The room gets really quiet,
so I try not to even breathe,
afraid they’ll hear me
outside the door.
I love him, Aunt Bee says.
I have for a very long time.
She looks from one to the other,
Gran and then Granddad
and then back to Gran.
I can’t put my life on hold
any longer so you can be
all right with my choice.
She lets the sentence trail off,
and no one talks for
a long time.
Finally, Granddad says,
I should never have forbidden it,
and even from here, I can see
the way his eyes turn to glass.
Aunt Bee takes his hand.
Just because of your ex-husband.
Just because of a child.
Just because of his skin color.
He shakes his head. It didn’t mean . . .
His voice breaks, and then
everyone is crying loud,
great, heaving sobs
so I have to turn away
or I might, too.
I guess they’ve all been holding
heavy things inside for too long.
I should have let you raise your son,
Granddad says. His voice cracks
all around the words. I should have
told him who you were instead of
lying to him his whole life.
My face starts to feel warm.
I can’t really say why. I just
have this feeling I know who
they’re talking about.
You were better parents to John Paul
than I could have been, Aunt Bee says.
I was too young to be a mother. It took me
too long to find my feet after his daddy left.
You did my son a favor
taking him like you did.
What kind of life would
I have given him?
I don’t hear anything else after that,
on account of the whole world
humming loud like my daddy
used to do when he didn’t want
to hear what Mama had to say,
when she would turn away with
anger squeezing all the
muscles around her mouth.
John Paul was
my daddy’s name.
John Paul wasn’t
Aunt Bee’s brother.
John Paul was
Aunt Bee’s son.
I hear it in the buzzing that closes up
my ears and shakes into my throat.
I feel it in the freezing fingers
that grip my chest and
my arms and my legs.
I see it in the floor reaching up
to meet my cheek.
And then all the
world’s colors
turn black.