We headed back to Herkimer Street after seeing Miss Marva Hendrix off to her apartment in Brownsville. I let Vonetta and Fern beat me out of the Wildcat and up the steps so they could tell Big Ma all about our day with Pa’s lady friend. I would have felt a little giddy if Miss Marva Hendrix hadn’t soured the day by making me out to be my sisters’ oppressor.
I followed behind and unlocked the door while Vonetta and Fern ran inside. I left the door cracked for Pa, who was getting the blanket out of the trunk.
My sisters tried to clamor around Big Ma but she wanted no part of them. She didn’t want to hear about our outing with Miss Marva Hendrix, that we’d seen the Jackson Five billboard, or that they were coming to New York City in December. She had a long, brownish-yellow envelope choked in her fist. And she looked confused while she turned left and then right like she was playing keep-away. I saw she’d been crying, so I said, “Vonetta. Fern. Quit it.”
Big Ma threw herself in her chair and squeezed the envelope even more. “A mercy, Lord,” Big Ma sobbed. “A mercy. A mercy.”
Then Fern ran straight into me, ramming her head above my belly. She cried hard, almost biting me, while Vonetta went, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”
Then Pa walked in whistling, the blanket folded up in his arms. He saw Big Ma in the chair, put the blanket in my hands, and went to Big Ma. “Mama, Mama. What’s the . . .” He saw the envelope and took it from her hands. “All right, Mama,” he said calmly. “All right.”
The envelope was still sealed, but crushed like Big Ma had been holding on to it for hours, waiting for us to come home. The hush over the house lay heavy, like snow sitting on our rooftop.
I felt bad news coming but I didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to hear it. And that was all I could fit in my prayer. That I didn’t want to hear what the letter had to tell us.
Pa closed his eyes for a second. When he tore open the envelope, Big Ma cried out like he was tearing a part of her. Vonetta put her arms around Big Ma’s neck while Big Ma shuddered and cried. Before my eyes, Big Ma seemed to shrink inside her housedress.
“A mercy, a mercy. A mercy, Lord. A mercy.”
To God, I said:
Don’t let him be dead.
Don’t let him be dead.
Don’t let him be MIA. Or dead.
Then Pa said in his plain, warm voice, “Darnell’s coming home.” When he laid the envelope down on the stereo, I read the address in the corner: DEPARTMENT OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY. It had come special delivery and was addressed to THE FAMILY OF PFC DARNELL L. GAITHER. No wonder Big Ma had been afraid to open it.
Pa had to say it again: “Darnell’s coming home, Ma.” Finally she gasped for air, like a baby gasps before its first cry. Now Big Ma was all-out crying.
Fern unstuck her head from me and dried her face with my top.
After we’d gotten excited about the good news, Pa added, “He’ll be in the hospital in Honolulu for two weeks. That’s all.” His voice sounded old, like when Cecile left us, and not light, like a man who whistled “My Girl.”
I tried to ease myself back into normal breathing, but I imagined all the things that could have happened to him at war. Watching the soldiers and the people in Vietnam on the six o’clock news was the only time I was glad we didn’t have color TV. They showed a lot on the news: Dead soldiers. Prisoners of war. Wailing children, broken old people, bombing, and blood all came in sharp enough in black-and-white. The news anchor always said, “Parents, send the children out of the room if they’re nearby.” I was the only child in the room but I watched anyway.
Big Ma was now quietly sobbing, but Vonetta and Fern danced a hula because Pa had said “Honolulu” and I had to tell Heckle and Jeckle again to quit it.
“What happened to him?” I asked my father. “Did he get shot?”
“Shot by the enemy?” Vonetta added.
“Is Uncle Darnell almost dead?” Fern asked. “I thought he was dead.”
Big Ma cried even more.
“Hush up,” I told my sisters.
“You’re not in charge. You can’t hush nobody,” Vonetta said.
“Surely can’t.”
“The two of you, hush up,” Pa said.
Vonetta and Fern hushed.
Last year Mrs. Peterson asked our class if we were for the war or against it, or like the evening news anchor said, “hawks” or “doves.” I said I was a hawk for my uncle Darnell and the soldiers he slept in foxholes and trampled through jungles with. But I didn’t tell my class that I sometimes prayed at night that my uncle and the soldiers would kill the Vietcong who were trying to kill them. I didn’t tell them how I prayed the same news anchor who told parents to shoo the kids out of the room would say, “Gather round, everybody. The war is over. The soldiers are all coming home.”
But then they showed Vietnamese children shot up dead. And they showed bony Vietnamese people older than Big Ma, pointing to the sky and to the hills in the distance. Pointing to clouds of smoke and helicopters. They were never pointing at doves.