my legs open, but my mother idolized this old man and so did everybody else I knew. I never even had a ghost of a chance.
“Brother Boatwright is more of a daddy to you than your own daddy was,” my mother insisted whenever I complained about Mr. Boatwright whupping me. “Forget about Frank. You ain’t never goin’ to see him again nohow.”
No matter how hard my mother and Mr. Boatwright tried to make me forget my own daddy, I couldn’t. My life was like a jigsaw puzzle that I had been trying to put together for years. The only piece still missing was Daddy.
As much as I had wanted to see my father again, I suddenly found myself wishing I could be anywhere but back in Miami. I decided to put that and Mr. Boatwright and his threats out of my mind and focus on the real reason I had made the trip to Florida: to straighten out my tortured life.
There were just the three of us at the dinner table, but Lillimae had prepared enough food to feed twice as many people. As appealing as everything on the table looked and smelled, I couldn’t eat. My stomach was in knots and my head was spinning and had been from the moment I got out of the cab that had brought me from the airport.
If Daddy and Lillimae were as uncomfortable as I was, they didn’t show it. They inadvertently entertained me by loudly gobbling up mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and greens like they had not eaten in days. A platter of grilled catfish, the flat, black eyes still intact, stared at me. Daddy and Lillimae stared at me, too, as if it were my responsibility to keep a conversation going. I did the best I could. I regaled them with details of my plane ride, the delay I encountered when I went to retrieve my luggage, and the cab ride from the airport. These mundane things didn’t even interest me, but Daddy and Lillimae hung on to my words as if listening to me deliver their favorite psalm. When their eyes were not on me, I peered into a bowl next to the catfish that contained lumps of mysterious, root-like items in thick, brown gravy. Whatever it was, it must have been good, because Lillimae and Daddy dipped into that bowl with a vengeance.
It was hard to keep my eyes off Daddy’s face. However, between him and Lillimae, his face was the easier one to tolerate. Seeing a white version of myself was a shock to my system. Lillimae’s existence was a profound reminder of Daddy’s betrayal. But I knew I had to work around that if I wanted to keep Daddy in my life this time. No matter how much it hurt.
“Sister-girl, you ain’t barely ate a bite. Now, them greens is screamin’ too loud for you not to eat ’em. But don’t worry about them smashed potatoes. They are sure enough lumpy. I can feed what we don’t eat to that greedy cat from next door. Clyde. That mangy old feline would eat a rock,” Lillimae told me, chewing so hard her ears wiggled. An onion strip hung from her bottom lip like a ribbon. “I told Daddy not to smash them potatoes with a spatula.”
“The mashed potatoes taste fine but I…I ate on the plane,” I muttered, sliding food around on my plate with a slightly bent fork. “And, I’ve been trying to lose a few pounds anyway,” I lied.
Daddy nodded and snapped a mighty pork chop in two with his sparse teeth. Lillimae burped and snatched another huge chunk of cornbread from a cracked bowl next to my plate. She slapped the cornbread with a gob of butter and continued stuffing her mouth. It pleased me to see somebody else appreciate food as much as I did, when I was in the mood to eat. It brought tears to my eyes to have to ignore all the good food sitting in front of me. But every time I tried to swallow something, a huge lump in my throat blocked the way, almost making me choke.
Daddy took a long swallow from a can of beer and let out a great belch. “You ain’t got to lose no weight, girl.” He paused and gave his chest a punch with his fist; then he belched again, covering his mouth and excusing himself. “You look fine just the way you is.” Daddy grunted and punched his chest again. “Black men like women to have some meat on them bones.” That sounded strange coming from him. I had only glimpsed the white woman one time that he had left my mother for. From what I had been able to see, there had not been a lot of meat on her bones. Daddy gave me a sharp look and asked harshly, “How come you ain’t married yet? What’s wrong with them brothers up there in Ohio, lettin’ a fox like you run loose?” Before I could respond, he turned to Lillimae. “Girl, pass me that bowl of smashed potatoes.” Daddy eagerly scooped up what was left of the potatoes, but not before Lillimae dipped her spoon in again.
“I’m engaged,” I said proudly. “Jerome, my fiancé, is a high school guidance counselor.” I paused and turned to Lillimae. “And he is so handsome.” I felt it was necessary to let it be known that even a plain, heavyset woman like me could attract a good-looking man who loved me enough he wanted to marry me. Other than the man who had raped me for ten years, Jerome was the only man who had ever put me first in his life. That was something I couldn’t even say about my daddy.
With raised eyebrows, Daddy and Lillimae looked at one another, then back to me with wide smiles on their faces.
“Well, I declare. My girl done outdone herself.” Daddy beamed proudly, grinning so hard the skin on his bottom lip cracked. “You done found you a educated man, huh?” He sniffed and wiped a speck of fresh blood from the crack on his lip.
I smiled and looked away before answering. “I didn’t find him, Daddy. He found me.”
I spent the next fifteen minutes bragging about Jerome Cunningham and how good he was to me and for me.
CHAPTER 5
The few letters and telephone conversations I had shared with my daddy during the last five years had not revealed much about him and his new family. But when he and Lillimae started talking, while we were still eating dinner, I heard everything I had been anxious to hear. And a few things I didn’t want to hear.
Even though Daddy had admitted that he was sorry he had deserted my mother and me, he made it clear to me that he was happy with his new family. My other two half-siblings, Amos and Sondra, were both in the military, stationed somewhere in Germany. Daddy had retired from a security guard position at a rough high school and now lived on a monthly pension check.
Other than an occasional dinner with a pushy grandmother he referred to as “Miss Pittman,” Daddy had no love life. “I don’t miss havin’ no lady friend,” he insisted, a faraway look in his eyes. “Women done got me in enough trouble to last me from now on.”
Immediately after the elaborate meal, Daddy excused himself from the table in the middle of a sentence. He ran to the bathroom, moaning and cussing all the way.
“He’s got weak bowels,” Lillimae whispered, rising from the table.
I had almost forgotten how kicked-back people were down South. It was late in the evening and Lillimae was still in her bathrobe from that morning. There was now gravy on her bare feet that had dripped off her overflowing dinner plate. She ignored the gnats hovering above her toes, but every few minutes she lifted her feet and shook them.
“Poor Daddy. He’s so proud and independent, it took me a year to talk him into movin’ in with me so I could look after him. And not a minute too soon, girl. Miss Pittman was just about to reel him in like a carp.”
“What-all is wrong with Daddy? He doesn’t look too well,” I said with concern, tapping my fingers on the naked wooden table situated in the middle of the small kitchen.
“Oh, he’s in pretty good health for a man his age, but he was so lonely livin’ alone. And in a neighborhood that was so rough even the cops got robbed on the streets. I was just as lonely as Daddy was.” Lillimae paused and leaned down to scratch the side of her foot. Then she started removing plates from the table.
“I’ll help you clean up,” I offered. I stood up, my legs feeling like lead pipes. I massaged my thighs, frowning at the hole on the knee of my pantyhose that I had ruined crawling out of the cab.
She waved me back to my seat. “You just sit there. You’re company. It ain’t every day I get to see family.” She paused and continued talking with her back to me. “Uh, some folks wouldn’t want nothin’ to do with a man’s outside woman’s kids. Sharin’ the same blood wouldn’t