Our house didn’t smell like cooked meat or vegetables when I opened the front door. Big Ma hadn’t started cooking, and she didn’t show any signs of getting started. She sat in the living room with her big Bible in her lap. She didn’t yell at Vonetta, Fern, and me to wash up, hang up our clothes, or get our lessons started like she’d been doing every day after school. We did those things anyway.
Big Ma never made quick-fast-in-a-hurry food. She made food that needed washing before it touched a knife, pot, or pan. Or she made beans that soaked overnight and simmered with neck bones for a good part of the next day. And stewed meat in heavy enamel pots, with bay leaves and carrots and potatoes that soaked up gravy. Big Ma cooked food meant to stick to your insides and keep your belly full. She cooked food that took time.
If cooking hadn’t started by two or three o’clock, we’d have to eat quick-fast-in-a-hurry, which were the meals I cooked. Franks and canned pork and beans. Fried chicken, boiled potatoes, and frozen green peas. Sometimes I made spaghetti with catsup and any kind of cut-up, leftover meat from the night before. The few times when Big Ma was sick, Uncle Darnell brought in a pizza pie. Big Ma never liked that and always got well the next day so we wouldn’t get used to take-out food.
I said, “Big Ma, you want me to get something washed or cooking?” I spoke gently. She acted like she didn’t hear us when we came in.
She shook her head and said, “I’ll get to it in a minute.”
So I went to my room and brought my books into my sisters’ room, where we did homework. I’d rather look up and help Vonetta and Fern than have them run in and out of my room with every problem. Vonetta hadn’t been doing that lately. Once she got the hang of figuring out money she saw numbers as money to be saved for the concert. Except now there was no concert.
Fern had only two sheets of homework and both sheets looked easy. Still, she sat for a long time and wrote and erased, then wrote and erased again.
I tried to not think about losing Frieda and why she went telling everyone about Big Ma knocking on her door crying and Uncle Darnell being sick from drugs. I tried to not think about Danny the K yelling out “dope fiend.” I did my homework, but I spent more time watching my sisters do theirs. I wished I had their homework.
Keys jangled. The front door opened, then closed. We put our pens and pencils down but only Fern ran to the window.
“Too early for Papa,” I said.
“No Wildcat,” she said.
It was Darnell, I thought.
Vonetta must have thought the same thing. She jumped up and ran out of the room. She had it in her mind to shake or punch Uncle Darnell like he was Fern or me. She was going to shake him until all of the money he had taken fell out of his pockets. I didn’t tell her or Fern what was wrong with him. That he used the money up and couldn’t be giving it back.
It didn’t matter if “old” Uncle Darnell had come back to us and was holding tickets to the concert. From what I knew, drugs didn’t let go of you just like that. Not those kinds of drugs. Being sick from drugs wasn’t like being sick from a cold, although Uncle D could never seem to be rid of the cold he always had. I didn’t know much, but I knew you didn’t smoke drugs one day and leave them alone the next.
Vonetta needed to let go of seeing the Jackson Five. Pa didn’t mean for us to go to Madison Square Garden in the first place. If he did, he would have let Mrs. replace the money Uncle Darnell stole from the savings jar. I didn’t really understand the lesson Pa was trying to teach us about disappointment, but I knew he wanted us to forget all about the concert and the Jackson Five.
When we ran into the living room, we didn’t see Uncle Darnell looking sick and full of “sorrys.” It was Mrs. walking into the living room. She had come back.
Vonetta and Fern ran and jumped on her. Just like they had done with Cecile at the airport when it was time to leave Oakland. They squeezed her and begged her not to leave.
I was glad to see her too, but not as glad as they were. I had Uncle Darnell on my mind. I said, “Hey.”
She said, “Hey, Delphine.”
Big Ma sort of looked up. “You’re back, Marva?”
Mrs. said, “I’m back, Mrs. Gaither.”
We let Big Ma sit in her chair with her big Bible while we cooked. Mrs. could cook, but she was no Big Ma in the kitchen. She cooked like me. Quick-fast-in-a-hurry. I hoped my father knew that.
A week passed and Uncle Darnell hadn’t come home.
Big Ma asked Pa at Thanksgiving dinner, “Did you go looking, son?”
He said what he said yesterday: “I drove around. Went by his friends. No one seen him.”
I knew she’d ask again. She always did.
“Good riddance,” Vonetta said into her napkin. I kicked her under the table. She had it coming but said, “Cut it out, Delphine,” anyway.
“You both cut it out,” Pa said.
“Son, you’ll go and look again tomorrow?”
From across the table, Mrs. shook her head in tiny yesses, urging Pa to say he would.
Pa said, “Ma . . . he’ll come home when he’s ready.”
“What if he won’t?” Big Ma said.
I glared at Vonetta: Don’t you dare.
She glared back.
Fern said, “I saw that!”
No one paid Fern any mind.
“He’s a man,” Pa said. “He’s not a little boy. He’s got to find his own way back.”
Big Ma slammed her hand down hard on the table. “But he can’t, son. He can’t. He’s sick.”
Then Mrs. pulled Fern’s chair back and told her to get down and said, “Delphine, take them back to their room.”
We went.
“Some Thanksgiving,” Vonetta griped. “I didn’t finish eating my turkey.”
“Or the yams.”
“We’ll eat later,” I said, and made the sign for “shh.” We could hear Pa and Big Ma arguing. Then feet stomped and a door slammed.
That Thanksgiving, I was thankful that only the bedroom door slammed. And not the front door.