Seven Days in June(95)

SHANE: It could’ve been better, but nothing rhymes with Genevieve.





The next day…

Mrs. Fabianne Dupre—or Mama Fay, as she was affectionately called—was one hundred and one years old, with a silver braid wound around her head, cheekbones that screamed Shoshone Nation, and no teeth. The whole town knew her because she’d taught math to four generations of Belle Fleur children—in the tiny schoolhouse behind Saint Frances Church, which happened to be the oldest American church built by Black people and the epicenter of Belle Fleur. Mama Fay knew Delphine, Clothilde, Lizette, and everyone else in the Mercier bloodline—so Eva made a call to the farmhouse that Mama Fay’s granddaddy had built, where she lived with her widowed niece.

After the niece served Eva a light snack (meat pies, pralines, two slices of pecan pie, tea cakes, and sassafras tea), Eva settled in on Mama Fay’s rickety, whitewashed porch. And Mama Fay, who was laid out on a wicker recliner, began regaling Eva with tales of the past. With dazzling precision. Mama Fay couldn’t recall what she ate for breakfast, but she did remember leading the protest against Clotilde’s teenage exorcism back in 1939.

“Your grandma’d be out there working in the hot sun, getting fits and head pains and all matter a vexins. She had a sickness, but it wasn’t witchery. Her fool daddy was scared a her, that’s what. His back went bad round fall ’39, and he reasoned Clo put roots on him. Jay-zee Ma-dee Jo-seff.” Jesus Mary Joseph. “His back went bad ’cause a fast women and slow horses, not his own daughter. Why women gotta be the cause a evilness in man? Now, I never got married. No, no, no, I ain’t one of those funny ladies. I just won’t fold myself up tiny so as not to put off no man. Anyway, Clo grew up and married a man same like her daddy. Scared. One spring they crops turnt dry, and the husband and the daddy and the same priest, Father Augustin, sprung a second exorcism on her. She let ’em. And went quiet for months. And then shot that husband in the shed. Let folks tell it, she shot him ’cause he was sanging a spiritual in there, and the holy noise poked the demon in her. Which I always took issha with. Won’t no evil in your grandma. She couldn’t long-divide for nothing, but she was a good girl. An excellent cook. And an even bettah shot.”

Eva was listening but was soon lost in her own thoughts. For the first time, she could identify the striking difference between herself and her ancestors (aside from successfully mothering a child). She was the first to almost get love right.

Delphine, Clotilde, and Lizette had never been able to depend on their men. Because their men had never allowed them to be who they were—they’d crushed their true spirits, at every turn. But for Eva, Shane had done the opposite.

Mama Fay was “fittintuh” divulge even more details, but that’s when Eva’s phone rang. Apologizing profusely, Eva hurried down the porch steps and perched on an old tire swing hanging from the thick, gnarled branch of an ancient fig tree.

“Hi, Mommy,” said Audre, her voice clear as a bell and giddy sounding.

“Sweetie! I miss you so much,” she said breathlessly. She hadn’t talked to Audre in three days.

“I got your package! With your cameo ring,” she enthused. “I was shocked; you’re legit giving it to me?”

“I legit am. I think it’s supposed to be yours now.”

“Why?”

“Long story. I’ll tell you when I see you.”

“Okay. Mom? I’m having an emergency.” Audre’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m at the mall with my Dadifornia friends, and we ran into The Boy.”

“STOP.”

“Swear. The four of us got ice cream and talked…and ugh, he’s so cute, but I don’t know if he likes me back. I don’t know how to flirt.”

Flirt! Eva wasn’t going to survive the next five years. “Well,” she started calmly, “what have you been doing?”

“For the past hour? Ignoring him. I can’t even look at him. This is hard; I’d almost rather go back to being friends.”

“But…isn’t that all you are?”

“OMIGOD MOM YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING.”

“Sweetie, don’t raise your voice in public.” Eva glanced over at the porch and saw that Mama Fay was asleep, her silver hair going glinty in the brilliant sun.

“How’s Mr. Hall, Mommy?”

“I’m sure he’s fine. But I want to hear more about The Boy.”

Ignoring this, Audre said, “Do you think it’s weird that he’s gonna be teaching at my school? Like, are you guys cool?”

“We’re adults, Audre. It’s fine. We’re friends.”

“Yeah, that’s what he said. Oh, when you talk to him, tell him that my stepmom, Athena, had a dermoid. When the doctors removed the cyst, it had a fingernail in it.”

“What the whole hell are you talking about?”

“Just tell him. Love you, bye!”

And that was when it happened. As she tried to get up, Eva’s foot tangled in the rope dangling from the tire swing. She tripped and fell, and the ancient branch snapped off the tree, toppling on top of her. Its jagged end landed just a few inches from her jugular. She easily could’ve died.

Of course, Eva had lived through near-death experiences twice before. That time in the house on Wisconsin Avenue. Then again at the hands of a dildo. And now this.