Chapter One #2
He shakes his head. “Not surprised. Coming from that school where all you kids care about is who’s dating whom.
And who’s got the newest Air Jordans. The flyest snapbacks.
When I was young, I seized the chance to be somebody, to pull myself out of the hood and make something of myself.
I saved every penny I could. Learned how to invest. There wasn’t any opportunity that could present itself that I wouldn’t be ready for.
” He shakes his finger at me. “Your mom, she always asked for handouts. And look at where we both turned out, the victim and the victor. And if it weren’t for your so-called father—”
I sigh and drop my fork onto my plate. Uncle Rowan ignores the loud clatter and continues, but I’m done listening.
There’s nothing he can tell me about Dad that I don’t already know.
I know that he up and left. Took his notebooks full of physics and poetry.
Took his prized mounted bass from that precious fishing trip with his boss.
And left every single picture of me behind.
My body still remembers his leaving, the clench in my heart, the sweat in my palms. It sits in the pit of my stomach always.
So when it comes to Dad, that’s all I need to know.
I watch quietly as Uncle Rowan drags a chunk of meat through sauce.
“Where is Ms. Rosette from?” I ask, desperate for conversation that has nothing to do with me.
“Togo,” he says, and my mind goes white for a second.
Togo sits next to Ghana, Dad’s country, arms touching like close kin.
“I think she speaks your language. I mean, your dad’s language,” he corrects himself.
And he’s right to, because Dad never bothered to share E?e with me.
Uncle Rowan sweeps his finger in the red sauce and pops it into his mouth, the most normal thing I’ve seen him do all day.
“Anyway, she came highly recommended. It’s the illegal ones that are the problem,” he says.
“They steal jobs from our people, and we do nothing to stop it.”
This is where Mom and Uncle Rowan would have a fight.
Your uncle lost his religion in all that money, she said once.
She would quote the Bible to him, chapter and verse, something about kindness to strangers in a new land.
She loves the Bible, even though the last time she went to church was when Jesus turned water into wine.
We sit in silence as Uncle Rowan sips from his glass and sighs absentmindedly between bites. I take note of the lines across his forehead, which weren’t there years ago.
Raise your right hand for me. Do you understand that once you sign, you will have given up all your rights?
I push the voice away again.
Uncle Rowan takes a sip of his wine, pats his mouth with his napkin, and returns it to his lap. “I think you’ll do fine here. It’s a chance for you to grow up and face real responsibility. Responsibility you can’t just hand over to someone else.”
I snap my mouth shut to keep the words in. My face flushes from the heat of unsaid things. I heap shovels of coconut rice into my mouth, just to keep my tongue busy.
Ms. Rosette shuffles into the dining room, her dark hands stuffed into the pockets of her blue apron. “How does it taste?” she asks, looking hopefully from Uncle Rowan to me.
“Good, good.” He nods. “The lamb is a bit too red for me, but we shouldn’t get trichinosis.”
She shakes her head. “You want apple pie or cherry pie for dessert? Both are ready to go.”
I can feel his eyes on me. “What would you like, Janelle?”
Pie or no pie, I can’t spend another minute at the table with him.
He’s not the Uncle Rowan I used to know, the one I used to curl up with on Christmas morning with hot cocoa and marshmallows.
The one who read How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
with all the voices, making me laugh until I cried.
This Uncle Rowan doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t smile. And he thinks the worst of me.
“Can I be excused? I need to get ready for school tomorrow.”
He nods. “Good for you. Rosette, I’ll have some apple pie.”
“Yes, sir.” She leaves the room.
Upstairs in my new room, a very pink room, I stand on a rug the size of my old bedroom in Atlanta. I stare at wall-to-wall bookshelves and wall-to-wall curtains, and a bed big enough for six of me. I feel small, like there’s not enough of me to fill up this new world.
Uncle Rowan would agree. I’m the daughter of Paula Oakland and Kofi A?enyo, and I’m a walking statistic. The shame of it throbs like a fresh wound. I’m surer than before that no one in Delray needs to know my whole story.
Raise your right hand for me.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and find the saved number that I think about calling every day but don’t. I press the call button and it goes right to voicemail.
“Hey, Sherry. It’s Jae. Janelle A?enyo. I just wanted to check that you got the email about my address change. Did you? Um … Please tell Anne I’m looking forward to seeing the picture. I can’t wait to see it. Thanks. Thank you.”
I hang up the phone, and in the space of quietness, my guilt grows. This is all on you. Don’t forget that, it says. But I could never forget. I wear the memories in stitches, in pain that takes its time. The body remembers everything.
Blinking quickly, I clear the wet haze of the bedroom.
Then, hungry for new air, I walk toward the curtains and pull them aside, and the world outside takes my breath away.
There’s the ocean, and the water is a black mirror with the moon glowing on its surface.
Sailboats float past like mystical clouds.
I push the window open and the breeze sweeps the water, kisses the moon, and makes the curtains dance.
It brushes my skin with its warm fingers, making me think of Georgia and last goodbyes.