Ma Charles and Miss Trotter were full of “what-to-dos” for Mrs. and the baby. Mrs. started looking for Pa to save her from their home remedies.
“Are you sure you can’t stay another couple of days?” JimmyTrotter asked. “Butter’s about to drop her calf any day now. Could even be tonight.”
“Sorry, son,” my father said. “They won’t hold my job forever.”
JimmyTrotter said to me, “Wish you could be here with me when I pull out this calf. I got a good feeling.”
“I’m a Brooklyn girl,” I told my cousin. “I don’t go around pulling out calves, JT.”
He threw one arm around my neck, dragged me near, and pressed his knuckle into my forehead.
Fern stopped dead in her tracks. “What do you mean, pull out a calf?”
“How do you think that calf is going to get out of her?” Vonetta said. Although her “heinie” still hurt when she walked, Vonetta was coming back to her old self, and we were treating her like her old self. Not entirely, but close enough.
“All right, young lady.” Mrs. wagged her finger at Vonetta. I was tired of scolding my sister and was glad Mrs. stepped in. “Honey,” Mrs. said to Pa. “All this talk about pulling out baby cows is making me dizzy. Let’s get in the car and on the road.”
When Fern was out of earshot I asked my cousin, “What about Sophie?”
“We’ll try her out one more time. Get her with a calf. See how it goes.” He shrugged but there was nothing hopeful in his voice.
I took JimmyTrotter aside and said, “Fern is right. Maybe you milking her isn’t enough. Maybe she needs her calf to get her milk and then she’ll give more. Have you thought of that?”
He slugged me. Light. “Get in the car, Brooklyn.”
“I’m getting, JT. I’m getting. Just think about it,” I said, although I wasn’t yet finished with my hugs.
He gave me another noogie sandwich, to let me know that he could, and somewhere in that we hugged a real hug.
Between Mr. and Mrs. Lucas, the Trotter sisters, cousin JT, and Uncle D, we must have made at least three rounds of hugs, “Yawl be careful,” and “See you real soon,” with the Lord’s blessing added for good measure. Mrs. called it the “Southern good-bye” because it went on and on and on and there was nothing like it in New York. “People just aren’t that way,” she said.
Uncle Darnell and Pa shook hands, and Uncle D gave Mrs. a hug, and then he hugged each one of us. During my last round of hugs with my uncle, he patted his pockets and said, “Delphine. Almost forgot.” He held out a folded paper napkin. “From Sis.” He saved his favorite, Net-Net, for last and whispered something in her ear. She whispered back.
“All right, drive safely, family.” And then he was in the truck he shared with Mr. Lucas, his stepfather, and off to work.
And finally we did the last part of the Southern good-bye. We were all in the car and Mr. Lucas called out, “Drive careful.”
Big Ma said, “Don’t make a fuss over everything. Every good-bye isn’t gone.”
Butter mooed something awful and everyone laughed.
“Well, you better get gone,” Ma Charles told us. “The cow said it all.”
“If you call that gone,” Miss Trotter said.
Fern mooed and Vonetta said, “Cut it out.”
Then Caleb got in on the good-byes and sang his dog song. We heard him singing when we could no longer see the house. And all I could think was how strange it would be to leave all of this. Cows, chickens, the creek. All of it. And yet part of me was ready to go home.
Vonetta lifted her cast to point to the napkin in my hand. “What is it?” Vonetta asked.
“Yeah, what?”
I unfolded it and let it fall in my lap. “A letter. From Cecile.”
“Where’s mine?” Vonetta asked. “I’m the one who was nearly killed.”
I’d be hearing that for a long time. “I’ll share it,” I said, even though I didn’t want to. I wanted to take my letter to a secret place and enjoy my mother’s words, even if she’d written You’re hardheaded, Delphine, like I knew she could. No matter what Cecile wrote, no matter how short or how mean, I planned to read it alone, over and over, to try to learn who my mother was.
I cleared my throat in dramatic Vonetta fashion, hoping to get a smile out of her. Then I read.
Dear Delphine,
A woman who kicks up dust to make her path can walk through a storm. If her child can walk through a storm then she can. She can walk through the violent wind with peace inside her. She does not walk for herself. She is not there for herself. She is not there for her anger. She is not there for her own pain. She is there for her child. She can withstand it all. Even if she leaves without the child in her arms, she carries the child with her. All of her children. With her. In her. The storm cannot take her peace away. A storm cannot take the child away.
Your Mother.
Cecile
P.S. Things do fall apart.
P.P.S. But you’re strong enough to walk through the storm.
P.P.P.S. (if there is such a thing): Walk on, daughter. Walk on.
“You see!” Vonetta cried. “Her poem is about me.”
Mrs. made a “hmp” sound. And I thought it was funny that she sounded like Big Ma.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Mrs. said to Pa. “When we get home, you’re going to trade in this tin can on wheels for a brand-new car. That’s the end of this Wildcat.”
“Oh, is that so?” Papa said.
“You think I’m joking. I want this old car gone.”
Whatever Mrs. was mad about she took out on Pa’s faithful old girl, the Buick Wildcat. Although Pa’s voice teased, I knew Mrs. meant what she said.