck. I ain’t tall enough to reach that place and settle for hugging Momma’s waist. We stay that way for a while, me crying and Nia begging and Momma rubbing our hair. Soon, Momma is kneeling, and Nia is crying, and I am rubbing both of their hair. Finally, we let Momma go. But we don’t know why, and we don’t know for how long. She grabs her purse and walks to the door with us following. Granddaddy looks up from the newspaper at last, but he stays at the table. Seems like now would be a good time for him to start acting like he cares, but he don’t.

“One day, you’ll look back and thank me for this time,” Momma whispers, pulling me and then Nia into her arms for a goodbye hug before she turns and walks out the door. For a second, I feel like I’m back in that rotten basement again. First Daddy, now Momma. I squeeze my eyes shut and imagine myself leaving one day, instead of always being left behind. But even this makes me feel sad. I wanna cry again, but I stretch my face into a cracked smile, like Momma. I been cryin’ or trying not to cry since the day Daddy died. Not no more. If Momma can fake a smile when she wants to cry, so can I.

Nia spots my smile, so I cross my eyes and stick out my tongue to make her laugh, just like on the nights when Momma worked late and Daddy was nowhere to be found. We’d watch reruns of Good Times all night and make each other laugh, and it wouldn’t matter so much that the bathwater never got hot and dinner was cereal with stinky milk. Momma clip-clops down the steps and Nia snorts—not on purpose but cause it’s a habit now—then we both giggle into the space between us, that special space where no matter how far we go, we can always get back. Stuck standing at the shut door we laugh and laugh, cause we know Momma’s wrong. We ain’t ever gon’ be thankful for something so bad.