Chapter Nine

EVELYN WATCHED AS GRANNY B gathered laundry. A strong wind tangled up one of her queen-size sheets, and she struggled to unravel it from the line.

Thus began her second full day at Granny B’s house. The two previous nights had passed uneventfully. Her mama and Jackson had dropped off the materials she’d requested, and they had spent a couple of hours visiting the evening before—something Granny B was none too thrilled about, by the sound of her grumbling.

Evelyn had talked to Kevin and reassured him that she was all right. She knew it was the right thing to do, but she had kept the conversation to a minimum. Although she wasn’t surprised he hadn’t offered to hop on the next North Carolina–bound flight, disappointment niggled at her.

Left to her own devices, she carefully avoided any real interaction with Granny B. And true to her word, except for a glass or two of water, she received no special treatment. After that first night of having dinner served to her on a tray, she ate all her meals at the kitchen table opposite a mostly silent, yet relatively pleasant Granny B.

This morning she woke to find Granny B in “her” bedroom.

“Layin’ round so much ain’t good for you,” Granny B told her, raising the blinds. “I was up cookin’ meals and washin’ clothes for three other children two days after Thomas was born. And I don’t mean pushin’ a few buttons on no mi-cro-wave or throwin’ some stuff in a machine. Gal, I’m talkin’ ’bout work. Now get up and get some sunshine so you can get to mendin’. That bed pro’bly gettin’ hard.”

Evelyn didn’t tell her that the bed was feeling pretty toasty at the moment and that she’d had every intention of wallowing in it for another hour or two. Instead, she found herself at the sinfully late hour of eight o’clock, bathed and fully dressed, watching Granny B from the kitchen doorway. She pushed open the screen and gingerly walked across the backyard.

Without a word, she held one end of the flapping sheet straight as she removed the clothespins from the other end. As Granny B unpinned each third of the sheet, Evelyn slowly folded that section, working through all the kinks in her shoulders and neck. She made her way toward her grandma until at last the sheet was free and folded, ready to go into the wicker basket at Granny B’s feet. They moved to the second row of the clothesline. Granny B removed pins from towels on the far left end of the line. Evelyn gathered the rest of the linen on the far right end.

“I hadn’t told anyone about this baby,” she said softly. Evelyn had no idea why she decided to pick up the threads of a conversation left dangling days ago, threads they’d severed. She kept her eyes on the lily-white pillowcase in front of her, and Granny B continued to work on her towels. But Evelyn banked on their history. Granny B was like a teakettle on a hot eye: she’d get all steamed up, blow her top, and then cease to boil once removed from the source of the heat.

“I’m not sure I’m even ready to think about it myself, that I’m pregnant. I have no idea how Kevin will react, what with all that’s going on between us. He really hasn’t been there for me,” Evelyn remarked almost to herself. “Anyway, how will I know he’ll be there for a baby? And if I haven’t even told my husband, how can I tell anybody else?” She quickly glanced to her left before she unpinned the fitted sheet.

“We haven’t even thought about having children, not really. Of course, on some level we knew that one day we would or that we should but only . . . not right now. I want to work on being a writer, a wife . . . on just being a person. I’m not ready to be somebody’s mother yet. I’m not even good at being somebody’s daughter.” Evelyn risked another look Granny B’s way. “Or somebody’s granddaughter, for that matter. Getting pregnant was not in my plans, and being a single parent most definitely isn’t.”

“You think dyin’ was in mine?”

Startled by her question, Evelyn glanced at Granny B but didn’t answer. By this time, Evelyn was a pillowcase and a towel away from her grandmother. She took down the pillowcase and folded it in half lengthwise.

“In my heart I know my Father knows best, but I’d sure like to know what He knows sometimes. Here I am pregnant, out of work, married to a man who seems to be married to his job most of the time . . .” And to the people who work there. “I’m alone . . .”

“And you ain’t got nobody to reach out to.” Granny B folded the last piece of laundry and dropped it into the basket.

She looked at Granny B directly this time. “And I ain’t got nobody to reach out to.”

Granny B bent down to tuck in the edges of the towels that hung over the side of the laundry basket. “Well, it ain’t like women don’t have babies every day. I birthed nine of ’em, and I sho’ didn’t sit around with my head up my butt, wonderin’ what to do next. Nobody didn’t need to tell me what I needed to do. I just did it.” Granny B hefted the basket to her side and directed her steps to the house. “And I did it alone.”

Evelyn picked up the cloth bag of clothespins and brushed away the bits of grass. Then she clipped it to the line before slowly trailing Granny B. She’d grown accustomed to seeing her ramrod-straight back.

When she opened the back door, Granny B was extracting wet laundry from the washing machine. She watched her separate and shake each piece before tossing it atop the growing pile of sodden clothes in another basket. Her grandma did not acknowledge her presence, not even when she leaned on the wall beside her. “It’s not that I’m thinking of not having this baby. I’m not thinking much of anything at the moment.” When Granny B didn’t react, she amplified her thoughts. “I’m just trying to make you understand why I hadn’t volunteered the fact that I’m pregnant. Why I didn’t say much about it in the hospital.”

“Well, you ain’t got to worry about explainin’ nuthin’ to me—it ain’t none of my business.” Granny B draped a pair of panty hose over the rack above the washer and dryer and closed the washing machine lid. “It’s yo’ husband you need to be worryin’ ’bout. And maybe yo’ mama.” After heaving the basket from the top of the dryer, she rear-ended the screen door and headed back outside to the line. This time, Evelyn hurried as quickly as her sore body could to catch up with her and maintain the “momentum” of the conversation.

“I’m not ‘worried’ about Kevin—at least about this baby. Or Mama either, for that matter. Even though I didn’t plan it, I can do this on my own . . . with God’s help if I need to.”

“You young people and your plans. You thank everythang’s supposed to go by some big plan you created. Then, when things don’t work out, you run around like crazy chickens, blaming God.” She waved her hands above her head. “‘What do I do? What do I do?’”

“Speaking of plans, you’ve had a sudden crimp in your own.”

“If you call ’cute my’loid leu-ke-mia a ‘crimp,’ then unh-huh, I guess I have.” She looked up at Evelyn from her crouch by the basket and caught her granddaughter’s look. “I might as well say it straight, as you and yo’ mama been meddlin’ around in my personal business anyhow.”

“We—”

“Just hush up, gal.” Granny B clipped wet underwear to the line. “Best you own up to it. It ain’t like I got somethin’ to hide no mo’. Just like you ain’t gon’ have much to hide in a few mo’ months.” She paused to appraise Evelyn’s midsection. “Make that a few weeks.”

Evelyn watched her for a moment, bending and clipping and sidestepping, bending and clipping and sidestepping. “Nothing to hide? It’s not like Mama went looking into your private medical files. The information came looking for her.”

“Well, my business mighta gone lookin’ for her, but here I find you all chin-deep in it.” Granny B moved to the second row. She pushed the bag of clothespins down the line, out of her way. “So what? You came over here to Sprang Hope to get into this business of my bein’ sick? You wont to know just how long I’m gon’ be round, botherin’ you folks?”

“No, I’m here to make sure you stay around, botherin’ us folks.”

Granny B barked. “And just how you s’posed to do that? You makin’ deals with God? Huh, I think He done put enough on my plate, thank you very much.”

“Maybe, but your daughter—”

“Which one? ’Lis’beth?” Granny B straightened to eye her granddaughter. “What y’all got cooked up?’

“We don’t have anything cooked up.” Evelyn took a pair of women’s briefs and pinned them to the clothesline. She shook her head. Just how many pairs of white panties does any woman need? “The first we heard of your illness came from somebody other than you, and we just want to know what’s really going on. You know, like . . . when did you get diagnosed? What are your symptoms? What can we do to help? Have you and your doctor considered a bone marrow transplant or chemotherapy? Mama and I want to make sure you and your doctor are clear on your method of treatment.”

“We is.” Granny B went back to her bending and clipping and sidestepping, though Evelyn intuited she was also sidestepping a bigger issue.

“You is? I mean, you are?” Suspicious, she let a pair of underwear hang by one leg. “But from what Mrs. Tagle told Mama—”

Granny B’s head snapped around. “Ruby? What she know ’bout—?”

Evelyn mentally kicked herself for the slip. “Anyway, that’s not the point. It was our understanding that you weren’t getting treatment at all. Oh, wait! Are you seeing somebody other than Dr. Hedgepeth? Do you have a specialist we don’t know about?”

“No and no.”

“No? Then what—?”

“You is full of questions about thangs that ain’t none of yo’ concern.” Granny B finished the underwear and picked up the now-empty basket. “Haven’t you learned yo’ lesson yet ’bout stickin’ yo’ nose into other people’s situations?” She walked away.

Evelyn tried to make sense of what Granny B had, or rather, had not told her as she stood there.

Evelyn limped back to the house, pulled open the back door, and stepped inside. She didn’t have to look for Granny B. She was staring out the kitchen window, sipping from a glass of ice water. Evelyn searched for a way to start.

But before she could wrap her lips around the words, Granny B stated, without preamble, “I know you got somethin’ to say as usual. Stop chewin’ on them words and spit ’em out.”

Evelyn jumped. “Well, since you know so much, you know what I was going to say. ’Cause I have no idea.”

Granny B seemed to take her time setting down the glass beside the sink. Then she faced her. “You gon’ ask me ’bout what I’m doin’ to fight this animal that’s eatin’ away at my insides. You gon’ ask me what my doctor say ’bout all this, what he doin’ to cure me. You wonderin’ why I ain’t told nobody nuthin’ until now.” She waited a beat. “That ’bout it?”

“You’re getting there.”

“Well.” Granny B wearily took the few short steps between the sink and the table. It was then Evelyn realized her grandmother had leaned against the countertop for physical support, not to enjoy the view. “Well.” Granny B pulled a chair from the table, lifting it so it did not scrape the floor. She sat with her back to the refrigerator. Her eyes gazed out into the wide space of the backyard, perhaps taking in the clothes flapping on the line or the birds perched on the back fence. While she focused on that unknown spot, she said dryly, “I ’spect you gon’ sit down.”

Evelyn eased into a chair.

“I don’t rightly know why I see fit to tell you ’bout all this, but see’n as how you and yo’ mama know so much as it is, I guess I might as well.” Granny B reached down into the right front pocket of her plaid housedress and withdrew a lace-trimmed handkerchief. She first wiped away moisture from her forehead and around her mouth, and then she wiped her chin, her neck, and down to the first button of her faded-red housedress. Finally she folded the cloth into a tiny square and returned it to her pocket.

Evelyn itched for her to go on. She had never known Granny B to sit still. “Are you in pain? What made you go see Dr. Hedgepeth in the first place?”

“Looking back on it, I guess I’d been feeling pretty bad for a while,” Granny B responded quietly. “I cain’t even say what exactly. I didn’t really hurt nowhere, but I just got tired and stayed tired. I been gettin’ weak—one day, I could barely lift that coffeepot over there on the stove. I dropped it and got coffee all over this here flo’. I had to go sit down two hours ’fo’ I could get in here and clean it up. Made such a mess . . .” Granny B tsked, fading off, shaking her head slowly.

Evelyn didn’t know if she was thinking about the mess or how bad she’d been feeling.

“Most times, I’m all right, but . . .” Granny B let the words crawl until they stopped altogether, which allowed Evelyn to fill in the blank with her own wild imaginings.

“Why didn’t you say something, Granny B? Mama never would have allowed you to go to that—”

“’Lowed me?” Granny B snapped. “It was fo’ me to decide when or if I would go to the doctor.” Granny B expelled a breath. “Well. After ’bout a week or two, I did start feelin’ a kinda pain, just this heaviness, this achy-ness down somewhere deep. I waited, but then it seemed like it wouldn’t go away, no matter what I tried. So I asked Ruby to carry me to see that Dr. Hedgepeth—who, by the way, don’t know more’n my hairy behind ’bout curin’ nuthin’.” Granny B snorted. “All he did was write down a lot of words and make me take a lot of tests. It didn’t make no kinda sense the blood they took from me. It took weeks ’fo’ he was finally able to tell me I had this disease.”

“Acute myeloid leukemia.”

“Yes, that.” Granny B swallowed and smiled slightly. “Ain’t that a mouthful of nonsense? Hurts ’bout as much to say it as it does to have it.” She walked over to the sink and picked up her glass. She drained the water in a slow gulp, and then she upended the glass in the sink. The ice clinked and rattled against the stainless steel.

Evelyn waited until Granny B rinsed her glass and set it on the draining board before she spoke. “But what did Dr. Hedgepeth say?”

“What did he say?” Granny B’s raised eyebrows indicated the answer was obvious. “Well, I got it, and they ain’t no givin’ it back. So it’s mine, just like this here house.”

“Okay, we know you have leukemia. But I know that you can treat it. What did the doctor say about where we go from here?”

“I know exactly where I go from here—to that piece of dirt I done picked out in my backyard.” Granny B pointed through the back door.

Evelyn didn’t turn to look. “Granny B, that’s not what I mean, and you know it!”

“You know, chile, I don’t rightly care what you mean. Do you see me askin’ you a bunch of questions ’bout that baby you carryin’ around? I haven’t asked you ’bout when you gon’ tell yo’ mama or yo’ husband, or what you gon’ do ’bout bein’ pregnant. You know what’s right and what’s wrong.”

Evelyn jumped up and grabbed her grandmother’s own words from the air and waved them high. “Aha! So you admit that this is absurd!”

“I ain’t admittin’ no such thing. I was talkin’ about you. I’ve lived long enough to do all manner of foolishness—you got plenty mo’ years and mistakes ahead. Now, I ain’t asked you what I need to do ’cause I already know. I been runnin’ for a while now, thinkin’ it won’t find me, but this disease know where I live.” Granny B rested against the sink and again gazed out the side window. “I accept it now, and I don’t need no interference from nobody to make it worse.”

“Are you in much pain?” Evelyn dreaded an honest response.

“What kinda question is that to ask me, gal? This ain’t really ’bout the pain. I been in pain all my life from one thang or ’nother.” She crossed her arms. “But see, that pain? I’s able to control that. I could see where it was comin’ from. Livin’ is all ’bout hurtin’, at least in my ’sperience. For me, death just gon’ brang the end of my pain.”

Granny B pressed her lips together for a moment. “But dyin’ ’cause of somethin’ like this? I cain’t control it.” She looked at her granddaughter. “I guess I thought like the rest of you that I was just too mean to die. Ain’t that somethin’? I guess mean people die, too.”

Did I think she’d just keep washing clothes and cooking tender greens through all eternity, while children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren lived and died? Evelyn didn’t know the answer, and she wasn’t prepared to respond to Granny B’s admission or her apparent acceptance of the inevitable. But she could deal with scientific facts.

“Granny B, you say you can’t control dying, but you can. Know how? You get treated. That’s what Mama and I are talking about, giving you some sense of empowerment over this—this—this animal as you call it.” Evelyn’s voice rose a bit as she struggled to find the right words, but she remained seated. Her hands clenched with the effort to contain herself.

“Empowerment? You young folks always throwing round that word like it mean somethin’. You ain’t got power from nobody but God. Self don’t give you nuthin’.” Granny growled as she faced Evelyn. “And I’ll tell you somethin’ else. I won’t get power from takin’ medicine that gon’ leave me bald and cause me to waste away to my bones and make me sicker than this ’cute my’loid mess. And then, after all that, I still got to die. You thank power come like that? Well, it don’t. I faced up to dyin’. And it ain’t hard really. It may be hard for you and yo’ mama and for anybody else to deal with, but I faced it head-on befo’. I got the power.”

“What? Your faith?”

“Gal, hush yo’ mouth. God been here with me all the time. He ain’t goin’ nowhere even when I do. What I’m talkin’ ’bout don’t got nuthin’ to do with Ruthena’s white man in the sky. It’s ’bout what’s really goin’ on right here in this po’ black woman’s body. People die, and that’s a fact. Ain’t no need in delayin’ death or makin’ me suffer just so y’all can feel like you doin’ somethin’.”

“But—”

“Uh-uh, no. Now, this my body. Y’all come traipsin’ through this house and in my life anytime y’all feel like it. You even get into my personal medical condition, but you won’t interfere in this. You cain’t strap me to no machine and make me take nuthin’, least of all somethin’ that come from somebody else. I got this here, gal. I got the power.”

“What is wrong with you? Is this leukemia affecting your mind? Are you telling me you’re completely refusing treatment, that you’re just going to sit back and die to show you’re in control or to hurt us the way you hurt after Milton? So you can keep on with this ridiculous resistance to help from somebody else? That’s a death wish!”

Evelyn collapsed into her chair, her mouth agape. “What kind of sense does that make? Yes, it’s your body. Yes, you say what, how, when, where—we acknowledge you’re in control, Granny B. But you don’t have to take this stance to show us that you mean business. Okay, you’re fed up with the whole lot of us. We’ll step back and let you handle your own visits, your own treatments—”

Granny B shook her head. “See, that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout. ‘You gon’ do this, you gon’ do that.’ Have I lost my mind? Nobody got to do nuthin’, leastwise hurt ’cause a what I done. What y’all young folks say? All I got to do is stay black and die? Well, I got the first part down, and now I’m workin’ on the second part.”

“Granny B, that’s not funny.”

“Now we agree on somethin’!” Granny B slapped her hands together.

Evelyn jumped in her seat.

“There ain’t nuthin’ funny about this, so you gotta know I’m serious. You cain’t do nuthin’ ’bout this decision, Ev’lyn, so you can rest easy. I’ll even tell yo’ mama ’bout it so you can just take a load off. I’m not crazy. Talk to my doctor, and he’ll tell you. He’ll even ’splain that my decision make a whole heap-a sense ’cause that medicine he was gon’ give me couldn’t do much anyway. Maybe buy me a month or so, but that ’bout all. This leu-ke-mia ain’t stoppin’ long enough to let nobody off, Ev’lyn. This train’s a-movin’.” Granny B walked around their chairs to lean against the doorjamb of the back door. “Now, I’m speedin’ past eighty years old, and I’m gon’ spend my remainin’ time doing what I wont, not layin’ up sick.”

Evelyn took a deep breath. Does she really think we’ll just let her go off and die somewhere like a dog? She started to silently tick off salient points on her fingers to help Granny B see the light.

“I know you sittin’ there wonderin’ how you can get me locked up so you can have yo’ way.”

Evelyn looked up at her. Okay, forget number three.

“Fact is, Ev’lyn, I just waited too long to do somethin’ about it. By the time I got to the doctor, it was too late. All Dr. Hedgepeth can really do now is waste my time. He cain’t do nothin’ fo’ me. Talk to him—he’ll tell you.”

“But if that’s the case, why did he contact Mrs. Tagle and have her talk to Mama?”

“I didn’t say he didn’t want me to get chemother’py. He mentioned some kinda medication that might help slow thangs down, but he just say it won’t do a heck of a lot of good. You know educated folk. They thank they can use they books to fix ever’body’s problems, even though they smart enough to know they cain’t.” Granny B made a wry face. “Now, I’ve had plenty-a time to wrap my mind round this. You gon’ need some time to do the same.” Granny B paused a half beat before adding, “It’s kinda whatchyou doin’ ’bout yo’ baby.”

“Would you please stop talking about this baby? The two situations are totally different!”

Granny B calmly studied her over her shoulder. “Oh? Just how so?”

“Well, for one—” Evelyn was about to say that her pregnancy didn’t affect anyone else, but it did. “But—” This time she almost pointed out that it was her body. “You see, you—” Again, she clamped her lips together. Then she growled low in her throat like some cornered animal and blurted, “’Cause it is!”

Granny B laughed shortly. “You don’t like havin’ to justify yo’ decisions, do you? You don’t thank I have a right to make you ’splain what you doin’ ’cause it really don’t involve me, does it?” Suddenly sober, Granny B returned her eyes to the view outside. She said quietly, “Sho’, I’d like to tell you to take yo’ fool head out the sand and grow up. I’d like to tell you, you’s somebody’s mama now, so act like it. I wish I could tell you it ain’t all that bad—after all, you got a husband who’s workin’.”

She drew a deep breath. “I could point out you got a husband you love, even though he’s made you so mad you could spit. And that he loves you. You got a nice house and a family that’ll be buttin’ in and offerin’ help you don’t even need. I’d like to tell you all them thangs, but I’m sho’ you been thankin’ of all this yo’self and you don’t need to hear me spoutin’ off ’bout what you can see plain befo’ you.”

Evelyn fought the urge to squirm.

“I respect the fact that you got a head and you can bang it against that wall over there as much as you wont. You gon’ make the decision that’s right for you ’cause it’s yo’ business, and whatever you do ’bout yo’ life is yo’ business. ’Cause the decisions you make? You got to be at peace within yo’ own skin. You got to live with ’em.” Then she whispered, “Or die.”

Tears coursed down Evelyn’s cheeks by the time Granny B finished telling her all the things she would like to tell her but wouldn’t. She wanted to shout, “You’re wrong! Be quiet!” But then she thought about Kevin and all the decisions she had to make. She held her stomach and choked back a sob.

Granny B continued to stare outside, giving Evelyn time to put her face back together. They remained in those positions for a good while—Granny B by the back door, Evelyn at the table silently weeping, going over argument after useless argument in her head, trying to formulate a response, however inadequate.

But then Evelyn got it.

Granny B did understand this, her need to protect her most private, innermost self. She knew Evelyn’s business was hers, and she possessed sole ownership of her own and could and should protect it. That’s what Granny B had done when she’d come across Evelyn in her room weeks ago. This was how she felt right now when Evelyn was trying to get her to confront something she probably faced every morning when she looked in the mirror. Finally she got it.

Evelyn closed her eyes to hide her shame, but she knew she could not hide the truth. She owned up to it by uttering the only four words she could manage, the only words that might make a difference at the moment.

“Will you forgive me?”

——————

After dinner that night, still in the forgiving mood, Evelyn decided to reach out to Kevin. She intended to extend the tiniest of olive branches and let him know how she was faring in the fiery furnace. Granny B had announced after dinner that she had some things to do and had retired to her room, so Evelyn had time on her hands. She hoped they’d talk again, but she thought Granny B’s daily Energizer Bunny routine had worn her out, although she would never admit it or alter it in any way.

Quickly, before she could change her mind, Evelyn tapped out: Hey. Just checking in. While she waited for Kevin to answer the text message, she propped her feet on the porch rail and sat back to relish the scenery. She’d settled down on the front porch in the chair directly to the left of the door, close enough to hear Granny B if she called out, not that she expected her to.

It was nearly eight, yet the night air dripped water. Lightning bugs flickered in the twilight and unseen crickets peeped somewhere beyond the expanse of dirt Granny B called her front yard. Evelyn swatted mosquitoes that discovered her hiding on the porch, but she determined they wouldn’t spoil her few moments alone, outside the four walls of Granny B’s house.

The phone chirped beside her. She almost dropped it on the concrete in her haste to answer it. “Hello? Kevin?”

“Yes. Ev.” Kevin’s answer was terse, his voice slightly hoarse.

Belatedly, Evelyn realized that it was almost 1 a.m. in London. “Oh, Kevin! I’m sorry! Were you asleep? I forgot that you were five hours ahead.” But now that you’re on the phone, you’d better talk to me. I really need to talk, Kevin.

She heard rustling in the background. At first she pictured him shifting in the bed, rustling the sheets, getting more comfortable. But then she heard voices, and he cleared his throat. When he spoke, it wasn’t to her but off to the side, to someone else. Was it another woman? It’s one o’clock in the morning! Were those bedsheets?

When Kevin spoke to her again, he sounded more alert. “Evelyn? Is there anything wrong? Has something else happened?”

Oh no, no, nothing’s wrong. Well, nothing else is wrong, other than the fact that Granny B is dying, and I’m carrying your child. Her words almost cut her lips they were so stiff, brittle. “I hadn’t heard from you. I just called to update you.”

“What are you talking about, you hadn’t heard from me? You told me not to call.” His voice was a whisper, but Evelyn could tell that he’d walked away from whatever background noise she’d picked up on when he’d answered the phone.

“Yes, but I thought you might be concerned since I’d had the accident . . .” She swallowed and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to rekindle those feelings that had prompted her to call in the first place. “And I missed you.”

Silence spanned the distance between them.

“Kevin? Are you there? Did you hear—?”

“Of course I heard you. And I miss you, too, Evelyn. I just wish you had called earlier. I’m in the middle—” But a voice called his name then.

That is a woman’s voice!

“I’m sorry. I see you’re busy. That’s not Samantha Jane, is it?”

“Saman—? Of course not! Evelyn . . .” Thousands of miles of swirling ocean waters couldn’t drown out the breath Kevin expelled. “Eric and I are out with some key clients, and they want to wine and dine all night. And of course, I’ve got an early meeting—”

“Okay, okay, Kevin, I get the message.” Evelyn had already tired of the conversation, such as it was. “I didn’t really call to get a rundown of your day. I already know how important you are. And you don’t owe me an explanation at this point.”

“Ev, why don’t you dismount from that high horse and—”

“What do you say you go back to your . . . meeting . . . and we talk another time? Take care and—”

“Wait, Evelyn! Don’t hang up! Back up a minute. You said you wanted to tell me something. What is it?” Kevin’s tone became more conciliatory, like he strove to salvage the wreckage of their conversation. He sounded more like the husband who had begged her not to move out than the distracted marketing executive who had answered the phone.

“No, Kevin, don’t worry about it. Good luck, have fun with all that stuff that you’re really good at doing, and we’ll talk some other time, when it’s more convenient.” Full of attitude, Evelyn pushed End. Thinking about it for only a second, she then held the Power Off button. Why did I really call him anyway? What did I plan to talk about? Would I really hand him the news that I’m pregnant, with him thousands of miles away in some hotel room?

Evelyn stood and stretched. The lightning bugs and the chirping crickets had lost their allure, thanks to her husband and a few bloodthirsty mosquitoes. She pivoted to head inside. And ran smack into Granny B’s steady gaze.

“Oh! Granny B! You scared me!” She covered her heart with her hand. “Where are you going?”

“Outside.” Granny B’s eyes flickered to the phone. “I hear you talkin’?”

Evelyn waved her phone. “Yeah, I tried to call Kevin.”

“You tried? He ain’t there?” Granny B pushed open the screen and stepped out onto the porch.

“He’s there, all right. But he’s busy. I told him we could talk tomorrow.” Evelyn watched closely as Granny B sat down in the chair she’d just vacated. Is she moving more stiffly?

“From what I heard, you told him that you would talk some other time, when it was mo’ convenient. And you didn’t sound none too happy ’bout it neither.”

“Granny B! You were eavesdropping!” Evelyn was shocked not so much that she had, but that she admitted it.

“I ain’t did no such thang. I was on my way to the porch and I heard you talkin’. Now, who’s Samantha Jane?”

“What else did you hear while you were walking to the door?”

“Nuthin’. You didn’t say much more’n that—’fo’ you hung up on him.” Granny B folded her arms and looked at her granddaughter. “How is Kevin?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Prob’ly ’cause you just got off the phone with him, and it seemed like the right thang to do. But if you don’t wont to say nuthin’ ’bout him—”

“I thought you might have something specific in mind, that’s all. Kevin’s fine. He’s working hard and long, and he loves it. You know he’s in Europe?”

“Yeah, you and yo’ mama both told me fifty-’leven times. He need to slow down some if he too busy to talk to his wife when she call halfway round the world.”

Evelyn started counting lightning bugs. “You would think,” she agreed low under her breath.

“Did you call to tell him?”

Evelyn had worked her way up to thirteen. “Hmm? Tell him what?”

Granny B’s silence screamed the obvious.

She forsook counting lightning bugs and enumerated the stars instead. She got to number seventeen before she replied, “I don’t know why I called. Either way, I didn’t tell him. And I thought that subject was one of the things we weren’t going to discuss.”

Granny B’s eyebrows rose. “Who said? Them one of yo’ rules?”

“I don’t have any rules per se. I just thought today we agreed that we’d let the other person live her own life.”

“I didn’t say I was gon’ carry that baby for you.” Granny B paused. “So when you gon’ tell him?”

Evelyn inhaled deeply and exhaled on a count of ten. “Granny B, I’m not really up for this right now. I’m exhausted, I’m sore, and to be honest with you, I’m pretty ticked off with my husband right now. Please, let’s not get into this.” She reached for the handle of the screen door. “I’m going to bed, something you were supposed to do ages ago.”

“I ’member,” Granny B said quietly in the night as if to the dancing lightning bugs, “when I found out I was carryin’ Milton. I just sat down and cried. For days. I had missed my mont’ly, so I knew what was goin’ on, but I just kept hopin’ and wishin’—who knows, I might even’ve said a prayer or two.” Granny B went silent, obviously thinking back. “I just couldn’t be pregnant.”

Granny B’s soft voice halted her granddaughter’s exodus more abruptly than any command. Evelyn leaned against the door.

“Early on, I was so tired, I didn’t thank I was gon’ make it through breakfast. But there was the washin’, the cleanin’, the cookin’. All them children. And Henton, he wan’t no kinda help, not that I wanted his anyway. Many a time I thought about drinkin’ some lye or throwin’ myself down the back steps. I even considered goin’ to visit Mae Sheridan, this woman who could arrange thangs back in those days.”

“Granny B! You—” Evelyn was shocked by her admission, by the ugliness of it. She wondered if her grandmother regretted those feelings after all that she’d been through with Milton. But does Granny B ever regret anything?

“Gal, stop catchin’ flies and close yo’ mouth. You cain’t tell me you hadn’t tried to wish away yo’ baby any less’n I tried to. And why? ’Cause you scared you gon’ be raisin’ that baby all by yo’ lonesome in that big house? Hmmmpf. I learned there was worse thangs to worry ’bout . . .” Granny B propped both her hands on her knees, her elbows bowed out at right angles as she surveyed the darkness in front of her. “I had all them children, each tryin’ to get a piece of me, and here I come up with another one.”

“So what made you decide to have the baby?”

Granny B studied the darkness for a long time. Finding nothing in the heavy air, she seemed to reach somewhere deep inside for the unvarnished truth. “The steps weren’t high enough,” she stated flatly.

Evelyn’s hands worked to hold her heart in her chest as she took a step back. “It’s Milton’s life you’re mourning, Granny B?”

“Don’t sound too saintly—is that what you thanking? God gon’ send a lightnin’ strike, and yo’ hair might get burnt?”

But her grandmother didn’t duck or cower. And her face didn’t reflect fear or self-loathing, let alone anything close to piety, sainthood, or repentance. Evelyn looked away from that vacant expression to catch her breath and mask her own shock and confusion. When she turned back, Granny B was peering out into the yard. Evelyn touched her shoulder. “Granny B?”

“That last pregnancy was the hardest on me. And so was the birthin’. I really thought he was gon’ tear me wide open. Maybe he knew from the beginnin’ he wan’t wonted.” Granny B talked more to herself than to Evelyn. Her shrug seemed to shake off the memory. Her sudden movement also shook her granddaughter’s hand from her shoulder. “Sit down, gal.”

Thrown off-kilter by her change of mood, Evelyn crouched on the top step and half turned to face her.

“If you don’t learn nuthin’ from me, learn this: Don’t go into this with a bunch of second thoughts and hard feelin’s. What’s done is done, and they ain’t no undoin’ it. So you might as well stop messin’ up yo’ mind and go on and tell yo’ husband and yo’ mama. If you don’t, you just makin’ it harder on yo’self and this baby.” Granny B pursed her lips and muttered, almost to herself, “Secrets ain’t no good for nobody.” Louder, she pronounced, “Life is God’s gift, somethin’ I didn’t come to appreciate in time.”

“You’ve still got some time, so what about you and your gift, Granny B?” Being who she was, and whose child and grandchild she was, Evelyn felt obligated to hold up the mirror so her grandmother could see herself just as clearly. “I know some people who would be very interested in hearing what you have to say, who deserve to know as much as you say Kevin and Mama deserve to know about mine.” She braced herself for reprisal, but the older woman surprised Evelyn. Which shouldn’t have surprised her at all.

Granny B inclined her head slightly. “You may have a point. Gettin’ this cleared up now means less confusion later when I’ll be too busy dyin’ to fight.”

Evelyn’s heart quickened a beat and her stomach flip-flopped. “So what do you mean? I can tell Mama? You want me to call Aunt—?”

Granny B looked at her, her body bent in a forty-five-degree angle, a hand on each arm of the chair she was using to push herself upright. “So that means you wont me to call yo’ husband and tell him yo’ news?” She stood completely straight then and reached out toward Evelyn’s phone. “Just tell me the number. I’ll call him right now. I’m sure Kevin still tryin’ to get through since you hung up on him. If he ain’t mad yet, he will be in just a minute.”

Evelyn laughed so hard, she snorted. Finally she composed herself. Her nose ran, and her stomach ached from the exertion, but it sure felt good. When she looked at Granny B, she saw that she was still inclined toward her with an outstretched hand. “I’ll do my own dirty work, thank you very much. You can do yours.”

Granny B cracked a smile. The sight of it actually stopped Evelyn’s laughter cold. “Well, then. We both need to get to bed. We got a beautiful day to ruin for a lotta folk and not much time to do it in.” She let the screen door slam closed behind her. “Good night, chile.”

“Good night, Granny B.” As Granny B hobbled to her room, Evelyn sat peering into the yard with a lighter heart, her spirit dancing with the lightning bugs.