It took one week and one day before we heard from Cecile. Leave it to our mother to make her own postcard. As grand and sturdy as a birthday card.
Big Ma got it first, along with the rest of the mail. I stopped dusting when she hollered, “What in the world?” I was all eyes and ears; my heart was skipping rope. Cecile’s movable-type letters were bold enough to be seen from down the hall. I sped into the living room where Big Ma sat, going through the mail.
“Is that for us?” I asked.
She was reading it. Cecile’s card. I couldn’t tell if she had scrunched up her face from reading what Cecile had written or from turning up her nose at Cecile’s movable-type letters in red, black, and green. She read the card and gave a “Hmph.” Instead of handing it to me, Big Ma dropped the postcard on the table like it was nothing. “Come get it if you want it.”
You’d think I’d be angry that Big Ma violated our right to privacy and read our postcard. All the rights my sisters and I had been filled with only existed at the People’s Center or out of the mouths of Black Panthers. We were back on Herkimer Street under Big Ma, and we had to keep most of what we learned in Oakland to ourselves.
I yelled, “Vonetta! Fern!” They raced into the living room. “Guess what came!” I held up the postcard so they could see the lettering.
They shouted, “Cecile!” and a lot of “Lemme sees.” I handed the card over to Vonetta, who did the honors and read the poem out loud in her poetry-reciting voice. While Vonetta recited, Fern did the dance that told of the summer leaves falling into color, falling away and then breaking through spring branches. Fern twirled to the part about leaves always coming back but in different shades. Then she went spring-leafy crazy on the buds-breaking-through-branches part, and Vonetta had to join her.
Big Ma called it beatnik nonsense.
Vonetta cleared her voice to make it deeper and read the letter part in her Cecile voice:
“‘Dear Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern . . . ,’”
“She said ‘Fern’!” Fern squealed.
“Little Girl,” Vonetta kept it up in her Cecile voice, “I am blowing dust off your mind. Do not interrupt the great Nzila.” She cleared her throat and went on. It was all a funny joke to us that Big Ma didn’t get, and for a moment my grandmother not liking my mother hurt like a dull toothache.
I’m glad you’re all safe.
Everyone here says hello.
Write back if you want to.
Your Mother.
Cecile.
“I’m going to write,” I said.
“Me too,” Fern said.
“Okay. Me too,” Vonetta said in her own voice. “If you’re writing, I’m writing.”
Vonetta and Fern fussed over the card until they almost tore it, so I took it away.
“Everyone in Oakland said hello,” I said. “At least they haven’t forgotten us.”
Vonetta fluttered her eyelashes and said, “You mean, at least Hirohito hasn’t forgotten you.”
“Hurraheeto? Hurraheeto?” Big Ma asked. “What’s a Hurraheeto?”
“Delphine’s boyfriend,” Vonetta said.
“Only ten and starting this mess already,” Big Ma said. “A mercy.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said, but he was the closest person to a boyfriend I’d ever had. Besides my father and Uncle D. “And I’m eleven.”
“Ten. ’Leven. Same difference,” Big Ma said. “And what kind of ooga-mooga name is Hurraheeto?”
“It’s not ooga mooga, Big Ma,” Fern said, which we all knew was Big Ma’s way of saying African. But she also called “Vonetta” and “Delphine” ooga-mooga names because they came from Cecile’s imagination, when only Fern’s name, Afua, was a true ooga-mooga name. I guessed that was why Afua was not on Fern’s birth certificate or school papers. Big Ma had no use for anything African. Pa probably felt the same way.
“It’s Japanese,” Vonetta said. “And his last name is black. Hirohito Woods.”
“Woods is not a black last name,” I said.
“Charlene Woods in my class is black. Her brother, Delroy Woods, is black.”
I probably had a “Cecile look” on my face for the times we said things that completely confounded her. I didn’t even know where to begin with Vonetta’s thinking.
Fern explained Hirohito to Big Ma. “He’s Japaneezy looking and black.”
Big Ma gave another hmph. “War baby.” Both what she said and how she said it might as well have been street talk that Big Ma or Papa didn’t allow in this house. But how did you correct someone who brought you into the world and held a strap to you?
“His mother is Japanese and his father is black,” I explained.
“And in jail,” Vonetta volunteered. I glared at her.
“Jail?” Big Ma was horrified. “That Hurraheeto’s father’s in jail? A mercy, a mercy. Shoulda never let y’all board that plane.”
“He’s a political prisoner,” I said. “Unjustly incarcerated by the Man.” Now I was speaking like Crazy Kelvin. Crazy Kelvin, the strongest-speaking Black Panther my sisters and I had met at the People’s Center, who was also shown up to be a phony. An infiltrator. Just a plain traitor.
“You can’t tell me nothing about that war baby’s father. He’s ’bout criminal. Just like the rest of ’em. Nothing but a band of criminals leading good Negroes astray.”
Fern only heard “war baby” and thought that was a good thing. “War baby!” she said.
“Uncle Darnell’s in a war,” Vonetta said. “I’ll bet he has a war baby.”
“Ooh!” Fern cried. “I get to dress her.”
“It could be a boy,” Vonetta said. “We’ll take turns.”
“Will y’all stop this nonsense?” Big Ma said. “Uncle Darnell ain’t bringing no war babies home from Vietnam.”
“Shuck corn,” Vonetta said.
“Yeah. Shucks.”
I asked Big Ma for two dollars to buy first-class envelopes, a memo pad, and postage stamps so we could write a proper letter to our mother. And to my pen pal, Hirohito, but I kept that to myself. My sisters walked with me to the candy store around the corner on Fulton. They were more interested in leftover change for Jolly Ranchers candy than in stationery and stamps. When we returned home, I gave them each two pieces of candy and I began my letters.
Dear Hirohito,
How are you? I am fine.
I didn’t know what else to write or where to send his letter. We said we would write to each other, but I didn’t give him my address in Brooklyn and I forgot to get his address in Oakland.
I did know what to say to my mother and where to send her letter.
How are you? I am fine.
I had to write this letter now because I need to know something and you don’t have a telephone.
Did you love my father? Did he love you? Do you miss my father like he missed you?
I’m asking because Pa has a lady friend who lives in Brownsville. He told us her name and he takes her out on dates like a teenager when he is our father.
If you still have feelings for our father, he might forget all about this lady in Brownsville.
Vonetta, Fern, and I really liked your postcard.
Yours truly,
Delphine
P.S. Please say hello to everyone for me.
I received Cecile’s letter by airmail, nine days later.
Dear Delphine,
The green stucco house is mine, bought and paid for. Mine to stucco and paint. Mine to live in.
The sofa I sleep on, the books stacked on the floor, are mine. Not all the clothes are rightfully mine, but I feel I have a right to them too. Like I’ve paid for them although I didn’t lay out a cent to wear them. They are still paid for. They are mine and no one else’s. They’ve conformed to me and can’t be worn by anyone but me.
The palm tree in my yard is mine. Someone got tired of it, or grew disappointed with it and threw it out. I brought it home, dug a hole on the side of the house, and planted it where it would get sun. The palm tree tries to stand up because someone wants it. It knows it is wanted. It knows it is mine.
The printer is mine. It was left out for scrap. It was heavy and in pieces, but I lifted it. Got it on the bus. Worked on it and worked on it until I got the rollers to turn and the gears to turn. No one carried it and fixed it but me. It is mine.
My feelings about your father are mine. They are not feelings that can be understood by a young girl. They are my feelings. Mine.
Don’t worry about these things. Study hard. Have your own things.
Your Mother.
Cecile
P.S. Be eleven.