Home Sweet Home?

I could see Uncle Thomas, Dawn, and Estelle standing just on the other side of the security checkpoint. I looked for Renee and Collette, but they were conspicuously absent. Estelle’s flushed face and swollen eyes spoke volumes. She had shed more than a few tears. Dawn extended her arms, and I gladly ran into them. I could feel Estelle’s hand on the center of my back. It brought me minimal comfort.

“Hey, Sissy.” Uncle Thomas extended his arms as tears streamed down his rugged cheeks. Other passengers pushed their way past us, and I realized our family reunion was blocking the main walkway. Flower- and balloon-carrying, picture-snapping family and friends greeted those who had shared with me the past four hours and twelve minutes in the skies far above the earth. Had I been closer to Daddy up there in the heavens?

“Uncle Thomas,” I said as I reached for him, feeling as if I was falling from a cliff.

“Come on ovah here and give yo’ Uncle Thomas some love.” We moved out of the flow of arriving passengers, and the four of us stood embarrassing one another. Tears and pain were our common denominator.

“Where are Collette and Renee?” I couldn’t believe my sisters weren’t here. Maybe they were at the car. If Collette drove, for sure she would not want to pay to park.

“They’ll meet us at Daddy’s.” Dawn shot a glance to Estelle, and I knew that meant they hadn’t wanted to come with Estelle. What did they have against this woman? She had never been anything but wonderful to all of us. And Lord knows, Renee and Collette had given her plenty of cause to act differently.

“How are you doing, Estelle?” I hugged her and held her close.

She just simply waved at me and began to cry afresh.

“Let’s git yo’ bags and git ovah to Eddie’s place, I knows yo’ sistahs are waitin’ ta see ya.” Uncle Thomas smiled.

We walked in silence to baggage claim. Dawn and I walked hand in hand like two little girls. We followed Uncle Thomas blindly, hoping he’d lead the way; for surely we felt lost. Estelle was off a little to the right walking alone. She, too, looked lost. The walk seemed endless. When we arrived, the bags were already circling on the carousel.

“Jus’ point dem out to me and I’ll git ’em, Glynda. I know dey’s da fancy ones, ain’t dey?”

“They’re not all that fancy, Uncle Thomas.” I tried to fake a smile.

“I loves ya a whole bunch, Glynda, just like I loves Dawn and Renee and Collette. We gonna make it thu dis here, I promise ya dat.” Uncle Thomas wasn’t convincing.

“Promise me we will, please. I don’t know if I can do this. I just don’t know!” Before I knew it, I was wailing right where I stood in baggage claim, across from the car rental counters and ground transportation booth. People were starting to stare, but I didn’t care. My daddy was dead. These people who stared obviously didn’t know what a great and wonderful man my daddy had been, for surely they, too, would be crying.

Estelle moved in close to me, and I buried my head on her shoulder. She patted and rocked me as though I were a newborn baby. “Glynda, Thomas is right, we’ll make it through this, but only if we have each other. Renee and Collette don’t really want me around, and I’ll respect that. But I loved your father with every cell in my body. I lived my whole life not knowing true love until Eddie started loving me. I’ll be there for whatever you need, whenever you need it.”

Uncle Thomas gathered my bags, and we headed in silence for the parking lot, where his brown Taurus station wagon, in immaculate condition, awaited. As he put the bags in the back and closed the hatch, I realized that coming home would never be the same again.

“I’ll be over to Eddie’s a little later. I just want to give you all time to be alone,” Estelle finally said.

“Okay, Estelle, I’ll talk to Renee and Collette. Everything will work out. I promise you.”

Estelle only smiled. She knew I had my work cut out for me. As she walked away, her normally straight posture was low and her shoulders slumped. She felt crushed, and I truly empathized.

“You want to sit up front, Glynda?” Dawn asked.

“No, I’ll just stretch out back here,” I said, slipping into the backseat.

“Why didn’t Renee and Collette come with you?” I was more hurt than angry.

“They’re trippin’, as usual.”

“What happened?” My sisters need no excuse at all to trip, so there was no telling what the trauma of Daddy dying had brought out in them.

“We stayed over at Uncle Thomas’s house all morning. He made us breakfast and we started calling relatives. It was so hard saying over and over and over again that Daddy had died. Of course, everyone had the same questions. It took until about two o’clock to get through Uncle Thomas’s phone book. In the meantime I’d been calling Estelle every thirty minutes or so because it had been almost twelve hours since Daddy died, and the woman he was going to marry didn’t know. And I don’t care how much you dislike a person, that just ain’t right.”

“They had something to say about you calling Estelle?” I was stunned.

“They just kept saying why was I putting so much effort into trying to reach her. I finally reached her around two forty-five and told her I wanted to stop by. She knew something was wrong and pressured me, but I just couldn’t bring myself to tell her without being face-to-face to comfort her. You know Eddie Naylor was the starch in her apron!”

“You’re a mess, gurl!” I said. Dawn had drawn a genuine smile from me.

“Well, you know he was! Anyway, I begged, I do mean begged them to go with me to Estelle’s. They flatly refused. So Uncle Thomas agreed to go, and we told them we would be leaving Estelle’s and coming to pick you up. Silly me, I thought that would change their minds. Obviously it didn’t.” Dawn gestured with her hands as if to say, Look around.

“Ya know all of dis here mess is gonna to be hard ’nuff wit’ out yo’ sistahs showin’ dere behinds,” Uncle Thomas interjected.

“Will you talk to them, Uncle Thomas?” I pleaded.

“I’ll try, but dey don’t be listenin’ ta me.”

“I know.” I sighed deeply.

“Dat po’ woman is hurtin’ as bad as y’all. I thought she was gonna have a heart attack when Dawn tol’ heh. She clutched heh ches’ ‘n’ fell backward. It plum scared me. But even wit’ all of dat she said she had ta come ta da airport ta git chu.” Uncle Thomas’s voice was cracking.

“I just don’t understand what Renee and Collette’s problem is. Do you have any idea, Dawn?” I leaned over the front seat to look into her face.

“I’m not sure, but I think it would be that way with any woman Daddy wanted to marry. You know as long as he and Estelle were just friends, they had no problem with her. But the minute they started dating, all hell broke loose.” Dawn had turned so that we made eye contact.

“You know Daddy spoiled us. We had him all to ourselves for all those years. I know he dated on the down low. Hell, he had to. He may have been my daddy, but he was still a man. But I guess there was no one worthy of meeting his little girls, until Estelle. And that can only mean that he really loved her. I will not let Renee and Lette dishonor his memory by showing their natural ah … behinds.” I corrected myself as I shot a glance at Uncle Thomas.

“Well, gurl, you know they don’t listen to anything I have to say, so good luck.”

I sat back and pondered the task ahead of me. There’s no way I should have to worry about the manner in which my sisters were treating my father’s fiancée. We still had the task of picking a funeral home, burial clothes, the obituary, the day, and the cemetery. All of this was making my body feel heavy again. I decided to just stare out of the window, mindlessly watching Interstate 695 roll under the wheels.

Uncle Thomas pulled into Daddy’s driveway behind the almost-new Lincoln Town Car. My daddy had been a big man, both in stature and character. He always said he was not going to try to squeeze his six-foot-six-inch frame into a car made for a man five foot ten. Most of his 250 pounds was heart. The Bethlehem Steel third-shift crew Daddy had managed for as long as I could remember was going to be devastated. He’d been voted manager of the year seven out of the past ten years. I wondered silently if anyone had called his job.

He had been a very active member of the First United Church, where we’d all attended from childhood. He headed up one of the Big Brother/Big Sister chapters and had been responsible for the largest volunteer sign-up drive in the organization’s history. He said we couldn’t give up on our young people. They were all we had. He would’ve been a wonderful teacher. For sure they would have made a movie of the week about him. He organized young people from the after-school program to adopt senior citizens. They would read to them, give them gifts on birthdays and holidays, and basically just show them love. It gave the young people a sense of purpose and the seniors a sense of belonging.

His friends, though few, were like his brothers. Daddy and his long-time buddies spent many hours watching sports, mostly baseball, shooting pool, playing dominoes, and telling harmless lies. I saw familiar cars on the street. I couldn’t remember who owned the majority of them, but Mister Willie’s pimpmobile, as Daddy called it, caught my attention first. Daddy had teased him when he bought the new candy apple–red Z-28 Camaro with the T-top. Told him he was in old-age crisis and that those young girls he was chasing were going to be the death of him. How little did any of us know …

How could one man have affected so many lives? How would any of us survive without Eddie Naylor?

Uncle Thomas opened my door, and my thoughts returned to the present. “Lemme hep ya outta da car, baby.”

“Uncle Thomas, did Daddy die in the house?” I stared into eyes heavily laden with sadness.

He shot a glance to Dawn and then back at me. “Yeah, baby, he did.”

I felt as though my feet had been cemented to the ground. I couldn’t go in that house. This was the house where my daddy had died! How could any of them think that I could do this! Dawn recognized the absolute horror on my face.

“I know what you’re thinking, Sissy. You can do this. I’ll help you. We don’t have a choice.”

“Please hold my hand, Dawn.” The fear of a five-year-old headed for a haunted house gripped me.

Uncle Thomas walked ahead of us and the door swung open before we were even on the first step. Collette ran down the steps to greet me. Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen, the eyes of someone who had shed tears a very short time ago.

“Sissy, I’m so glad you’re here. We are finally all together! Renee is on the phone with Daddy’s job. They have been calling all day. Every time someone new finds out, the phone rings. They’re all crying and asking what can they do.” We walked hand in hand up the steps, and, as I reached the open doorway, I felt the paralysis of the early morning hours in my bedroom return. Collette turned to see why I wasn’t still moving in sync with her. She saw the trepidation on my face.

“Sissy, you can do this. We all felt the same way at first. But remember we were all here when they brought him out of the house. That was the absolute worst. If we can survive that, then for sure you can go into the house.” I wasn’t sure, but I thought I sensed anger in Lette’s voice.

“I don’t know why I can’t move. The same thing happened this morning, too. Then I fainted.” I felt as though I needed to explain myself.

“You fainted? Are you pregnant?” Collette asked.

“No, gurl! Rico said it was post-traumatic stress related. My body just shut down rather than deal with the trauma.”

“How is the good-doctor-married-to-the-deliveryman?” Collette inquired snidely.

“She’s wonderful and extremely happy. They’ll be here on Thursday. And you’d better be nice to my friends. I mean it, Lette!” I wasn’t taking any chances that Collette would be her normal envious self with Rico.

It was no secret that Collette envied Rico’s success in her career and her personal life. Though Collette enjoyed a very handsome six-figure income, Rico’s income was higher. The house Rico and I had shared was twice as large as the home that Collette owned in the well-to-do Reisterstown neighborhood. Collette definitely envied Rico’s happiness with Jonathan. Collette’s second marriage of four years, four years longer than the first, had ended with a bitter divorce and a beastly property settlement battle. Collette was the one who had to pay alimony. Her ex-husband received a nice check from her each month. Rico’s loving, caring, and sharing relationship with the handsome, strong black man named Jonathan made sistahgurl more than a little green.

“Oh paleeze, I’ll be very civil to the perfect little couple. Just don’t let her cross me, though. Coming up in here thinking she running somethin’.” Collette rolled her eyes.

Focusing on protecting my friend had changed my anxiety about walking into Daddy’s house, and before I knew it I was standing in the small contemporarily furnished living room watching Renee try to end her conversation with the shift supervisor from Daddy’s job. As I looked around the room, nothing seemed to have changed. The overstuffed gray sofa and love seat looked as inviting as ever. A single exquisite silk plant graced the lacquered mahogany coffee table. Matching crystal lamps reflected the sunlight, casting a rainbow of color onto the matching end tables. Everything was just as I had remembered. But everything was different. How could everything still look so familiar, yet feel so strange? The only evidence that something horrible had happened in this house less than twenty-four hours ago was the new door and jamb that remained unpainted. Apparently the paramedics had used their ax quite liberally in their efforts to get to the man who lay dying inside.

“Sissy!” Renee leapt into my arms and began to wail.

“Oh, Renee, what are we going to do?” Of course I could not let her cry alone.

As our guests heard that a new family member had arrived, they felt it their duty to greet me. Mister Willie was the first to emerge from the den. “Glynda, God love you, baby. How you holdin’ up? My buddy done up and left me. What am I gonna do?” Tears filled his already red eyes. Mister Willie was known for his cooler-than-cool manner, never affected by anything or anyone. To see tears in his eyes only made mine flow more freely.

Johnny Bea and Sister Greene followed him and hugged me close and echoed Mister Willie’s sentiments. Sister Greene spoke first. “Babies, we gonna leave y’all so you can grieve in private. I have to go to Giants and get some chicken for some chicken and dumplin’s, about twenty-five bunches of greens, and some sweet potatoes. I may as well make a pound cake since I’ll be cookin’ anyway. I’ll bring it all by tomorrow ’bout noon. Y’all got enough to worry about besides what you gonna be eatin’.”

“I bought some coffee, cream, sugar, cups, and a bottle of brandy for y’all. I made a fresh pot while Renee was on the phone,” Johnny Bea whispered.

“Now why you gonna bring them some liquor, Bea?” I thought Sister Greene was going to lay hands on her and start to pray for her repentance.

“A little brandy to calm the nerves,” Johnny Bea responded as though she were prescribing medication.

“Well, the Lord gonna help them through this, they sho’ don’t need no devil’s elixir!”

The two friends were about to go at it as they had on many occasions in the past when Mister Willie interrupted. “Come on, ladies, let’s get out of here and leave them to talk. They got a lot of business to handle. You girls need anything, anything at all, you call on ole Willie, you hear me? And I know I don’t need to say this, but I want to be a pallbearer. God knows Eddie has carried me enough in this life. I would be honored to carry him in his death.” Tears fell onto his full, perfectly manicured salt-and-pepper beard.

“Thank you, Mister Willie. We had planned to ask you if you wanted to be an actual pallbearer or an honorary one. We’ll call you as soon as everything is set. Please come back tomorrow. I’m sure we’ll be in and out, but someone should be here all the time. You still have your key?” Dawn was holding his hand the way she did as a little girl when he’d walk her to the corner store. Dawn was his goddaughter and clearly his favorite.

“No, baby girl, I gotta carry my man to his final resting place. That is where the true honor is.” Mister Willie hugged Dawn. He then hugged each of us, including Uncle Thomas.

“We’ll see y’all tomorrow.” Sister Greene followed Mister Willie with the hugs.

Of course, Johnny Bea would not be outdone. But she had no words. The pain in her heart clearly showed on her ageless face.

Johnny Bea and Sister Greene had been friends of our mother. Sister Greene and Mama were ushers at the church and prayer partners. They had been closer than close, and when Mama died, Sister Greene had stepped in to help Daddy in any way she could with us. Dawn was a toddler, and Sister Greene said she needed a mother to nurture her. Renee and I suspected that the good sister wanted the mother to be her. But Daddy always kept his distance. She was a wonderful friend to him and an auntlike figure to us. We aren’t sure when she stopped pursuing Daddy, but one day they were just good friends.

Johnny Bea had been a teacher’s aide in Mama’s class when she was killed. She had come by the day after the funeral and promised that she would do whatever she could to help with us and had done just that until Dawn graduated from high school. She would come by every morning to comb our hair until Renee assured her she could handle it. She attended all of the mother-daughter functions at school. She’d stay with us when Daddy’s job sent him out of town for training, which occurred regularly. She’d never been married and shared her small but impeccably maintained home with another woman, who never came around us. It wasn’t until we were adults that we figured out the two women were far more than roommates.

“Thank you all for coming.” Renee spoke softly.

“We love y’all so much. We’ll call you as soon as we make the arrangements.” Dawn’s voice cracked, and the word “arrangements” seemed fragmented.

We quickly said our good-byes and turned to one another as they started down the steps.

“I don’t want to do this, Sissy. I just don’t!” Renee hugged me again. “Now that we’re all here, we have no excuse not to make the arrangements. The coroner should release the body early tomorrow morning.” Renee stepped back but didn’t let me go.

“All of this makes no sense to me. How could Daddy just up and die? How could this happen to a man who was so full of life? Less than twenty-four hours ago he called each of us; now we’re talking about coroners releasing his body.” I shook my head sadly.

“I know, Glynda. Estelle said she talked to him, too. He’d made plans for them to go away this weekend before they got heavy into the last-minute wedding preparations. She said he had a real surprise for her. She’s so sad.” Dawn’s voice trailed off.

“Well, she is no sadder than we are, and we’re his family,” Collette spoke up.

“You can believe that!” Renee added quickly.

“Now listen, Estelle was not only Daddy’s fiancée but his dear, dear friend. She’s like family, and I personally think we should make her a part of our decision making. She loves him as much as we do. She’s all torn up inside, too. And if you two hadn’t been so damned selfish and had gone over there with Dawn, you’d have been able to see that for yourselves. This isn’t a time for division. We should be clinging to anyone who feels the way we do!” Like a balloon being overfilled with helium, an emotional outburst welled up inside me.

“Well, be that as it may, she wasn’t married to him yet, so all of her imagined rights are nonexistent,” Renee said, very matter-of-factly.

“I don’t believe you’re saying that, Renee. Daddy would be so disappointed in you!” Dawn spoke before I had a chance to voice my opinion.

“And you know he would,” I added.

“Don’t tell me what Daddy would be disappointed in. What he would be upset about is we can’t even decide on what funeral home to call to come get him from the morgue. You know he hated indecision.” Collette lit a cigarette.

“Put that thing out. You know Daddy didn’t allow anyone to smoke in here!” I was livid at Collette’s obvious disrespect.

“The way I see it, this is now our house and as I do in my own house, I choose to smoke!” Collette blew smoke in our faces.

“If, as you say, this is our house, I don’t allow smoking in my house, so put that disgusting thing out,” Dawn spat.

“Alright! Alright! Y’all stop it now. Ya jus’ fightin’ ’bout anythang so ya don’t have ta deal wit’ da matters at hand.” Uncle Thomas had the coffeepot in his hand. “Come on in here in da dining room ’n’ let’s have some coffee ’n’ make some decisions. Collette, put dat cigarette out. Ya knows yo’ daddy wouldn’t have it.”

“Yes, Uncle Thomas.” Collette gave me the I’m-gonna-get-you look like she did when we were kids and I’d gotten her in trouble with Daddy.

We slowly gathered around the dining room table. Uncle Thomas sat in Daddy’s chair, looking so much like Daddy sitting at the head of the table. Many had mistaken them for twins throughout the years. The eleven months separating their births made that an impossibility. Uncle Thomas was two inches shorter. Seeing the familiar dark expressive eyes and olive skin they shared brought me sadness and relief at the same time.

“Now, I undastan’ y’all couldn’t decide on a fun’ral home dis morning. So what chu thank we should do now?” Uncle Thomas wasted no time getting to the point.

“Well, I think the first thing we should do is set a budget. We don’t want to just go into a funeral home with a have-Mont-Blanc-will-write-check attitude. They’ll take full advantage of us.” Collette was quick to voice her opinion.

“I should’ve known that money would be the first thing out of your mouth!” I wasn’t going to stand for this madness from my penny-pinching-wannabe-buppie sister.

“Well, it’s not a pleasant topic, but a necessary one.” Renee had taken Collette’s side—big surprise.

“Okay, okay. How much life insurance does Daddy have?” Dawn was trying her best to bring accord to the situation.

“I have no idea. But I know he has a good policy, plus the one at work. He mentioned that to me when I asked him if he had a will.” The lawyer in me was starting to show.

“You and Daddy talked about a will without the rest of us?” Collette was visibly upset.

“No, we didn’t discuss a will. I asked him if he had one; he said no but he’d draw one up. He thought it was a smart idea.” My patience was about as short as Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair.

“And when did this nondiscussion take place?” Sarcasm dripped from Renee’s every word.

“About a year ago, I’d imagine. It was before I finished law school.”

“So did he write a will?” Collette was salivating.

“Yeah, he wrote one. He tol’ me ’bout it,” Uncle Thomas interjected.

“What’s in it?” Collette had no shame.

“Damn, do you mind waiting until his body is cold!” I was on the verge of tears.

“He has copies of his insurance papers in his file cab’net in da den. A copy of da will prolly be in dere, too. He tol’ me all of dis ’bout six months ago. He said fo’ me ta tell y’all in case somethin’ evah happened ta him. I joked and said da paper would be yellow befo’ we’d need to go in dat drawah. I sho’ was wrong.” Uncle Thomas’s words trailed off.

With no regard for Uncle Thomas’s state, Collette and Renee headed for the den. Dawn and I only stared at each other. The lines were clearly drawn. I’d never noticed how different Dawn and I were from Collette and Renee until this very moment. It went so far beyond the physical.

Renee at five foot four was the shortest of the sisters and also the heaviest. She’d had issues with her weight for as long as I could remember. She still hadn’t learned that sexy doesn’t have a dress size. She had shoulder-length medium-brown hair and dark eyes that sparkled like Daddy’s when she smiled. I personally thought she was absolutely gorgeous the way she was, as did her husband, Derrick.

She married Derrick, her junior-high-school sweetheart, shortly after high school. She loved her family more than life itself and believed that she had to do and have it all. When she went to college after her second child was born, she almost had a nervous breakdown, trying to be the perfect wife, mother, and student. She used her business degree to start an African import business that developed into one of the most in-demand interior-decorating concerns in Baltimore.

Collette, on the other hand, had always been the center of her own universe. Being dealt Daddy’s genes, she was the tallest and had a strong five-foot-eleven build. Though she never ate, worked out five days a week, and had liposuction (she didn’t know that we knew) she tipped the scale at 160. Her olive skin, jet black hair, and knockout body had caused more than a few men to bow down.

She was as obsessed with her appearance as she was with her money. Money for anything to enhance her outward appearance was the only area in which my frugal sister would spend with absolute abandon. Despite her first marriage, which was a joke after she eloped on prom night and which ended shortly thereafter in an annulment, she married the pretty frat brother she dated all through college, even though Daddy adamantly disapproved. She had to have someone who complemented her in every way, as she’d told Daddy. Daddy warned her that Calvin was too lazy to pick up his own feet. He was a playboy who’d use her until he used her up. Notwithstanding the rocky marriage, Collette excelled as a financial planner and became independently well-off.

Money meant everything to her. The only people she really cared about were her clients. She was much too selfish to ever have children. Besides, she’d become fat if she got pregnant. She claimed to care about us, and true enough she loved us, but that was a condition of birth, not of her heart.

Dawn was the one who had inherited Daddy’s heart. She was so kind and full of love. She and I wore our five-foot-eight bodies proudly. Dawn’s 155 pounds had me beat by fifteen pounds, and it was all in her chest. We could never figure where she’d inherited those thirty-eight triple Ds. She jokingly said she’d added new genes to the pool. Possessing the same natural beauty as our mother, she’d always played down her good looks and covered up her brick-house body with baggy clothes. She had many stories of how the parents would get into little discussions about the fathers paying a bit too much attention to the nurse administering to the needs of their tiny sick ones. She could never see what all the fuss was about. Though Dawn had never married, she had a twelve-year-old son who was the reason her heart beat. She got pregnant her senior year in high school and had Darryl Edward Naylor that summer. Daddy told her that the baby would make her life a little more challenging but in no way changed anything. He paid for child care when he wasn’t taking care of little Darryl himself so that Dawn could attend college.

Then, of course, there was me. I wasn’t as kind and selfless as Dawn, evidenced by my moving to California, but I was loving like Daddy and truly cared about the feelings of others. To say I was attractive would make me sound vain, but I liked what I saw in the mirror. Though my medium-brown hair fell below my shoulders, I liked the low maintenance of braids and the elegance of the micros. Like my sisters I had Daddy’s dark eyes and my mother’s smile. I was the only one of the Naylor girls to have inherited my mother’s near-indigo skin. I was an overachiever and was never satisfied by what I’d accomplished. I planned to marry Anthony, but in my time.We would have two perfect little children, and I’d be senior partner in an African-American law firm by the time I was forty. My plan didn’t include leaving any dead bodies in my wake.

Dawn moved over to comfort Uncle Thomas, who laid his head on her ample bosom and began to sob uncontrollably. I’d never seen Uncle Thomas break down like this. I remembered how he cried at Mama’s funeral. It was a steady stream of quiet tears, and I thought, How strange to cry with no sound. This was different. Very, very different.