DEAR SISTER

DEAR JACKIE:

I’ve started this letter about five different times in five different ways. Finally I just told myself you’re either going to read it or you’re not, and it’s not going to come down to how I write it. It’s all about who you are and what you’ve been through and what, if anything, it means to you to share a father with my sisters Renee, Kimba, Tasheta, and me. Maybe it means nothing. Maybe your life has been just fine without our father in it, which I hope is the case. Maybe it means everything, and you have longed to know him and struggled because you didn’t. Either way, you have a right to know that our father Wallace “Stet” Brown died last week of a massive stroke.

As far as we know, you never met our father. The last time he saw you, you were an infant. If that’s the case, and if it’s any consolation: you didn’t miss much. (Tasheta, our baby sister, asked me to tell you that. We’re all sitting around at Grandma’s house, and everyone is talking at once, telling me what I should write to you. I’m mostly ignoring them. They picked me to write this because I shoot straight and don’t mince words. But I also have tact, unlike Tasheta.)

Oh! In case you’re wondering, we always just called it “Grandma’s house,” even though Granddaddy lived here too, when he was alive. He died of a heart attack in 2002, God rest his soul. You would have loved him. Everybody did. Always had a joke or funny story to tell. He was good people, just like Grandma. They lost their kids to the street or hard living, one way or another, even though they tried their best to raise them right. But some people just go their own way, you know?

Anyway, back to Stet. Tasheta is right. You didn’t miss much. Stet—everybody but Grandma called him “Stet” because back in high school, he wore a Stetson—Stet wasn’t much of a daddy. Each of us girls had a different kind of relationship with him, none of them healthy and none of them what we needed it to be.

Kimba is the oldest, and she’s the peacekeeper. She called our father “Wallace,” but she mostly pretended he didn’t exist. Over the years, she’s kept Tasheta and Renee from strangling each other. She went to Harvard. Her mother (Jan) and my mother had been friends . . . before Stet. But by the time Kimba and I were in elementary school, they had put their differences aside and raised us together like sisters. My mama said, “Y’all gon’ need each other one day. Me and Jan aren’t always going to be here. And you sure as hell can’t count on your daddy.”

Anyway . . . Kimba lives in Philadelphia now, with her husband and two kids. Your niece and nephew. She’s the only one of us with kids, and she’s the quietest one. Like I said, the peacekeeper. She flew down as soon as Renee called her with the news, and she’s helping out with Grandma. But I can tell she really wants to get the hell out of town and back to her life.

Speaking of Grandma . . . I don’t think Alzheimer’s has fully set in yet, but she’s on her way. She can’t always remember our names, but she knows that her baby boy died. And she’s sad about it. She’s been crying off and on. At seventy-five, she’s outlived her husband and all but one of her children, our Uncle Bird who moved in to take care of her when Granddaddy died.

Last week, after Kimba arrived, we met up for dinner at Grandma’s. Her neighbors and the people from her church had dropped off food. We had food for days: fried chicken, baked chicken, macaroni and cheese, greens, deviled eggs, potato salad, black-eyed peas and rice, pound cake.

So we were sitting there eating and whatnot, and Grandma says, “Which one-a y’all pregnant?” She waved a chicken leg around like a pointer. “I dreamed about fish near ‘bout every night this week.”

We been hearing about Grandma’s fishy dreams all our lives. With seven children, nineteen grandchildren (including you), eight great-grands, and three great-great-grands, Grandma has dreamed about fish a lot.

“Somebody ‘round here pregnant,” she muttered.

Renee, Kimba, and I just looked at each other and shook our heads. “It’s not us, Grandma,” Renee said. (Tasheta hadn’t gotten here yet; she’s always late.)

Anyway . . . Grandma and her fishy dreams announced the existence of every one of her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren. (“Except for Khalil,” she always reminded us. “You know Derrick never brang that girl around until that baby was two weeks old. And you know she had the nerve to get an attitude because I told her she shouldn’t have that baby out so soon with no shoes on his feet, no hat, nothing. I don’t care if it was June.” June 1986, but Grandma still talks about that girl and that baby like it was yesterday. Khalil is nineteen and is a daddy his own self now!)

If Grandma dreams about fish, there is a baby baking inside someone in her life. Everybody talks about how she’s only been wrong once, and they chalk it up to the fact that she was in the hospital at the time from complications related to her diabetes and was probably just having wild dreams because she was sick. But Jackie, I’m going to tell you a secret that only our sisters know: I knew that wasn’t true. I felt more guilty about ruining Grandma’s track record in the eyes of the family than I did about the abortion in the eyes of God. Fifteen years later, and Grandma still complaining about how “the sugar is even worser than them doctors realize. Messing around with folks’ dreams . . .” But I don’t have the heart to tell her what I did.

But this time, it’s really not me who’s pregnant. I know for a fact that it ain’t me, because I ain’t been with nobody in almost a year. Because men are tiring, and I don’t have the energy. Are you married? Do you have kids?

Anyway . . . Maybe it’s one of our cousins, or second cousins? Or Tasheta. But she gets those Depo shots . . .

I know who ain’t pregnant for sure: our middle sister, Renee. Because she is probably still a virgin. Renee is definitely the most delusional one of us when it comes to Stet. She is my full blood sister. (I don’t like to think about it, but I guess my mama felt like being the same fool twice where Stet was concerned.) Renee and me don’t have much else in common. Like the situation with Stet. When we were in grade school, she was always telling people that Stet and Mama were married, that he took us on Bahamas cruises every year, and that Stet bought her a Barbie Dreamhouse for Christmas. Every year it was some big gift. Meanwhile Stet went on Bahamas cruises every year all right—with his girlfriends. And he never once bought us gifts. All we could count on him for was broken promises, late child support (if there was any at all), and summers at Grandma’s house. Those summers were the only good thing I can say about him, and really they weren’t about him because he’d be in the streets the whole time we were there.

But none of that fazed Renee. She bought that man a card and a gift every birthday, every Father’s Day, every Christmas. Like he was Father of the Year or something. Mama would ask me if I wanted to get him something too. No, ma’am. That’s just what I told her. No, ma’am.

So Tasheta and me, we fell in line somewhere in the space between Kimba and Renee. Like a daughter purgatory where you don’t expect him to get you anything for your birthday or Christmas, ever, but it still hurts like hell every time he doesn’t.

One time, one Father’s Day, Renee and I were at church with Grandma. Renee was ten, I was thirteen. Stet had promised Grandma that he would come to church. He was always promising Grandma he would come to church. Renee and I sat on either side of Grandma in the second pew or the right side of the sanctuary, where Grandma always sat. Renee just kept turning around and turning around, looking at the door at the back of the church. I know she was thinking Stet was going to walk in any minute. She was holding a gift, a pack of socks she’d gotten for him and wrapped herself in Christmas paper. Pastor got to the end of the sermon, and Renee just kept turning around, turning around. Grandma patted her knee and hugged her close. But she kept looking back.

Then the pastor did the altar call, inviting anyone who wanted to ask Jesus into their heart to come forward. And then he asked all the fathers to come forward to commit or recommit their lives to their children. Renee watched all those men come forward and kneel at the altar and promise to be good fathers to their children. Then she looked back one last time, and the tears started.

On the way out the church, she threw the socks in the garbage can. If I could’ve taken that pain away from her that day, I would have. But I couldn’t. All I could say to her is what I’d heard our mama say about Stet, “He doesn’t deserve us.” I knew it was true—he didn’t deserve us. But I don’t think Renee ever believed that. I don’t think she’s ever learned what she deserves, what she’s worth.

So I had to take a little break from writing you. Fixed me another plate. Thinking about that Father’s Day at church years ago made me wonder what Father’s Days were like for you, and all the other days as well. Is it better to have the one big hurt of your father not being around and not all those little hurts that come when he disappoints you? Or is it better to have a piece of a father, hurts and all?

Well, it’s not like any of us got to choose in the beginning. But we do get to decide how much space to give him now.

I really hope that this letter doesn’t make things harder for you. It wasn’t our idea to reach out at first. Growing up we’d heard things here and there, that there was another sister, but we didn’t pay it no never mind. But while we were sitting here a few days ago, Grandma’s neighbor Miss Margaret stopped by with a sweet potato pie.

She said, “Didn’t y’all have another sister . . . the fat one?”

We had no idea what she was talking about.

“She was over here visiting a few years back. Was married to some man from up North.”

“Oh, that was me, Miss Margaret,” Kimba said. “My husband is from Philadelphia. And I was pregnant the last time I was here.”

“No, you were just fat. I remember when you were pregnant.”

I swear, old people stay saying slick shit because they know we can’t shake them. Kimba just looked at me like, “Is this bitch for real?”

And Miss Margaret kept talking. “And there was another one of y’all . . . another girl Stet had.”

“We never met her,” Renee said, a little too quickly.

“Well, she has a right to know,” Miss Margaret said. She turned to Grandma. “Don’t you think she has a right to know, Mae?”

Grandma looked up from her piece of pie. “Who?”

Miss Margaret shook her head. “Never mind.”

Then Tasheta came in, loud and on the phone, as usual. “Girl!” she was saying to someone, “Tell him you not a mind reader. He better speak up if he wants to be down. Closed mouths don’t get head!” And then she cracked up at her own wordplay. “I’m serious . . . Look. You know how they say, ‘No child left behind’? I say, ‘No nigga left undrained.’ ”

“Tasheta!” Renee jumped up from the table. “That’s disgusting. Show some respect.”

Tasheta held her open palm inches away from Renee’s face. Dismissed. She still wore hospital scrubs, and she’d pulled her microbraids up into a bun.

Miss Margaret turned up her nose. “Lord Jesus, let me get up out of here. Mae, I will talk to you later. Take care.”

Tasheta ended her call and kissed Grandma on the cheek. “Hey, Grandma.”

“Lord knows where that mouth has been,” Miss Margaret mumbled on her way out the door.

“Thank you for stopping by, Miss Margaret,” Kimba said following her out onto the front porch. “And for the pie. We’ll see you at the service on Saturday.”

That scene pretty much tells you everything you need to know about Tasheta. Well, that and the fact that she and one of her married boyfriends just celebrated their fifth anniversary.

Kimba asked Tasheta, “Do you ever remember Wallace talking about another daughter of his?”

Renee huffed. “Come on, Grandma. I’m going to run you a bath. It’s getting late.”

Tasheta thought about Kimba’s question between bites of macaroni and cheese that she was eating straight from the baking dish. “Nah,” she said. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Miss Margaret thinks we should get in touch with her. But we don’t know anything about her.”

“Did you ask Uncle Bird?”

Tasheta is wild, but she’s also smart. Her mom used to be a stripper, but she made sure Tasheta stayed in her books and went to college like the rest of us. She’s a nurse, Kimba’s a professor, Renee’s a kindergarten teacher, and I’m a program director at a social services nonprofit. What do you do?

So . . . I volunteered to go talk to Uncle Bird (real name: Bert) who was back in the bedroom he used to share with Stet when they were boys. Uncle Bird’s eyes were red from crying. Stet’s passing really shook him up. That was his big brother and best friend.

Uncle Bird couldn’t recall your name, and he could only remember your mama’s first name. But he said he remembered your mom coming by Grandma’s house a few times, and he saw you once when you were a baby.

“Your daddy was something else,” Uncle Bird said. He was stretched out on his old twin bed. I sat on Stet’s. “Nothing got past him. You know back in the day, I used to do my dirt. And he’d call me on it. We were sitting around drankin’ with some fellas one time. I had just gotten back from Miami, handling some business, but I wasn’t saying what that business was. Stet pointed at me from across the table and said, ‘Only a coupla of things a nigga is driving to Miami for . . . to buy some dope, see some kids, or make some more kids.’ ”

Uncle Bird laughed. “And I said, ‘Nigga, I know you not talking about somebody having a bunch of kids. You the only motherfucker I know describe his kids like a Spades hand.’ ” Uncle Bird mimicked my father’s slow drawl: “ ‘Uhhh . . . I got five and a possible.’ ”

We both laughed. And then Uncle Bert was crying again. Grief is like that. He hadn’t just lost Stet. He’d also lost his four other siblings, all too soon. To drugs, violence, or both. We barely got to know our aunts and uncles.

When I got back to the dining room, Tasheta was pouring tequila shots for herself and Kimba. She went and got another glass and poured me one too.

You probably won’t be surprised to know that Renee didn’t want us to find you. (And that she turned her nose up at the tequila.) She said you’d probably come sniffing around thinking Stet left some money. I reminded her that Stet didn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of when he died. Don’t mind her. I told you, she’s delusional. After all these years, she’s still the doting daughter. She used to go over there and grocery shop and cook for him every week. She spent Friday nights over there watching TV like an old person. She was the one who found him dead on the bathroom floor. I asked her once if she was dating. She said she believes in courting, not dating, and that someday, the man God chose for her would find her. I wondered how he was supposed to find her since she didn’t go anywhere but to work and Stet’s house. Did she think the cable guy or Stet’s building super could be the man God chose?

While we were sitting there sipping, Tasheta’s phone rang. Kimba glanced down and read the name on the caller ID: “ ‘Rectal Rooter’? Tasheta, what in the world?”

Tasheta snatched up the phone. “Mind your business!” She went into the living room and proceeded to have another loud conversation.

Renee looked like she was going to pass out. Kimba and I just took another shot.

When Tasheta came back to the dining room, Renee was still pissy. “Tasheta, even if you don’t have any self-respect, you should at least respect the sanctity of other people’s marriages.” Tasheta took another shot. “I respect their marriages,” she said, slapping her glass down on the table. “Until they don’t want me to.”

Kimba giggled, and I lost it. We all busted out laughing—except for Renee, of course.

“You two condone her behavior?” Renee asked.

Kimba, loosened up by the tequila, said, “It’s not for me to condone or not condone. Tash is a grown-ass woman.”

“Don’t even bother, Kimba,” Tasheta said. “When you’re not here, I just ignore Miss Holier-Than-Thou.”

“Back to the subject at hand . . .” Renee said. “It’s for the best that Uncle Bert couldn’t remember that other girl’s name. Everything happens for a reason.”

“Jesus Christ, I swear your native tongue is ‘Cliché.’ ”

“Don’t you—”

“—take the Lord’s name in vain, blah, blah, blah. Do you realize you cling to an imaginary white daddy because your flesh-and-blood daddy wasn’t shit? Well, guess what. Your imaginary white daddy ain’t shit either. If he was, he would’ve given you a real daddy that was worth a damn.”

Renee took a deep breath and turned her back to Tasheta and addressed the rest of us. “As I was saying: it’s for the best. She isn’t really one of us anyway.”

“One of us?” Tasheta laughed. “And who are we exactly? Except a bunch of women fathered by the same old deadbeat nigga with a thing for barely legal girls. She most definitely is one of us.”

“I mean”—Renee whipped around again to face Tasheta—” she didn’t know our father like we did. And even though you did not respect him in life, at least show some respect for the dead.”

Tasheta began to speak, but Kimba cut her off. “To your corners, ladies. You are working my last good nerve.” She rubbed her temples.

Tasheta giggled. “Girl, that’s just the tequila.”

Renee said, “Scripture says, ‘Honor thy father and thy mother—’ ”

“Honor thy father?” Tasheta yelled. “When did that motherfucker ever honor you? Or me? Or Kimba? Or Nichelle? Or anybody but his own trifling self? I ain’t honoring shit.”

“Blasphemer!” Renee screamed and covered her ears.

Tasheta laughed. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

“Both of you!” Kimba hissed. “Keep it down. Grandma and Uncle Bird are resting.”

Renee lowered her voice. “I know one thing. You better not make a scene at the funeral.”

Tasheta tilted her head to the side. “Or what?”

(You might be interested to know that Tasheta is the only one of us who knows how to fight. Kimba will debate you until you cry uncle. Renee will pray for you. And I’m just gonna talk a lot of shit from a distance.)

“Or . . . or I will have you escorted from the church.”

“Yeah, okay. Good luck with that.”

“I’m serious, Tasheta. Funerals are to honor the dead and comfort the living. If you can’t respect that, you need to stay away.”

“Listen, I know you think you’re in charge and you were his favorite and all of that. You can have that. But you don’t run me. You. Don’t. Run. Shit. Here.” Tasheta punctuated each word of her last sentence with a clap.

“Can we call a truce?” Kimba asked.

“No!” Tasheta and Renee said.

“Renee,” I said. “Stop carrying on like we’re some kind of great dynasty and Stet was some kind of patriarch. And if you’re going to quote Scripture, quote the whole thing. ‘Honor your father and mother—which is the first commandment with a promise—so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.’ Girl, I get it. You are trying to get that crown in heaven. And you wanted desperately for that man to love you back. And maybe he did. But respect the fact that the rest of us didn’t want what you wanted and didn’t get whatever it is you think you got from him.”

Renee folded her arms and began to cry. She looked so much like her ten-year-old self that Father’s Day in church, I almost backed down. Almost.

“And,” I said, “if we’re going to keep it really real, the next verse says, ‘Fathers, don’t exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.’ ”

“In other words,” Tasheta said, “if you weren’t beating him over the head with Scripture, leave me the fuck alone about it.”

“And you . . .” I turned to Tasheta. “We are more than just some deadbeat’s kids. We’re sisters. We don’t always get along, but we’ve always had each other’s backs. I’m not going to wear black and sit up in that church because he was some great father. We all know he wasn’t. I’m going because I love Grandma and Uncle Bird and Renee and Kimba and your messy ass. Stet was our connection, but it’s not like we haven’t spent our whole lives together, 99 percent of the time without him. We spent whole summers in this house, playing all day in that tiny-ass front yard because Grandma wouldn’t let us out the gate. Remember?”

Kimba and Tasheta nodded and started cracking up. Even Renee cracked a smile.

Kimba said, “Remember that time we came in from playing, and Uncle Bird said, ‘Gotdamn, y’all smell like a pack of billy goats!’ ”

“And Grandma hit him in the back with the rolled up newspaper for cussing in her house?” Renee said, rolling her eyes in Tasheta’s direction.

We laughed some more, then we sat there, quiet for the first time in forever, remembering. There had been good times and close times. Those summers at Grandma’s. Spending the night at each other’s houses during the school year. Swapping clothes. Trips to Disney World. Worrying over boys. Complaining about our mothers. Doing each other’s hair. Proms. Graduations. Kimba’s wedding.

And Stet had had nothing to do with any of that. Because he was a man who took without giving, he left us nothing to grieve.

Tasheta broke the silence. She stood up and made herself a plate to go. “I got work in the morning. I’m out,” she said. She grabbed her keys and purse, and hugged everyone goodbye except Renee.

At this point, you may be thinking that this situation is a hot mess, and there’s no way in the world you want to have anything to do with us. But I promise you: we are the best sisters you could ask for. Let me tell you what happened next.

The next time we were all together was for the limo ride to the funeral. Renee put all of us sisters in one limo, and Grandma, Uncle Bird, and Kimba’s husband and kids in the other.

Renee and Tasheta were still in the midst of a cold war, but at least it was cold. Tasheta showed up at Grandma’s house the morning of the funeral in a backless black dress and clear heels, but agreed to wear a blazer Renee pulled out of the trunk of her car.

The funeral was . . . a funeral. Renee, Grandma, and Uncle Bird cried. Kimba’s kids were restless; her mom tried to keep them occupied with snacks. My mother sat in the last pew; I didn’t see her, but that’s where she told me she would be. A bunch of Stet’s friends who knew nothing about him as a father stood up and talked about what a great friend he was. The choir sang two songs. The pastor spoke of my grandparents’ faithfulness as a covering on the lives of their children and their children’s children, which I suppose was the most he could say. And then he did the thing pastors always do at the funeral of someone who hadn’t darkened the church’s door in a few decades: reminded mourners of their own mortality and where they are likely to spend eternity if they don’t get right with Jesus.

Jesus and I got right at an altar call years ago, so I basically zoned out at that point. Stet and I had also made our peace a long time ago too. I stopped expecting him to be a father, and he stopped expecting me to be Renee. When the usher came to lead us out of the sanctuary when the service was over, I was beyond ready to go.

At the graveside, we sisters gathered round Grandma and Uncle Bird as the casket was lowered into the ground. After everyone dispersed to head back to the church for the repast, I stood next to the grave, alone. I wasn’t ready to be with people just yet.

But of course, Black people can never just leave you alone. A light-skinned man with jowls and graying hair walked over and stood next to me. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“I was your daddy’s friend. Chauncey?” Chauncey waited for some sign of recognition on my face. When there was none, he just kept talking, wagging his finger at me.

“You know, your daddy always talked about you. Bragged about you. Always getting straight As in school. Going off to college and whatnot. Yale!”

“That’s . . . not me. That’s my sister, Kimba. And she went to Harvard.”

“Oh, well, you know, alla y’all made him proud . . . Yessir, mmmh mmmh mmmh! Stet got some really beautiful daughters.” Chauncey rubbed my shoulder, and I shuddered at his touch. I’m sure he felt it, but he kept on rubbing. My skin went clammy beneath the fabric of my suit jacket.

“Real beautiful girls,” he said.

It took a few seconds for Chauncey’s words to register as a compliment. Then it took a few seconds more for this to register as a highly inappropriate compliment, given the circumstances and the way his hand lingered on me.

“So whatchu doin’ later on?” he asked.

I pulled away. I squinted. This couldn’t be happening. “You’ve got five seconds to get the fuck away from me,” I said, “before I start screaming for my uncle to come over here and stomp a mudhole in you. Five . . .”

Chauncey backed away.

In the limo, I was quiet. I figured everyone would just think the weight of the day was on me. But not Tasheta. I told you that girl is smart.

“NiNi, what’s the matter?”

I swallowed hard and told them what had happened.

“Oh, hell, no,” Renee said. “That motherfucker . . .” We all stared at her.

At the repast, I sat with Grandma, Uncle Bird, Kimba and her crew, and my mother. Ladies from the church brought us heaping plates of food and cups of fruit punch.

At the next table, I saw Tasheta sitting across from Chauncey, smiling and nodding. From what I could make out, he was once again talking about Stet’s beautiful daughters. Renee joined them and set a plate of food and a cup of punch in front of Chauncey. He kept on talking, and Renee and Tasheta kept on smiling and nodding.

And then Chauncey took a long drink of his fruit punch.

And screamed.

He clawed at his throat. He broke into a sweat, and his eyes filled with tears. Some of the ladies from the church rushed over to help. Renee and Tasheta floated over to our table with their plates, sat down, and kept eating.

“What happened to Chauncey?” Uncle Bird asked.

“Maybe he put a little too much hot sauce on his chicken. Or something,” Renee said. “Grandma, can I get you anything?”

“Oh, no, baby,” Grandma said. “I’m good. Just need to find out who in here pregnant. I keep having them fish dreams . . .”

It was a long day.

And this was a long letter. But we didn’t just want you to know that Stet died. We also wanted you to know us. Even Renee. She’ll come around. When Uncle Bird finally remembered your mother’s last name, she pouted a little, but she’s just as curious about you as the rest of us are.

And Kimba says that if you’re ever in Philadelphia, let her know. All of our addresses and phone numbers are below.

And Uncle Bird said to tell you that he’s got room in his heart for one more niece.

And I’ve got room in mine for one more sister.

Finally, Tasheta wants to know if you prefer brown or white liquor.

Your sister,
Nichelle

P.S. Grandma wants to know if you’re pregnant.