TISH LOOKED AT Neena rushing straight for her bed and at first she thought it was Freeda. She almost cried out, “Mommy.” But then she saw it was Neena. “Neena,” Tish said in a weak voice and then she started to cry for real.
Neena walked over to the bed. She was shaking with emotion and she hated for Tish to see her lose control. So she lost control anyhow. She didn’t even try to rock herself to calm herself. She allowed herself to shake, allowed cracked sniffing sounds to come up from her nose, her mouth. She leaned her head down on Tish’s chest. “Don’t be trying to hug, girl,” she said to Tish.
“Girl, please,” Tish said through her sobs as she wrapped her arms around Neena and squeezed as hard as she could. “Nobody’s trying to hug you. I’m just trying to like hide this mess of hair from view. I’mma have to pretend that you’re no kin of mine.”
And that’s how they were when Nan came back in the room. Nan stepping back out in the hall then to allow them their time.
“They think he’s viable, they’re hopeful,” Malik said as he walked Nan and Neena to the transitional nursery. “Twenty-six weeks you know is early, but they said he’s strong, a real fighter. They think he’s gonna pull through. You know, every minute he’s alive, it’s like there’s more of a chance he’ll stay alive.”
They stopped at the entranceway to the critical care nursery. They washed their hands and put on gowns and gloves and masks. The back of Neena’s gown had come untied and Nan reached up and then pulled her hand back as if she’d touched a burning stove. She reached up again, slower, pushed her hand through the heat of time. “Hold still, Neena, let me do your tie,” she said. And afterward she let her hand rest at the base of Neena’s neck. Then drew her hand down Neena’s back. Making circles now on Neena’s back, patting Neena’s back like a soft snare drum as they walked to the incubator where their baby was.
Malik explained what he’d been told about the breathing machine, the bells and whistles and chimes going off constantly. Neena looked inside at her nephew. He was withered, misshapen, almost monstrous with the pads covering his eyes, the tubes going in and out of his mouth and nose. He’d been separated too soon from his mother. Was he cold? she wondered, shivering.
“Lord Jesus, bless him please.” Nan breathed into the air. Nan still making circles on and then patting Neena’s back.
Neena blinked, and then blinked again trying to blink away the tears. And then she couldn’t and the tears came and she still looked at the baby through the tears. Now he was beautiful through the tears. He was alive, fighting to stay alive, and that was beautiful. He was perfect now through the tears. He was grotesque and beautiful and perfect and good. A human he was. A heart the size of a thimble beating soundly in his chest.
The sun had broken through the sky as Nan and Neena left the hospital. It was colder out too. Nan said she was going to go take her bath, then run the things over to the church that she’d made for the flea market. “I’m willing to fry you up some scrapple and eggs if you want to come past,” Nan said. “You might want to come to the flea market even. You don’t have to stay long. You could meet Charlene’s twins. They’re growing into fine boys with their devilish selves.”
Neena thought about LaTeefah and her mother. She wondered if they’d show up. They started walking down the ramp toward the bus stop. She was about to tell Nan about them and the purse they might be bringing to sell, but now Nan was saying something about some man who’d come by early in the morning looking for Neena a couple of weeks ago. “Said his name was Nathan, and I don’t know any Nathans.”
“Nathan?” Neena said. “Nan, that’s Richmond, you know the freckle-faced boy from Virginia.”
“Richmond? Well, why didn’t he say that’s who he was?”
“I guess because Richmond isn’t his name, so why would he say Richmond?” Neena said, feeling that familiar irritation building toward Nan.
“Because everybody knew him as Richmond, Neena. That’s why.”
“Nan, this looks like your 42 coming,” Neena said as they approached the bus stop.
“Well another one will come just like that one’s coming. First I want to know where you’re staying.”
Neena sighed and looked beyond Nan. The sky was shaking out puffs of gray and purple air. It felt like snow. And Neena had the thought that it was February, should feel like snow. “I’m staying in the belly of the whale,” she said, and then she laughed.
“Belly of the whale? Sounds like you need to be staying with me,” Nan said, as she pulled a cellophane pouch filled with tokens from her patent leather purse. Pressed a token in Neena’s hand.
Neena folded her hand over the token, then stood there, considering what to do as they watched the 42 roll past. “Mnh, it’s just, you know your house rules about church and all, Nan.”
“Just church, or and all? I can relax on some things, like you going to church, but you know you never turn off the lights in my kitchen with a dirty dish in the sink.”
“I can keep a kitchen clean.”
“Well, then, sometime I’d like to hear about how you’re replacing a God in your life. Just for my own understanding.”
Neena thought about how she’d never be able to explain it to the likes of Nan. Like how the Mrs. Young woman replaced God in her life when she called her baby girl as she stood outside of what had been Mr. Cook’s store. Or the eyebrows of the bus ticket agent in Chicago that prompted her to come back home. Or like right now as she saw Bow Peep walking toward them. He was smiling his long smile. And Neena thought, like that. God is alive in a smile like that.
Nan was telling Neena that she had something very important that she needed to say to her. Goldie could have visitors starting tomorrow and maybe they could go there together and the three of them could sit like they’d done when Sam died, and she could say it then. “Very important, Neena. Something I should have said years ago. I was wrong not to. I was so very wrong.”
Then Bow Peep was right up on them talking fast. “My little lamb, you’re overdue your healing vibe,” he said. “And I trust from the looks of love in both your eyes that sis and the baby are well. Are they well?”
Nan was looking at Bow Peep with her mouth hanging open. What kind of people was Neena taking up with now? she thought.
“Oh, and little lamb, the tiger tiger burning bright says he surely hopes he might see you tonight.” Then Bow Peep turned to Nan and extended his hand. “Maynard’s the name, though they call me Bow Peep, and healing’s my game. And I see I’ve still got quite a bit of work to do.”