It was difficult to tear his eyes away from the casket, but he brought his heavy gaze back to the choir. As the singers harmonized with the force and the grace of angels, a tiny hand slid along the inside of his wrist and up to the lines of his palm. He managed a slight smile at the four-year-old sitting beside him on the padded bench, then lifted her to his lap and hugged her to his chest. Two small legs dangled between the V of his large ones. Two forlorn eyes searched his before asking, “Daddy, why did Mommy leave us?”
He clasped her hands between his, the same gentle way one would shelter a fallen baby sparrow separated from the security of the nest. He whispered around the lump of tears in his throat, “Everything will be all right,” although he was skeptical that it was the truth.
A perfume that had been with him in the limousine continued to cloud around his head. The scent belonged to the woman leaning against his shoulder—his children’s godmother. Unrestrained sobs shook her shoulders, and he squeezed her hand. She pulled their joined hands into her lap, and the tears her handkerchief missed trickled between his fingers and over his wedding band. By now, the choir had reached the pinnacle of its song, rocking in the enraptured fashion expected. Many of the mourners were on their feet, clapping, bouncing. Those electing to remain seated displayed their joy with waving hands or handkerchiefs, toe tapping, and shouts of praise that coasted like wing-stretched doves to the high ceiling. But the musical gospel failed to console him. Close to weeping, he drew a breath for composure, dug his heels into the carpet, and blinked back all stinging tears before they could run rivers down his face.
He had to be strong for his girls.
He glanced at his older child, an arm’s length away on the same pew, her small hands folded so tightly they must have ached. The paternal longing to hold her as he was holding his little one knocked at his heart, yet he left her as she was, nestled in the curve of her aunt’s arm. The time when he had possessed the power to hug and kiss this daughter’s problems away was only a murky memory. She had withdrawn from him since her mother’s passing. Perhaps she wished it had been he who died. He had wished it. He would have gladly taken his sweetheart’s place so his children could have her back.
But God had not allowed it to be. And so it seemed he had not only lost his wife. He’d also lost his firstborn.
Three twenty-something women sat together near the rear of the crowded church. The one in the middle extended her polished nail and swept a piece of lint from her dress, the hem of the red garment inching toward her thighs as she crossed one slim leg over the other. She unzipped a small handbag, withdrew a compact, and popped it open.
“Can’t you go anywhere without that thing?” a disapproving voice said.
Ignoring the female sitting on her right, the woman in the red dress and red heels continued to idolize her reflection.
“Do you really think it’s appropriate to do that now?” The whispered question shot from the left this time.
The woman rolled her eyes. Any sensible female knew a funeral was one of the top ten places for meeting a man, making it essential to look her best. She extracted a tube of lipstick from her handbag and applied an additional coat, sharpening the color. “I look so good,” she cooed, bouncing her shoulders to a beat in her head.
“I know exactly what your butt is up to,” the petite lady on the right snapped, and several people in the vicinity sent reprimanding glances. She quieted to a whisper. “Anyone who knows you can see straight through your brain.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m
talking
about the reason you’re here.”
“I’m here for the same reason as everyone else.” She tried to sound sad. “I’m in mourning.” Batting her eyelashes, she returned the glamour accessories to her purse.
“You never even liked her,” she hissed.
The slender female on the left eased her back away from the pew and turned her head. “Why don’t you
both
save this drama for later? The pastor is speaking.”
The female in the middle squinted at the woman who had just subtly told them to shut up. She was sick of her holiness ways and modest wardrobe. Today her girlfriend’s black skirt was too long, the white collar of her blouse too high, and, as usual, the only makeup she had on was a tame shade of lipstick. “I’ll be the first to admit that me and what’s her name up there in the coffin were never close, but I do feel terrible about what happened to her,” the woman in red said as she toyed with a lock of her long curls. “However,
she’s
dead, not me. So why let the opportunity to delight in all these hard
chocolate
male bodies just slip by?” She stuck out her tongue and jiggled it. “
Taste
the chocolate.”
In a voice tense with rebuke, the woman on the left whispered into her ear, “Show a little respect. This is a church, not a club.”
Her chin jutted out. “I know where I am. And maybe I’ll start coming more often.” She nodded amen in response to the last statement the pastor had made, although she had no idea what it was.
“You don’t fool me, girl.” The woman on the right cooled herself with a straw fan. “Now that the man of your habitual delusions is single, you think you have a chance. You’ve always wanted him.”
The woman in red snatched the fan and fluttered it near her exposed cleavage. “Yes, at one time I was
minimally
attracted to him.”
“But you have no interest in him now?”
She stared ahead, waving the fan with increased momentum. “No interest at all.”
She was no stranger to visions, but certainly, a funeral was an odd time for a vision of a wedding. Startled by the arresting image, the gray-haired church mother jerked, sending the purple leather-bound Bible open on her lap to the floor. Bending to retrieve the divine book, she glanced across the aisle at the new widower. He was holding the hand of the beautiful woman next to him. They appeared to be dealing with their loss together. The church mother meditated some more on the vision, then leaned forward and helped herself to another look at the widower and the pretty-faced woman. A faint smile of enchantment and approval played on the church mother’s lips as she pondered how God would bring the marriage in her vision to pass.
E
ar-piercing screams filled the air. Cassidy Beckett tucked the towel around the baby and hugged him closer. She kissed his wrinkled forehead and rocked back and forth.
“What’s the matter with it?” Minister’s voice crackled with hostility.
“I don’t know.” Cassidy gulped, and more of her tears fell onto the bundle in her arms. Earlier, she had cleaned him up the best she knew how, then rubbed lotion on his tender skin. Now Cassidy pressed her cheek against the baby and sniffed, holding his soft scent inside her nostrils until her lungs gave way. “I don’t know how to calm him,” she cried, her voice shaking with each word.
“Well, you better hurry up and figure something out.” Contempt blazed in Minister’s eyes as he stared at the baby.
Cassidy’s cell phone hummed a series of notes, and she forced herself to stop thinking about Minister and the baby. Focusing on the present, she answered the phone. The caller had the wrong number, and after a polite exchange, Cassidy ended the call as the cab she occupied merged with the stream of traffic aiming for the next off-ramp. She was at least ten minutes from her destination, and so she had time to check her messages, and she logged in the code. One message waited in her voice mail box. Cassidy gritted her teeth and sighed from a place inside that was tired of dealing with Sister Maranda Whittle. She quickly scribbled Maranda’s number on a small notepad, then called the number, ready to take on Maranda for the last time.
“Praise the Lord!” Maranda answered after the second ring.
“Hello, Sister Whittle. This is Cassidy Beck—”
“Oh, yes, Cassidy,” Maranda cut in. Maranda smiled a full beam whenever she spoke to Cassidy at church, so Cassidy imagined Maranda was fully charged now. “I’m so glad you called. Have you given any more thought to our previous conversation?”
Cassidy’s stomach burned. “No . . . not much.”
“The Sparrow Ministry could use a young woman like you. Why don’t you come to our next meeting?”
No can do. Cassidy could not make the next meeting, the reason enfolded in personal conflict, which she would never unfold with Maranda or anyone else. So why couldn’t she just be blunt and answer Maranda with a no? Like the other times they’d spoken on this topic, her tongue hardened, and she could not lift it to speak one word that would let Maranda know without question she wasn’t interested in joining the Sparrow Ministry. Maranda stated the time and place for the next Sparrow Ministry staff meeting, probably assuming Cassidy was writing the information down. As if she sensed Cassidy’s desire to hang up, Maranda rushed through an oration on the ins and outs of the Sparrow Ministry that she had shared with Cassidy once before. “You be blessed,” Maranda tooted at the end of the call.
“You, too,” said Cassidy.
“Here we are,” the cabdriver said. Cassidy suddenly realized the driver had parked in front of her house. He came around, opened her door, raised his cap, and scratched his bald, dark-colored scalp. He put his cap back on tight, and only the woolly gray sideburns were visible again. Cassidy stretched her legs through the doorway and vacated the burned-popcorn-smelling car she’d spent sixty minutes of her life in. As the hem of a denim skirt dropped below her calves, she smiled up at the three-story semidetached dwelling standing before her. The bulbs in the pine boxes that bordered the second-level windows had bloomed while she was away, and a breeze encouraged the tiny flowers to wave and bow at her as if they were welcoming home royalty.
After a sigh of optimism, Cassidy said, “It’s good to be back.” She harbored no doubts, questions, or regrets. Leaving San Diego, returning to her children, remained a wise decision.
The driver, who’d introduced himself as Benny at the airport, spoke with certainty. “I’m sure you missed your little girl.”
Cassidy frowned, and Benny pointed toward the walkway leading to the brick house. A toy Corvette with an African American Barbie doll lounging in the passenger seat was parked in the dirt beneath a manicured shrub. Cassidy rubbed a hand over her microbraids from the start of her hairline to the bun at the back of her head. “One of the neighborhood girls must have left it there,” she said. No children lived at this address, just she and her great-aunt, Odessa. Several years prior, upon completion of graduate school, Cassidy had planned on moving out of Odessa’s house and renting an apartment. But Odessa had suggested that Cassidy continue living here and they would share the household bills.
Cassidy grinned as she thought of how surprised Odessa was going to be. Cassidy hadn’t told her she was returning today.
Benny lifted a large suitcase from the trunk and started toward the house.
“No,” Cassidy objected right away, “I can handle that.” Benny shrugged and placed the luggage at the edge of the walkway, and she handed him the fare with a generous tip.
Rounding his vehicle to the driver’s side, Benny shouted, “Enjoy the rest of the day . . . and the summer.”
Cassidy planned to enjoy every remaining slice of summer vacation. Breathing in the delicate fragrance of her aunt’s small garden, she flung aside the memory of Larenz Flemings, the man she’d dated at this time last year. Cassidy already vowed that
this
summer would be better, brighter, and by all means date-free, with the exception of Oliver Toby. Cassidy and Oliver Toby had a date every Wednesday afternoon.
A group of elementary-age girls drove by on bicycles, and Cassidy smiled, ACES stamped on her thoughts. The tutorial center, stationed in Charity Community Church, had been her idea. She had named it the Academic and Cultural Enrichment School. And while ACES had been left in capable hands, Cassidy was eager to return. The students weren’t just students. They were her children, those she loved and those who loved her.
The wind chimes hanging in the far corner of the porch tinkled as Cassidy looked over at her car, parked on the street. The previously owned Accord, hers for the last eight years, had been grounded, in need of significant repairs. Cassidy sauntered closer to the car and removed a brochure clamped beneath the windshield wiper. She skimmed the advertisement, an announcement detailing the grand opening of another neighborhood pizzeria. There was no room for pizza in Cassidy’s diet, so she crumpled the paper into a ball and stuffed the wad into her pocket. She continued to study the car and decided it must have rained a lot while she’d been out of town, because except for the bird droppings splattered on the windshield, her car was immaculate, the front bumper “burnished to a luminous shine,” she remarked to a squirrel scampering up a telephone pole.
Burnish.
It was Cassidy’s word for the week. She collected words the way some people collected stamps or dolls or coins.
“Cassie gal, is that you?” Emma Purdue, Cassidy’s longtime next-door neighbor, wobbled out onto her porch. Cassidy smiled in the direction of Emma’s loud voice as Emma limped down the steps and along the walkway with the assistance of a cane.
“Yes, Ms. Emma, it’s me.” Cassidy advanced upon the only person in the world who called her Cassie. Emma Purdue, slightly deaf in both ears and adamant about not needing the support of hearing aids, had yet to discover that Cassidy’s real name was Cassidy. With folks like Emma, once something got stuck in their head, it seemed to stay that way, and no matter how zealously the rest of the world poked, prodded, or protested, it didn’t change a thing. Cassidy had long ago accepted that to Emma Purdue she would probably remain “Cassie” forever.
Cassidy embraced Emma, the odor of fried chicken and collards billowing from the stout senior’s flowered housedress. The soul-food smell almost drowned out the thick and commonplace smell of the pomade Emma used on her short gray Afro.
“Whatcha doing back?” Emma asked, a hand on her hip, a hand resting on her cane. “Gal, ya not sick, is ya?”