NOW THIS BASKET THAT ELIZA WEAVED, it’s better than any I ever done in my whole life. She’s a natural if I ever seen one. It’s almost big as her, sweet thing, and it has real dainty stripes of bulrush going all the way up and French buttons too. There’s two real nice handles on the side for carrying and a great big, flat, and steady base where she put them two threads I give her.
“It’s done, Grandmama! It’s done. I did it!”
“Whooee! Eliza? That is the prettiest basket I ever did see. Ain’t no doubt, your love basket’s gonna work. Yes it is.”
“What we do with it now?”
“Well now, we got to sit and wait a while. I ain’t rightly sure what to do next, but I’m prayin’ I’ll know soon enough.”
Well, don’t you know? Soon enough comes right soon.
I decide to make a visit with EJ. He don’t know I’m coming, but he’s easy enough to find—out back behind the house on Rifle Range Road. He’s cleaning up the yard and filling up a bag full o’ cut grass.
“EJ, baby?”
He wheels around and looks for me, dropping his rake.
“Grandmama? You there?”
“I’m here, baby, right by the big oak.” He looks over and sees me, and a smile spreads ’cross his lips what could melt the North Pole, I reckon.
“Glad you finally decided to talk to me,” he says, a little snooty.
“Well, I didn’t want to, but I figured I weren’t actin’ no better than you are. You talked to your mama yet?”
“No. I’m not planning on it either.”
I want to fuss at him so hard right now, but I bite my lip and try to take a deep breath instead. “You know there’s nothin’ more important than family, EJ? Not one thing in this whole world.”
“I understand that more than you know. That’s why I’m protecting my family from her. Is that all you came to talk about?”
I hold my words while little Cassie comes wandering ’round back. She’s just a little bitty thing, wearing a green T-shirt what says Grass Roots Society on it. She’s carrying a tiny doll in one hand and waddles over to her daddy and then falls in the grass, rolling around laughing. Lord, I’ve missed that child! EJ looks at me sad-like and then lifts her off the ground. He holds her tight and smells her hair. I swanny, she looks a lot like Miss Eliza.
“I need to speak to your mama,” I tell him, breaking my silence. He sits Cassie down, and she scoots on off toward Felicia who’s pruning shrubs across the yard.
“You’ll have to go talk to her then,” he says, picking up his rake and shuffling some acorns around.
“I can’t. She hasn’t asked to talk to me.”
“Well then, I suppose you’ll have to wait until that happens.”
“Now listen hear, child. Don’t you mouth off to me. I am still your grandmama, and you ain’t being nothin’ but a dad-gum fool right now.”
He looks at me, scared to death.
“You heard me. I’m ashamed of how you’re actin’.”
“But what about her? What about what she said? What she thinks? For all I know, she thinks my daughter is too white, for Christ’s sake!”
I want to tell him, Don’t you dare take the Lord’s name in vain, but I let it go for now.
“Baby, you don’t know why she do what she do and thinks what she thinks. I ain’t ’xactly sure neither. That’s why I got to talk to her.” He looks at me like he’s ’bout to give in, then his face hardens and he goes to raking faster. I can almost see steam coming from his ears.
“There’s someone your mama needs to meet,” I tell him, and he stops. He stares at the rake. “She’s someone you need to meet too.”
“Who is it?”
“You find out soon enough when you meet her,” I say, hoping he won’t call my bluff. EJ looks at me like the little boy I always knew and loved, and his nose twitches. Then he leans down on that rake handle and cries.
“There, there, baby,” I tell him. “Everythin’s gonna be all right. You’ll see. The mountains in heaven and Earth might move from here to there, but mark my words, this family’s gonna be just fine.” I hope so anyway. I’m already older than I was when I died, and I just don’t think me or Jim can stand no more aging.
EJ rubs his nose on the back of his sleeve, and I can see a mountain done moved off his shoulders, sure ’nough. I see my chance there, so I take it.
“So you’ll ask your mama to speak with me? Will you do that, baby?”
After a minute or so, EJ answers real quiet. “Yeah. I’ll do it.”
When he says those words, I’m pretty sure I hear angels singing. And when I go on back up to heaven, sure ’nough, there they are, serenading Jim in his rocking chair. He’s covered in a throw, rocking up a storm, and got the biggest ol’ smile on his face I think I ever seen.