Chapter Thirteen #2
Micah and John bond when John realizes we have Tanya’s Continental.
He always thought she was the coolest person in the world for having that car.
While their conversation slowly turns into gibberish for me the more they talk about cars, Auntie Joyce and I focus on sorting through the lost artifacts.
It hits me that I’m going through Tanya’s things with someone who knew her longer than me.
I have this image in my head of what Tanya was like as a kid.
Before my grandmom passed away, she loved to tell me funny stories from my mom’s childhood and I loved hearing them.
And now, I’m in a town full of people who could do the same with Tanya.
My eyes start to feel misty, so I look to the sky to keep it from getting worse.
“It’s odd,” Auntie Joyce notes, her gaze planted firmly on me.
“What’s odd?”
“You sort of look like her.” She tilts her head to the side, taking me in from every angle. “Very strange. Maybe it’s because I see so much of her in you.”
That’s the best compliment I could hope to receive.
A book falls out of the box I just grabbed, a cloud of dust escaping its edges.
When the World Gets to Be Too Loud
That’s the title stitched onto the cover of the book.
When I open it, it’s a collection of poems. Some by well-known authors, some by authors I’ve never heard of, and some appear to be handwritten.
The words have faded on the pages over time, but they’re still legible.
The initials A.G. are stamped in the corner of each one.
“Are these …”
Auntie Joyce answers my question before I can voice it. “Andrew’s book of poems. He was so embarrassed for anyone to read his work, but Tanya was his biggest fan.”
There’s a small warp on one of the pages, right in the middle of the poem. It looks as if the paper got wet a long time ago. My finger traces the ripple, wondering if it was Tanya’s tears that struck this page or someone else’s.
“Auntie Joyce, do you mind if I keep this?”
“You don’t need to ask me.” She winks as she slides her hand over another one of Tanya’s boxes, takes a dozing Ava from John’s arms, and slips out of the shed.
“She never comes back here. It was probably a lot for her,” John clarifies.
“I understand.” All too well.
I place the book of poems to the side, my hands itching to read every page, but that will have to wait until later.
“Hey, Storm, look,” Micah calls out. When I turn, he’s holding up an old music box. “The gift of music?” he questions.
A soft melody fills the space when he flips the box open while a Black ballerina twirls in place.
“I’m pretty sure her mom gave her that. I remember my two sisters begging our mom for one after she showed them because a music box with a Black ballerina was hard to come by back then.”
“If I could give anyone anything, it would be the gift of music.”
Hearing you loud and clear, Tanya. We’ll make sure someone special gets this gift. Micah hands me the music box to sit on top of my book.
Micah and I knew Tanya the woman well, but uncovering the makings of Tanya the girl is a gift I couldn’t be more thankful for.
John provides as much context as he can for the things we find but encourages us to talk to some of the other family members for more insight.
I plan to do just that.
When we leave the shed, we find Auntie Joyce sitting on the porch smoking another cigarette. Her thin eyebrows furrow with each puff.
She stamps the cigarette out when she sees us, dabbing her knuckle beneath her eye subtly. “Ava’s sleeping in her bed. Ready to head out? I gotta get to the store and buy some celery.” She hands John a baby monitor.
“What you making?” Micah asks.
“Potato salad for the cookout later. John, you bring the kids by when they get home, okay?” He nods his agreement and Micah acts as Auntie Joyce’s handrail down the steps.
“When did she say we were having a cookout?” Micah whispers in my ear when Auntie Joyce walks a little ahead of us.
Maybe it was in her head, because it definitely wasn’t out loud.
Turns out, this is a regular Auntie Joyce occurrence. She calls for a cookout on a random day and the whole family drops everything to come together.
Within hours she has the potato salad chilling in the fridge, and family members start showing up with burgers, hot dogs, wings, baked beans, soda, pies, and other dishes. One cousin literally rolls his grill down the street and parks it in Auntie Joyce’s backyard to fire it up.
Before long the cookout is in full swing. Drinks are flowing, kids are running around the yard, and a game of dominoes is growing heated.
One of the little cousins, Jamie, marches up to Micah and looks up at him with determination in her gaze. “Why you so tall?” she blurts.
He doesn’t bend down to her level, he just looks down at her like the giant he is. “Why you so short?” he responds.
“I’m still growing!” She stomps her foot.
“You sure about that?”
She turns her nose up in disgust. “Yes. I just grew two inches last month.”
“Congratulations.”
She considers him for a moment, planning her next move. “You got a dollar?”
His lip twitches, but he’s able to stop any expression from showing on his face. “I do.”
She pauses, waiting for him to offer it to her on a silver platter. “Can I have it?” she asks when he doesn’t.
He crosses his arms across his chest. “Tell you what. I’ll give you one dollar for every inch you’ve grown in the last year.”
She grabs his hand and tugs. “Mom!” she yells out. “I need to check the board thingy!” She keeps screaming out to her mom as she drags Micah along behind her. He looks at me and shrugs as he allows Jamie to make him into a rag doll.
As I walk toward the folding tables in the yard to grab a plate, a soft voice calls out to me. “You’re Tanya’s girl, right?”
I turn and find a table of older and younger Black women, the one who spoke to me a spitting image of John.
“That’s me, yeah. I’m Dani,” I say as I walk closer to them.
They invite me to sit down, shifting to make space. “I’m June. This is my sister Cora, her daughter, Serena, and my daughter-in-law, Nicky.”
Each woman waves as their name is called. Serena compliments my nails, telling me I should come by her shop for a fill-in before I leave town.
“You must be John’s mom.” I look to June for confirmation, pleased when she nods. “Then that means you two”—I point to June and Cora—“are Auntie Joyce’s sisters?” That would make them Tanya’s first aunts.
“Yep. There’s nine of us total.” Cora breaks down the family tree, explaining that Auntie Joyce is the oldest after Tanya’s dad, Larry, which is why everyone calls her Auntie.
Once Larry passed away, Joyce became the head of the family, and she’s worn that title proudly ever since.
Cora is the youngest of the siblings, only a few years older than Tanya herself.
Serena is Cora’s middle child, and Nicky is married to June’s oldest daughter, Tiara.
I get lost somewhere along the tree, but the bottom line is they are a close-knit family, able to trace their roots back generations.
“You know, Tanya joining Larry, Ruby, and Andrew is one whole branch gone,” Cora says, choking back tears. Serena rubs her mother’s back, while Nicky grabs her hand.
“But at least they all get to be together again. I’m just glad Larry and Ruby went first. Parents aren’t supposed to bury their kids.
” Her words make me think about Lorraine.
Were Tanya and George even able to find a casket that small?
As nice as it is to be surrounded by Tanya’s family, I have to wonder about Tanya’s mental state.
Too much loss can really change a person, and I don’t know if she took care of her mental health the way she maybe should have.
I don’t think anyone in her shoes could withstand this without someone to talk to, professional or otherwise.
Did she have that? Those are questions no one here can answer for me and that makes me sad for Tanya.
“Anyway, dear, we’re glad you’re here. It’s nice to meet someone who knew Tanya in her older years,” June adds.
“Yeah. What was she like?” Nicky asks. “I never got to meet her, but I heard so many stories.”
Where do I even begin? “She was dramatic.”
June snorts. “Glad to hear that never changed.”
“She was protective.”
June and Cora both grin at that.
“She was wise. And she never made you feel less than when she imparted her wisdom on you.”
Cora agrees with that wholeheartedly.
“Okay, I gotta ask. Did she pick up random hobbies as a kid too?” I question.
Cora’s face lights up. “Oh my God, Junebug, do you remember when she started playing the violin?”
June’s smile grows wider. “Lord, that child was not musically inclined. Daddy stole her violin out of our room one night and sold it at a pawn shop. Pretended like the damn thing grew legs and walked out.”
“And then she tracked it down and bought it back using money she got from people in the neighborhood who paid her not to sing,” Cora imparts.
“All to sell it back to the pawn shop a month later.”
The stories go back and forth between the three of us until we’re all in stitches.
“Excuse me, ladies, Dani, I brought you this.” Micah towers over me with a plate full of food.
“You didn’t have to do that. Thank you,” I offer, thankful all the same, because as wonderful as this conversation has been, I realize I didn’t get to make my plate before we launched down memory lane.
“Oooh, a gentleman. We like that.” Serena whistles.
Micah rubs the back of his neck with a shy smile. “Can I get you ladies anything?”
“Oh, no thank you, baby. You already brought us a tall drink of water,” June says.
“You’re shameful.” I laugh. “How much did you have to pay up?” I query, referring to his little bet with Jamie.
“A whole three dollars. I rounded up to five, though.”