Laurie Jean Cannady

Crave


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to dial those ten numbers.

      That first day, after the first dialing, that number was a dead end. The phone hiccupped a busy signal from the time I put my quarter into the phone booth to late at night, when Momma said it wasn’t safe for me to go outside anymore.

      I visited Uncle Benny several times after that. Each visit he stood guard over his foyer until he’d written ten new numbers. Each time, I either got a lady on the other end, singing, “This number has been disconnected,” or her twin chiming, “This number is not in service.”

      One day Uncle Benny’s ten numbers silenced the incessant ringing in my mind. The voice of a girl, nasal, twisted in a southern drawl, breathed, “Hello.” I almost dropped the phone, almost ran from the booth when the ringing was replaced by a live person on the other end. I met my cousin, Tiffany, daughter of my uncle, Frank, Jr., who introduced me to my grandfather, Frank, Sr., whose laugh reached through the phone and poked a dimple into my cheek. He introduced me to my grandma, Ms. Mary, and she whispered, “Laurie? Carl’s girl?” so quietly I thought she didn’t mean for me to hear.

      We became a family, in the span of minutes, me on one side of the phone, them on the other. I didn’t even ask where Carl was. If I got where they were, I was sure I’d find him.

      They lived in Ivor, right outside of Suffolk, the same house my daddy was born in. Momma had been there many times, but she had never taken me there. I’d never thought to ask where my daddy had lived when she met him. The obvious can easily be overlooked when one’s search becomes blinding.

      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 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.

      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