Chapter 94

While Harlan had been in prison, Gomez developed a cough that turned out to be lung cancer. A week after he was diagnosed, he died at home in Harlem, leaving his wife grief-stricken and alone. Lucille was still battling despair when Emma, her oldest and dearest friend in the whole wide world, passed away.

Lucille wasn’t in the best of health, but nothing could keep her from saying a final goodbye to the woman who had been more like a sister to her than her own kin. And besides, Harlan was the son she’d never had.

When Lucille stepped off that Greyhound bus and saw Harlan standing there, looking the epitome of the motherless child he now truly was, her heart broke into pieces. He stared out at her from eyes so dark and recessed, they seemed like black holes. And he was thin, nearly as thin as he’d been when he first came home from Germany.

To be fair, Lucille didn’t look much better. Her old eyes were red and puffy, her knees were swollen to the size of cantaloupes, and the wig she wore was dusty and ill-fitting.

They greeted each other with forced smiles and firm hugs.

Harlan reached for the blue cosmetics case Lucille carried. “Is this all you have?”

“No. The suitcase is under the bus.”

Sure he could manage the army-green Samsonite with his one good hand, Harlan pulled on the case’s handle, but the weight of it nearly dislocated his arm. “What you got in here, Lucille?”

He had to ask a stranger to place it in the trunk of the borrowed Cadillac.

In the car, a litany of sad songs that neither of them wanted to hear streamed from the radio. Harlan lowered the volume. They had ridden in silence for a few miles before Lucille raised a question.

“You get in touch with your people down in Macon?”

Uncle John had died in ’49. As for his uncle James, he’d married, moved to Texas, and that was the last anyone knew. Seth was dead as well, and Emma hadn’t kept in touch with his widow or their children, so who knew if they were still in Macon or had moved on to some other city or state. Harlan hadn’t bothered to investigate because he didn’t know them very well to begin with. As far as he was concerned, the only family he had now was Lucille.

He chewed a sliver of skin from his bottom lip and spat it into the air. “Nah, I didn’t.”

“Hmmm,” Lucille sounded. “Well, I hope you don’t mind, but I went ahead and placed an obituary in the Macon Telegraph. I think there might be some people left there who still remember your parents.”

* * *

Once at the house, Harlan called on a neighbor to haul Lucille’s suitcase into the living room. Not having received an answer to his first inquiry, Harlan asked again: “What’s in this suitcase?”

Lucille sighed, unlatched the case, and flipped it open. Harlan cast a puzzled look over the contents—a jumble of clothes, loaves of bread, cans of beans, tuna fish, and Spam.

Lucille blushed like a caught child. “I don’t know what happened. I put my clothes in, but it looked so empty, it didn’t feel right. It just wasn’t full enough. I know that sounds stupid. I just started throwing things in. Suitcases should always be full . . .” She let her words trail off, embarrassed.

After a long moment Harlan said, “Well, that’s okay.” He knew he was supposed to comfort her, but he didn’t have it in him.

Eyes glistening, Lucille stood waiting for a hug that never came.

Harlan cleared his throat, crouched over the suitcase, and scooped up three loaves of bread. “I’ll put these in the kitchen.”

* * *

The funeral service was held at the Union Baptist Church on Pennington Avenue, where Sam and Emma had been members.

Although Harlan had never attended the church, or even stepped foot in the building, he had become acquainted with a few of the congregants—people Sam and Emma had had over to the house for dinner or a game of spades.

That day, the pews were filled with men in dark suits and women wearing big black hats touching handkerchiefs to the corners of their eyes.

When Harlan arrived, the familiars swooped in, hugging him, cupping his face in their hands, kissing his wet cheeks.

“They were real good people. Real good.”

“Your mama sure did love you.”

“If you need anything, anything at all, you just call me.”

“Tragic, tragic!”

Harlan must have said thank you a thousand times that day.

With Lucille, John, and Mayemma at his side, he swayed before the matching pearl-colored caskets. He didn’t think he had any tears left, but when he looked down into his parents’ still and silent faces—sadness flooded his chest and he began to weep.