my daddy. That summer morning, Momma loaded all five of us into Uncle Bruce’s car. It didn’t matter that I and my middle brother, Dathan, were my father’s only biological children. We all wore his last name, so by law and according to Momma, he was everybody’s daddy. We all sat in the back seat, amidst fidgeting and chattering about all of the fun we’d have in Suffolk with the other half of our family. Dathan wondered about cousins we’d never met and Mary asked if we’d see goats or pigs since we were going to the country. I prayed quietly my father would be there. I wanted to look into the eyes of the man I had imagined for so long.
On the hour ride to Suffolk, I rewound mini-soap operas I had orchestrated around my father’s existence. Would he, as I’d often imagined, be a drug dealer with lots of money, houses, and cars, and I’d have to arrest him, and turn him from a life of crime once I became an undercover detective? Would he be on his deathbed, drenched in sweat, begging for medicine, and I would walk in, wearing doctor’s scrubs, with a serum I manufactured myself just to save his life? Or, would I meet him through the love of my life, after I learned my new beau’s stepfather was actually my real father, and then we would all live happily ever after? I was anxious to learn which scenario fit. Wedged in between Mary and the door, I peered out of the window, watching as road, trees, and miles blurred by. Every so often, Momma slowed and I caught a glimpse of a tree limb, shrouded in leaves, still amidst the wind. I wished life could be lived in snapshots. If that were so, there wouldn’t have been ten years between the last time I’d seen my father and that day.
I just knew my father would be waiting for me once we arrived. I just knew they’d called him after our phone call, and he’d left wherever he was so he could meet me. I wouldn’t even let myself think he wouldn’t be there. In my mind, in that snapshot, we were going to be together.
When we pulled up to the house in Ivor, all of my allusions about my father being rich were slashed. No man who had money would allow his parents to live in the home Grandma Mary and Granddaddy Frank lived in. The house looked like a drunken old man, hands resting on a cane, teetering over. The porch, built of wooden planks, inclined from the dirt ground up to the front door. Even the door leaned, like a broken nose, crooked. The steps were wooden slabs. They too were uneven, stacked on top of each other, leading into a dark hole of a room.
Granddaddy Frank and Grandma Mary exited the door as Momma parked. I beamed as they opened the car door, as their outstretched hands welcomed us. Grandma Mary was a small woman, with skin as rich as coffee. She wore curls that hugged her head tightly and thin-rimmed glasses that sat snuggly on the balls of her cheeks. I stood eye to eye with her as she embraced me. Her tears ran down my cheeks. She wore a dress that hugged her waist and swung side to side as she walked. The smell of biscuits wafted through the open door of the house. I wrapped my arms around her, pressed my cheek against her face, and inhaled her aroma and warmth.
Granddaddy Frank was a tall man, with eyes the color of water over moss. His hair was a red clay hue. It looked as if it would run down his cheek with each drip of sweat. He had a smile that stretched across his mouth. I strained my neck to look up at him. With one fell swoop, he lifted me over his head, looked right into my eyes and said, “That’s Carl’s girl, all right.” In that moment, I felt as full as if I had bitten into the best part of me and found it to be as juicy as a navel orange.
Once we entered the house, I scanned the living room, searching for Carl. No face resembled the father I had constructed in my mind. A small commotion was brewing in the living room where my new cousins and uncle sat. They all wore the same smiles as Granddaddy Frank, large and long across the face. There was Uncle Frank’s daughter, Tiffany. She was about two years younger than me. She didn’t wear the same hunger I wore, sitting under her daddy’s arm. Then there was Bay-Bay, a tall boy of thirteen and Ronnie, the oldest of Uncle Frank’s children. He and my brothers immediately became engrossed in a handshake that sent them laughing to the floor.
Uncle Frank loudly greeted us. He offered each of us a hand and got up to hug Momma tightly. I loved his laugh, which sounded to me like a daddy’s laugh, one that started at the toes and burned in the belly. Grandma Mary and Granddaddy Frank began pulling small wooden chairs that looked as if they’d been cut from the wood of trees in their backyard. As Momma took a seat, Bay-Bay and Tiffany called me, Champ, Dathan, Mary, and Tom-Tom to the back room. The back room was the only other room in the house, and there were no light fixtures on the ceilings in either. Both rooms were lit by a small lamp Bay-Bay carried from the front of the house to the back. Once we settled into the room, Bay-Bay lit a candle and our shadows bounced off of the walls. In one corner, a small bed sat with a quilt sprawled across it. Next to the door was a vanity that held Grandma Mary’s toiletries.
Against the wall sat a chest of drawers covered in black and white pictures. I wanted to go through them and find the father that had only existed in my dreams, but I feared that would be too much, too fast. Bay-Bay and Ronnie decided we should play Duck-Duck-Goose, so I sat next to my new cousin and waited for the other one to tap me or one of my siblings on the head. We pursued each other mercilessly, sometimes not even waiting to be tapped before we shot from our seats and began chasing. In less than an hour, we’d tired ourselves and sprawled our bodies across the floor, touching heads, our feet facing the walls, making our own Carter star. It felt so right there, amongst family members that looked like the other half of me. I now knew where my light eyes came from and that my skin was redder than my siblings, not because I was the milkman’s baby as Champ had often claimed, but because I was Carl’s baby and I had proof in my cousins’ faces.
It wasn’t lost on me that I was in the same dimly lit room where my father had slept. I may have even been in the exact spot where he had lain when he was twelve years old. I wanted to pull Grandma Mary to the side and ask where my daddy was. I wanted the answers that my dreams could never offer, but I was afraid she’d order me away because I was prying, afraid she would see through my ruse and realize I was on a mission to place my real father in my reality. As hopeful as I was about my happy ending, I had a feeling they were protecting him from something. I just couldn’t bring myself to believe that something was me.
I watched and I waited until I had the perfect opportunity to pounce. We’d just finished a round of penny pitching when Grandma Mary walked in the room with an apron filled with biscuits. She held them close to her stomach, the warmth of her tucked in each mound. The biscuits were smaller than Momma’s and varied in shape, but there was no mistaking the soft aroma that tickled my nose. She went to each child in the room and waited while he or she picked the perfect biscuit for him or her. Then, she came to me. Maybe I was drunk from the smell of biscuits, or the heat radiating from the small balls had given me a sense of security I hadn’t felt before. I didn’t know how or why, but I knew it was time to ask for what was rightfully mine.
“Grandma Mary, can I call you that?” I asked even though I’d always called her that in my mind.
“You can call me that or just Grandma, baby.”
“I like that, Grandma,” I said, quickly trying out the word in my mouth. I then picked the smallest biscuit left in her apron, hoping she’d notice I wasn’t greedy, that I only wanted a little bit. Then I asked, quickly before my mind altered my words, “Where is my father?”
Her lips tightened. She blinked, a long blink, not long enough to be considered a roll, but longer than any blink should ever be. Whatever courage I’d had disappeared. While the others positioned themselves for the next game, I stood in front of her, waiting for her smile to curl into a frown. But, that moment did not come. She just looked into my eyes as I held, tightly, the biscuit I had chosen. I felt the heat moving from inside of the bread into my palms. I dared not bite into the dough. She hadn’t given permission.
Grandma Mary stared at me through melancholy eyes. She patted my shoulder, shook her head from side to side and punctuated each pat with an “Um, um, um.” I could tell she felt for me, felt my longing for my father, but I also felt a wall immediately erected, which guarded her from my needing.
