Inside New Mt. Zion church, in front of the pulpit, lay the body of a man I’d never known nor seen a day in my life. I stood alongside my mawmaw in the stalled viewing procession. She craned her neck to peer over the crowd and muttered an obscenity under her breath at the wailing woman in front of the casket. To her, funerals were a sacred and routine practice almost as much as the church service that followed the day after.
I’d heard her enter my room the previous night. She loudly riffled through my closet to retrieve clothing that met her conservative approval and laid the garments out across the foot of my bed for me to wear in the morning, something she often did nights before church or a funeral. A black chiffon knee-length dress waited for me on the unmade side of the bed, meaning they’d probably pulled the plug on an old classmate, distant cousin, or anyone within three or so degrees of connection.
I examined the funeral program’s white-marbled cover. I made a mental note to tuck it back into my purse when I finished. My mawmaw would likely ask me for mine to give away or keep for herself once she lost hers to add to her growing collection.
A Celebration of life.
J. Guillroy.
I didn’t know any Guillroys, at least not that I could remember.
The procession grew longer as we moved closer to the lacquered mahogany casket. As we approached the viewing area, I crossed my arms under my bosom and curiously peered down at the foreign corpse beneath me that lay in the mahogany casket’s white crepe lining. Not old, barely 40, according to the program tucked into my purse. His cheeks missed the evident fullness of a living body but had the familiar slight hollowness of the deceased. Neatly groomed facial hair covered the bottom half of his face, with a thin mustache running over the top of his lip.
Full brows. Dark skin. Long nose. A person unknown but with a face I’d seen. Hm.
My mawmaw ushered me away from the casket to make way for another wailing woman who managed to subdue her wailing until she caught a glimpse of the embalmed body. Her strong hand grasped mine as she led us through the crowded church. Usually, whenever we went to “just the viewing,” she’d stop and run her mouth for another forty-five minutes or so, but today was different. As we weaved around the mourners, sets of eyes focused on me. To avert the procession line, we made our way down one of the red pews. My eyes met with the wailing woman, her glassy red eyes following me as we approached our exit from the viewing area. Hm.
In the car, I anticipated our usual post-funeral or viewing debrief but instead was met with silence that was only filled with the loud roar of the car AC turned to the maximum level.
“I wonder who did the body,” I spoke aloud, taking her usual line. Mawmaw sucked on a peppermint, loudly clacking it against her porcelain teeth.
“Sullivan & Landry,” she replied. “You got a program, right?” I knew that’d perk her up.
“Yeah, it’s in my pocketbook. You can check,” I said without taking my eyes off the road lined with houses and tall lush cane rows.
“Good. Stop at Bobby’s, I need to pick up some salt meat for tonight.” I obliged her command and turned off into the lot of the small grocery store.
As I pushed the buggy aimlessly through the tight aisles, my mind wandered back to the red-eyed, wailing woman who’d stared me down as we left the church sanctuary. She had a feature in the program’s family collage. She, too, had full brows, dark skin, and a long nose. She didn’t look old in the face yet, so she was likely his younger sister or something. No telling.
Peering down the aisle, I noticed my mawmaw had struck up a conversation with Patrice Haley, who had with her son I’d seldomly watched for pocket change while in high school when he was a toddler. The conversation ended with laughter from both parties upon departure, and my mawmaw hastily made her way back to the cart, her lips curled over her teeth as if she were hiding a grin.
“What is it?” I whispered, mindful of the fact they were only on the next aisle.
“I swear that boy looks nothing and more nothing like her or his daddy as he grows. You know he’s supposed to be for Ronny Williams, the one with the car lot in the back of town.”
That could be true. They did favor in looks. Especially with Ronny’s other son, Danny. Same nose and eyes as far as I could tell. My mawmaw adjusted her pocketbook on her shoulder and moved me aside for control of the basket.
“Patrice should be ashamed,” she muttered, “having that baby born in sin, for what?”
As I waited in the checkout line, a knot grew in my stomach. I’d no doubt have to use it as soon as we got home. The knot only grew in size and weight as I drove back to my Mawmaw’s home I, and my Ma shared with her. I ran into the house to sit on the toilet, which thankfully brought some awaited relief.
—
After washing my hands, I followed my reflection in the soap-stained mirror. Full brows. Dark skin. Long nose. Hm.
“Ma, do we know some Guillroy’s?” She lifted the wicker basket off her hip and gathered the stiff towels on the drying rack.
“Went to school with some. Why?” she asked without looking up.
“One of them passed.” I reached into my pocketbook that sat on the toilet seat and handed her the booklet. Her eyes widened as she flipped through the pages. She nearly dropped the basket, making her way out of the bathroom. I guess she knew him well.
I followed the sound of frustrated, pleading, and hardened voices in the back of the house to find my mother standing snotty-nosed and teary-eyed in my Mawmaw’s bathroom.
“Go ahead, tell her who that is,” the older and taller woman directed, clearly unfazed by her daughter’s emotions before her. My mother dipped her head, covering her eyes with her palms shamefully as she sobbed.
My mawmaw sucked her teeth.
“What are you crying for now? You weren’t crying when you laid down with his ass.”
I rushed to my mother’s side, wrapping my arms around her tightly, only for her to desperately take my hands into hers and press them against the side of my face as she stared back at me with her tear-streaked face.
“Baby, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “It’s not fair. I don’t know why she-“ She turned to her mother, who stood defiantly at the room’s threshold.
“She needed to know. It was about time.”
My mother turned to her in a fit of tears and yelled something unintelligible to me as their screams at one another unified into one mess of an argument that I had no wish to witness. I slipped out of the house amongst the chaos that took place in the living room, making my way down the dimly lit hall with haste. I grabbed my pocketbook and the keys to a vehicle with an uncomfortable churning in my stomach as I abandoned the active disorder behind me. I needed my own answers—no—confirmation.
—
As I drove, the discomfort in my stomach grew into a painfully heavy lead knot that became heavier with each unsettled breath I took. While nearing the bridge that crossed over to Highway 308, a familiar white Chevy truck with a dented side body was haphazardly parked near the ditch in the front yard of the hair lady’s bricked house; I’d been there enough times for appointments to know that car did not belong.
Soon, I passed the white plantation house that signified my right turn was nearing. Once parked in front of the tan trailer’s lot, I hastily made my way up the concrete steps to the small but newly covered wooden porch. Ever since my daddy finally moved in, his woman lived like a queen. I struck the screen door with my palm impatiently and waited nervously for an answer. A few seconds passed, and the familiar brisk sliding of house shoes on the linoleum appeared. The door swung open, revealing a woman younger than my mother still in house clothes and a head scarf despite a mostly made face with dark drawn-on brows that contrasted against her russet skin. Her baby sat on her hip, peering curiously at me.
Regina, my father’s woman, looked me over. Her face read more surprised than bothered by my early visit.
“Is my daddy home?”
“No.”
“Is he at work?” She exhaled a plume of smoke.
“No,” she coughed. I knew he wasn’t. He was on the turnaround for work, so he was off, and I’d seen his white truck parked out front of the cake lady’s on my way here. I didn’t have it in me to tell her. Her eyes fell over me once again.
“What's wrong with you?”
“What you mean? I just came from a funeral.”
“Oh, who died?”
“Some lady son from the back of town, John.”
“Yeah, yeah, I heard. You went? Who did the body?”
“Sullivan & Landry,” I shifted uneasily on the small porch. “I don’t know, just…I got a question, and I need you to give the truth.”
Her eyes narrowed at my request. “Alright, what is it?”
I dug into my purse and, retrieved the program from the morning’s service, and handed it to her.
“Do I look like him? Yes or no.” She held up the funeral program to her face, then peered over the white booklet at me. A dark, drawn-on brow raised.
“Yeah, yeah, y'all favor.”
Well, shit.
“Mainly the eyes, brows, and nose; you have his nose.”
I pressed my lips together. In any other world, confirmation from her about anything would be considered a rat-ass lie, according to my ma or mawmaw. But I believed her.
Regina exhaled a plume of smoke and looked down at the babbling baby on her chest.
“You know I'm supposed to be for the fish man’s brother.”
I scrunched my nose, “Hank Melancon?”
“No, his daddy, old Hank, they called him Peety.”
I hugged the porch pillar, “Well, are you?”
She shrugged, “Probably. No telling. He’s dead anyways.”
I’d known of a Mr. Peety. A stout, loud, russet man from down the road. I’d overheard my grandmother on the phone telling somebody he died during grinding season at the refinery some years back. Fell right into the machine.
“You ever met him?”
“No. They say he was an old broad, always in women’s business. Just messy and nasty. Wouldn’t have liked him no ways.”
“Did he know about you?”
Regina sucked her teeth, “Yeah, and he never paid for nothing, so it don’t matter.”
I snickered, looking down at the now worn funeral program, and folded it back into my pocketbook. The usual silence settled between us as our amusement died down. Even her baby had settled against her chest, quietly teething with a tiny fat fist in her mouth. Wide brown eyes stared curiously back at me.
What would my father be to her, and would he always be it? And would her mother be as truthful to her as she was with me? My finger stroked the soft, light copper skin of her little arm. Whatever she didn’t know, I’d tell her, even though our half relation really was nothing at all. The stomach lead returned, sinking me back into the plastic white chair as my eyes began to burn. I turned my head to the fresh-cut grass and Spanish moss.
“I was born in sin,” I sighed shakily under my breath.
“Everyone is,” she said while shifting the teething baby over on my lap. I pressed a kiss against her tiny, fat fist that struck me haphazardly against the cheek, causing her to giggle. The sound of an approaching engine interrupted our little momentary bliss. Regina watched as the white Chevy truck pulled into her yard. She pressed her cigarette into the ashtray between us with a sigh, then averted her attention back to us.
“Don’t mean nothing for you. Just means your momma got her lick back and has proof of it.”
