Evagreen sat on her porch in the weak winter sun, smoking a Salem. They were burying Rod; she hadn’t gone. She couldn’t, although L. Q. and Ken had. She’d used the excuse that somebody had to stay back with Desia. Desia, Angie’s girl, sat on a blanket on the walk playing, having given up trying to ride the plastic Big Wheel Ken had brought her. L. Q. and Ken had cleared most of the fallen branches, but the trees dripped a little from melting ice.
Evagreen had plaited Desia’s soft hair with pink beads and a few yellow jessamine blossoms that, being so close to the house, had survived the storm. The tiny girl looked so much like her father, something that Evagreen knew would haunt them all forever. Girls look like they daddies, she’d heard somewhere, so their daddies don’t turn on them. Eliza Thornton look just like her daddy, too, thought Evagreen, so maybe that true. Maybe so.
Desia was trying to arrange some sticks, oak leaves, and an empty Salem pack to make a little house, managing a sort of hut. From a pile of old chinaberries that had blown down during the storm, she took three. “This the mama and the daddy,” she said. “My mama and daddy gone love to see this, Granmama.” She looked up at Evagreen and grinned.
Evagreen smiled back. They hadn’t told Desia yet. What you gone tell a four-year-old? she’d said to L. Q. and Ken. She just like me. All she want in this life is a nice home, a family that act right, be good to one another. They had let it drop for the time being. Evagreen hoped Desia hadn’t seen much of the ugliness between her parents. Whatever happened with Angie, she and L. Q. and Rod’s folks were going to make a happy home for Desia right here.
Ken and L. Q. had taken Evagreen to see Angie in Memphis. All Angie could do was cry, cry, cry. Evagreen hadn’t even been able to hold her; had to stay across the table in the visiting room. And she’d had to be strong; she’d told herself; wouldn’t help nobody, all of us be crying. L. Q. had prayed, and Ken had promised he would work things out the best he could. They could count on that, he’d said. The guards had led Angie away, and all she had been able to say was, “I’m sorry, Mama.” That moment, taking her good baby girl away, had hurt Evagreen more than anything. She thought it might have hurt less if Angie had died. “Hope and strength what I’m lookin’ for,” she said out loud. “That, and some a that mercy they always be talking ’bout.”
Desia looked up at her solemnly, and with a big breath, like she was blowing out candles on a birthday cake, blew at her stick-and-leaf house. “I huffed and I puffed and I blowed our house down!” she said. The sticks fell apart and the three chinaberries rolled away in different directions.