We had been gone long enough. Long enough, I hoped, for Big Ma to forget why she had us “git” to begin with. The smells of cabbage, potatoes, and meat on top of burnt cornstarch, lavender, and metal from an afternoon of ironing saluted me when I walked inside Ma Charles’s house. I was hungry, and ashamed, but glad to be back. I hugged my apology to Big Ma, and for all of a second, she let me, and then she pushed me off of her, which was her way and her forgiveness. “Go on and wash up” was all she said.
We sat at the dinner table, mosquito-stung and ravenous from our hike. When Ma Charles told me to say the prayer, I asked, “Aren’t we waiting for Uncle Darnell?”
Vonetta cut her eyes but kept her mouth closed. Speaking her sassy mind was what had gotten her Big Ma’s belt just before Pa had asked Big Ma to leave our home in Brooklyn. If anything, the sting of Big Ma’s white church belt should have encouraged Vonetta to make that whipping her last.
“He’s working an extra shift,” Big Ma said. I got the feeling our uncle would be working more extra shifts now that we were here.
“Get to praying so we can get to eating!” Ma Charles said. We laughed because our great-grandmother’s impatience was unexpected.
“Rolls,” Big Ma said. “Delphine, go get—” Then, just as I was about to scoot out of my chair, she stopped herself, got up, and went inside the kitchen and came back with the rolls. I should have felt a victory, knowing Big Ma now thought twice about having me do everything. But I felt only shame and said the dinner prayer as fast as I could.
The “Amen” was barely out of our mouths when Ma Charles rapped on the table and said, “Well?”
“Yes, ma’am?” I asked. The South just slipped out of me. Big Ma smiled.
“Well, what did she say about my gift? Speak up,” Ma Charles demanded.
I fixed my mind and mouth to say, “Nothing, really,” but Vonetta jumped in front of me. “Miss Trotter said—” She made her face like our great-aunt, down to the pinched nose, and said, “Dentures? Dentures?” Then she opened her mouth full of cabbage and beef to show teeth and mimicked Miss Trotter’s strong and high-pitched voice: “Go on, young’ns. Run your finger ’longside the uppers and lowers.” And she chomped her teeth, even though Miss Trotter did no such thing.
I was set to kick Vonetta for repeating Miss Trotter’s words and tone like that. But Ma Charles seemed to enjoy Vonetta’s imitation and reared her head back and cackled. “Do it again,” she said. “Just like that over-the-creek gal said it. Go on.” And she readied herself to hear it as if she were waiting for the second act of the show. For her, this was entertainment.
Vonetta obliged her, only too pleased to perform. She cleared her throat. “Tell her my teeth are just fine. Tell her, why would a wolf need teeth she already has?”
Ma Charles slapped the table and cackled harder and longer. Vonetta was in her glory. “What else she say?”
Fern started to speak, but Vonetta hushed her. “This is my story. Mine.” Vonetta cleared her throat again, put on her Miss Trotter face, and said, “Denture rinse. I got something for her. You wait.”
Ma Charles applauded. “Go on, baby. One more time.”
Big Ma had had enough. “Less talking and more eating. Good food is hard to come by.”
In spite of Big Ma’s order, Vonetta repeated her line. If Big Ma asked for a tree switch, I would have run out to the pecan tree and found a nice one.
“This is your fault, Delphine.”
I almost choked on a gob of mashed potatoes. Big Ma’s forgiveness wore off quickly.
“Marching them through the woods, across the creek to dig up trouble.”
“Big Ma, you said ‘Git’ and they wanted to see cousin JimmyTrotter.”
“And the cows,” Fern added.
Ma Charles cackled. “They saw an old cow, all right.”
Vonetta and Fern laughed at their great-grandmother for calling her half sister a cow. Ma Charles and Miss Trotter might as well have been Vonetta and Fern, the way they sniped at each other.
“The Lord wants you to make peace, Ma,” our grandmother said. “Before the sweet by-and-by.”
Ma Charles coughed or rolled her eyes or made a sound that was as good as teeth sucking. “I’ll make peace when that old Negro Injun makes peace first.” To Vonetta she added, “And you can tell her I said so.”