By the time we were back to the house, Leesa was off the hook and I had purchased several pounds of fish from the fish market.
Amos met us coming out of the car.
“Well, how did things go?”
I handed him a brown bag. “I think we are good. Still no idea about who killed Mary though. Do you mind helping me carry these into the house?”
“Sure.” He peeked into the bag. “You got a lot of fish here, planning to have a fish fry.”
“My son is coming and he has his mouth is ready for some good eating. Why don’t you come join us, that is if you don’t have nothing better to do? I could use some help.”
I tell you I had to be losing my mind or just that audacious to invite a man over to my house. Ralph used to be the one to clean fish, so I was hoping Amos wouldn’t mind helping. Quite frankly, I preferred not to touch them if I could get someone else to do so.
Amos grinned. “You got yourself a deal.”
So, about forty minutes later, we’re in the kitchen, me getting the cornmeal mix ready and Amos hanging out over my kitchen sink scraping scales from the fish.
I looked out the window and watched Kisha and Porgy running around. I was pleased to see Leesa holding Tyric.
The doorbell rang. Junior and his family were not due for another hour. I opened the door to find a neighbor.
I put on my best smile. “Carmen, how are you? Come on in.”
The woman looked at me with concern. “How are you? Is everything okay?”
“Girl, it’s a long story, but my daughter is back.”
“She is?”
I had a thought as I examined Carmen’s incredulous expression. “Why don’t you come back in the kitchen? I will introduce you two.”
I cleared my throat when I returned to the kitchen. Amos turned from the sink. He eyed me and then nodded at Carmen.
I opened the door and called out to Leesa.
“Yeah Mama, what is it?”
Carmen stared at Leesa, almost in awe. “Wow, you really are back?”
Leesa frowned, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
Okay, this was what I was looking for. I glanced over at Amos and noticed he stopped scraping fish scales long enough to watch the interaction. I had a feeling we were thinking the same thing. Although for the life of me, I didn’t see any motive that would lead to Carmen killing one neighbor and almost killing another.
“Yeah, I remember now.” Leesa shook her head. “I saw you out with Cedric. Y’all still dating?”
“Dating?” Carmen and I squawked.
As Carmen and I stared at each other, a voice hollered into the kitchen. “Hey, what’s going on back in there?”
Speaking of the devil, Cedric strolled in. All of us seemed frozen. Except for Kisha. She ran into her favorite uncle’s arms.
Cedric lifted his niece up. “Hey boo! What’s happening?”
Kisha giggled, “Uncle Ceddy, look Mama is here.”
Cedric looked at Leesa, then turned and did a double take at Carmen. For a moment his eyes stopped on Amos who had promptly turned back around to the fish. Cedric’s eyes stopped on me, and then he asked, “You got a party or something going on in here? I guess for the prodigal daughter.”
Leesa threw her hands in the air and huffed. “What? I took a break okay. I did not ask all y’all to lose your minds.”
Cedric placed Kisha on the floor and argued back with his sister. “You should have told Mama where you were going.”
I held my hand to my head. “That’s enough you two? You are adults!”
“Maybe I should be going?” Carmen made a move to leave the kitchen, but was blocked by a larger figure.
Despite his huge girth, my eldest child had quietly arrived and stood in the doorway observing all of us. Junior’s voice boomed, “What’s going on in here, folks?”
Behind my son, I saw my daughter-in-law peeking around Junior’s shoulder. The twins squeezed into the kitchen, one on each side of their father. They headed straight to me.
“Grandma, grandma.”
“Hey babies.” I loved these boys, but even as I hugged them, my energy was zapped. They wiggled and giggled, ready to get into something.
“Who’s that?”
I looked over at Junior, who frowned and stared in the direction of my kitchen sink. There Amos continued to stand, cleaning fish in the midst of the chaos my family had slung into my house.
In less than twelve hours my children and their children, some with questionable love interests had all assembled in my kitchen.
It was almost perfect.
Almost.