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. She took my hand into hers, the same hand that held the biscuit, and walked me over to the dresser that was covered in pictures. I expected her to pick one of the larger frames filled with smiling people, but she opened the top drawer, pushed aside a pile of underwear, and pulled out a picture as small as a stamp. She held it to her chest and looked down with a hunger I was familiar with. She then looked at me, her eyes softening under the deep grooves of her skin.
“You ever seen your daddy before?” she asked.
I shook my head no.
“You wanna see him?” I nodded, forcing myself not to grab the picture from her. With one hand gingerly placed on the other, she held the picture in front of me. I wanted to hold it close to my face, and stare eye to eye with my father, just as I had when I searched for him in the mirror. Instead, I held her hands in mine and looked down at the man staring back at me.
He was darker than I had imagined. His shoulders were slightly slumped and his chest looked as if it were caving in. I could see the thin outline of his arms under his green and orange striped shirt. His hairline was faint enough to be considered nonexistent. His eyes were dark like a melted Hershey bar and surrounded by a reddish tint that made him look as if sleep had eluded him for years. His nose resembled my own, starting as a narrow line between his eyes, but opening to an anchor that sat heavily in the middle of his face. His lips were smooth and one shade darker than the rest of him. They weren’t curled into a smile or turned into a frown. They were muted, a straight line that went from one side of his face to the other. I tried to read his eyes, tried to find something in them that showed they’d never held the emptiness Momma said she had seen when he’d beat her, when he used food money for beer, but there was nothing there for me.
Grandma Mary looked at me as I studied the picture. I wanted to ask if I could keep it, so I could remember him, but when I saw tears in her eyes, I knew that wasn’t the right thing to ask. Without her saying, I could tell that was the only piece of him she had left.
“Where is he?” I asked. “Don’t you know where he is?” She offered a smile and patted me on the head.
“I don’t know, baby. I haven’t seen him in a while.”
“But where was he last? Is he still in Virginia?”
A look of apprehension shot across her face.
“No, I think he’s in Maryland. Probably in Baltimore,” she said.
“Why is he there? Is he ever coming back? Does he have a phone number?” I couldn’t stop the barrage of questions.
“I don’t know, baby. Don’t you want to eat your biscuit and go and play with the other kids?” she asked, gently ushering me toward the crowd.
I did not want to play or talk with the other kids. I did not want to eat my biscuit. I wanted to know where my father was. This I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t say what I felt. By the silent sadness that turned the edges of her eyes down, I knew she had given all she could. A glimpse, a nibble of him would have to be enough.
“Go on and play, Laurie,” she said. “Your cousins are going to miss you when you’re gone.” With a slight pop on my backside, she sent me over to the other kids in the room. I placed my biscuit on the dresser and began playing as hard as I could. I screamed with all of my might when we were in hot pursuit of one another and I laughed hardest, longest, and loudest, when I had to pee in a stew pot because I was afraid of going to the outhouse. I was in constant motion because I feared quiet.
We romped around the room late into the night. Just as I began to think we’d be making a pallet on the floor, Grandma Mary came into the room. “Come on y’all. Your momma’s ready to go,” she sang. We replied with groans and protests, but I feared going more than anyone could understand. We gathered in the living room and said our goodbyes. Tiffany and I hugged, promising we’d play together again. Bay-Bay, Ronnie, and my brothers finished the handshake they’d started earlier in the night. I hugged Granddaddy Frank and thanked him for having us. Grandma Mary emerged from the back room with my biscuit in hand.
“Laurie, you forgot your biscuit. You should take it with you. You might get hungry on the ride home,” she said as she wrapped it in a paper bag.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said as I moved toward her. She still smelled like biscuits, but that warmth I inhaled earlier had become cool between us. We were suffering the same pain, mourning the same absence, so I hugged her anyway.
“Bye, Grandma Mary and Granddaddy Frank. I can’t wait to see y’all again,” I said.
“Oh, we’ll see each other soon,” she said. “I’m going to make sure of it.”
I did not see her again until I was thirty years old. Even then we wore the same pain despite the living that hung between those years.
On the ride home, all of the other kids immediately fell asleep. As Momma drove the hour-long ride, I’m certain she thought I was asleep too. But, I was awake and my mind was going places it had never been before. The biscuit wedged in between my leg and the door remained warm, Grandma Mary’s heat radiating from it. Eating it now wasn’t an option. As long as I had it, I had proof I had a grandma and a granddaddy who loved me. If I had them, then I also had a daddy.
But now, I had a face, one that didn’t fit into the dream world where my daddy had recently lived. The man in that picture, he was not there, nor was he anywhere. Probably Baltimore. Probably not. For all those nights I’d hung on the phone waiting for the ringing to stop or for the busy signal to cease its incessant beep, they knew as much as I knew. Or did they know more? I couldn’t be certain.
I couldn’t trust anyone anymore, but what I could trust were my dreams, the realities born, raised, and matured in my mind, so I made a decision. My daddy would remain there, where he was safe, where I had control. And this other man, this missing ingredient, he would remain nowhere.
UNNECESSARY ADDITIVES UNNECESSARY ADDITIVES