IF THERE’S ONE THING I CAN’T STAND about the holiday season, it’s that the reverend insists his church be clean from top to bottom. So here I am, dusting, making sure the reverend’s leather-bound Bible is properly positioned on the pulpit.
My dust rag is wrapped tight around my fingers. I go for every crevice. The Reverend C. Elias Tyson is a stickler for cleanliness.
I even dust the Bible’s back cover. When I flip through the book’s pages to unsettle any dust there, I come to a picture of a beautiful lady tucked in the Bible’s gutter. The picture is nestled at Luke 2:1–20, the story of the birth of Jesus, the passage the reverend draws from every year for the sermon he gives the Sunday before Christmas.
There’s an inscription on the picture.
It says:
To C. Elias—
Honey doesn’t get much sweeter than you.
Love and kisses,
Pauline (Your Praline)
July 10, 1923
My face gets hotter than a straightening comb, and I’m curling my toes inside my shoes.
Honey? Sweet? The reverend?
I know right away I’m looking at something that isn’t meant for my eyes. Yet here are the eyes of Pauline Tyson, my mother, looking back at me. They’re the same eyes as mine, dark pennies.
I don’t know whether to smile, or cry, or curse the reverend.
I have asked him about my mother a trillion times.
A trillion times the reverend has said, “She’s gone, Bernie. No need knowing about her.”
A trillion times I have asked for a picture of my mother.
A trillion times the reverend has said, “All Pauline left behind was her memory.”
The photograph is dated the year before I was born and is signed on the reverend’s birthday, July 10.
This picture is more than a memory. It’s a secret the reverend has been keeping from me. In finding the reverend’s private birthday gift, I am meeting my mother for the very first time.
Mama’s hair is pressed and styled, and beautiful. It is the soft petals of a rose curling in around delicate cheekbones.
Even in a photograph, there is only one way to describe my mother’s skin. Satin.
I lift the picture from the reverend’s Bible, resting it in my palm, scared as a hick at a queen’s tea party that I will somehow break it.
Mama’s smile is full of kindness, just like those penny eyes. I can’t help but stare.
Something inside me starts to hum with a strange joy. I’m trembling, and breathing so fast. My heart is a hammer. This must be what stage fright feels like.
My legs won’t even let me move. I lean against the pulpit, then back up toward the piano bench, where Mrs. Trask, our choir accompanist, sits every Sunday. I will not take my eyes off Mama. I would give up blinking if I could.
I’m sitting but still as wobbly as the bench legs beneath me. I trace Mama’s face with my fingers. My fingernails are raggedy patches against Mama’s skin.
Soon I hear heavy footsteps, and Mr. Straight-as-a-broomstick roaring.
“Bernie—Bernie Lee! Where are you?”
Now that hammer near my ribs is doing double time.
I swallow hard.
The reverend doesn’t see me right away. I’m blocked by the pulpit.
I wish I could eat Mama’s picture. That way, I could hold her inside me forever. Instead, I pick at the nails on each of my thumbs.
The reverend calls me again, louder this time. “Hibernia!”
I ease the picture underneath my thighs, then slide myself closer to the keyboard and do my best to play “Do, Lord, Deliver Me.” I am not even halfway through the first bar when the reverend comes up from behind. He’s holding the dust rag I’ve left on the pulpit.
I’m no Fats Waller on the piano, but I can plunk out a tune good enough. So I keep playing. This is the first time ever I am thankful for my chomped fingernails. They keep my fingers pressing the piano keys smooth and steady.
The reverend knows the song I’m playing. He says, “The Lord will deliver you when you deliver on your chores.”
I’m quick with an explanation. “I took a break from cleaning to practice my piano.”
The reverend lifts his spectacles to peer at me. “You can brush up on your piano tomorrow when Mrs. Trask comes to rehearse the youth choir for a Christmas concert at the Mercy Home for Negro Orphans.”
“What Christmas concert?” I want to know.
“Mrs. Weiss, our new parishioner since last summer, has asked that we oblige her by performing for the children at Mercy, where she works.”
Then I remember Baptism Sunday in August, when the lady with onion bunions asked about us singing at holiday time.
I look back over my shoulder at the reverend. “That was definite?”
“Yes, Bernie, and it would please her to hear our youth choir sing for the children at the orphanage.”
I work hard to keep from sucking my teeth. Mind you, I will never turn down a chance to sing, but wasting my voice on orphans is a true shame.
The reverend can tell by my arms folded tightly that I am not glad about having to sing for a bunch of orphans. “What kinds of kids live at Mercy, anyway?” I ask.
“Bernie, it’s time for you to show some mercy. Many of those children have no parents. Some of them have been left by parents who can’t take care of them. Others find their way to Mercy on their own when they cannot tolerate their troubled homes.”
I keep my arms folded. “So—some of the kids have parents?”
“Yes, Bernie.”
“Do they have an appreciation for good singing?”
The reverend answers by telling me that I have no choice in the matter. “You and the choir will bring those children some much-needed holiday spirit.”
It’s no use protesting the reverend, so from here on in I hold my tongue. But the whole time I’m wishing Smooth Teddy Wilson would come back to Elmira and take me away from this piano bench and the True Vine Baptist Youth Singers.
The reverend rests the dust rag on my shoulder. “Now get back to work,” he says before he’s gone.
On Sunday, I’m seated behind the pulpit with the rest of the choir, while the reverend starts up his sermon. I can see all the members of True Vine. Every face in the place is looking up at the Reverend C. Elias Tyson.
I watch the reverend from behind. His thick shoulders force the seams of his black suit. As soon as the reverend turns to Luke 2:1–20, his whole stance changes. All of him goes tense. His hand clamps the back of his neck. Here we are in this chilly church, and the reverend wipes his nape with his hankie.
He keeps on with his sermon, but his delivery isn’t as smooth as it is most times. He flips the crinkly Bible pages while he says, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”
The congregation doesn’t seem to notice anything strange about the reverend. Like always, they’re hanging on to his words like a child holds a rope swing. But I know the reverend isn’t his true self. His hand and his hankie have not left the back of his neck.
The reverend is looking for his picture of Pauline. Mr. Sweet Honey is trying to find his Praline.
Even more luscious than a praline is knowing that the reverend’s picture of Pauline is hidden under my bed pillow, bringing me honey-sweet dreams.