An American Marriage(52)

I threw my hands up. “I know. I know.” I hadn’t had a little scrap of happiness in five entire years and he wasn’t even going to let me have an hour of basking in the sun.

“But wait until you wash up,” he said.

He was right. I needed to make some plans to get back to Atlanta, to greet Celestial skin-to-skin and ask her whether we were still married. A part of me said, if you have to ask, the answer is no. Maybe I was setting myself up. Two years of no visits is a message; why did I need to hear it from her own lips? Whatever she had to say for herself would draw blood, and it wouldn’t be a clean cut. The truth would hurt jagged, like a dog bite.

But there was still the simple and undisputed fact that she didn’t divorce me. If she didn’t get out of the marriage officially, it was only because she didn’t want to. That carried some weight in my book. Besides, even a dog bite can heal.

When the phone started ringing, I hadn’t gotten dressed any further than my shorts. The outdated telephone rang with a loud metallic jangle. “Tell Wickliffe I’m waiting on the porch,” Big Roy shouted from outside.

Pussyfooting to the kitchen, half-naked and barefoot, I picked up the phone and said, “He’s waiting on the porch.”

The man on the other end said, “Excuse me?”

I said, “Sorry. Hello? Hamilton residence.”

The man on the other end said, “Roy, is that you?”

“Little Roy. You want Big Roy?”

“It’s Andre. What are you doing answering the phone? I thought you weren’t getting out until Wednesday.”

The last time I saw Dre, he wore the gray suit he would wear to Olive’s wake. I could feel the crowd in the visitors’ room watching him as we talked, trying to figure out the deal with us. I knew how I looked: like everyone else in there, worn jumpsuit, black skin. Everything else about me was details. In his dress clothes, Dre didn’t look like a lawyer; he presented more like a musician who moved to Europe because “cats in the States don’t get jazz.”

I had been glad to see him. Dre was my boy. He introduced me to Celestial the first time, even though it didn’t take until much later. When we got married, he stood up with me, signed his name. Now here he was on the last Sunday Olive would be aboveground.

“Will you carry her for me?” I asked.

Dre breathed deep and nodded.

It’s painful to even recollect it, but when he agreed, I felt thankful and furious all at once. “I appreciate you,” I said.

He whisked my words away with his piano-player fingers. “I’m sorry about all of this. You know, Banks is still working. . . .”

Now it was my turn to wave him quiet. “Fuck Banks. Even if he got me out tomorrow, it would be too late. My mama is already dead.”

Hearing his voice now, I felt that same mix of shame and rage I felt when he said he would carry Olive’s casket. It made my throat itch, and I had to clear it twice before I spoke.

“What’s up, Dre? Good to hear from you.”

“Likewise, man,” he said. “But you’re early. We weren’t expecting you for a few more days.”

We, he said. We weren’t expecting you.

“Paperwork,” I said. “Bureaucracy. Someone in the Department of Corrections said it was time for me to go and so I went.”

“I hear you,” said Dre. “Does Celestial know?”

“Not yet,” I said.

“No problem,” Dre said after a beat. “I hope you don’t mind holding steady for a couple of days.”

“Y’all are driving down together?”

“Just me,” said Dre.

I hung up the phone and went back out to the porch and stood over Big Roy. From this angle, I could see the little scars on the top of his balding head. I remember my mother kissing them when he would whack his head on the light fixture that hung a little too low over the dining-room table. She was crazy about that dinky little chandelier, and my father never asked her to take it down.

“It wasn’t Wickliffe,” I said. “It was Andre.”

“What did he say that got you so shook up that you’re standing outside in your drawers?”

I looked down at my bare legs, turning ashy already. “He says he’s coming down to get me. Just him.”

“That sound right to you?”

“I don’t know what’s right.”

Big Roy said, “You better get to Atlanta and see if you have any marriage left.” He paused. “If that’s what you want.”

“Hell yeah, it’s what I want.”

“I had to ask because ten minutes ago you didn’t seem so sure.”

The phone rang again and Big Roy jutted his chin toward the house. “Answer it. It’s either going to be Wickliffe or Celestial. If it’s Wickliffe, tell him I’m calling in. If it’s Celestial, you’re on your own.”

I let it jangle until she gave up.

I returned to the kitchen dressed in the best apparel Walmart had to offer, khaki pants and a knit shirt with a collar. At least I had good shoes. In the mirror, I looked like a budget Tiger Woods, but I didn’t look like an ex-con. “I want to go home.”

Big Roy was stooped in front of the refrigerator rummaging inside. “Atlanta, you mean?”