29. The Dream of Fishes
The Dream of Fishes
M urder, She Wrote played low on the TV—Angela Lansbury catching liars with one raised eyebrow.
The lamp beside Grandma’s recliner threw a honey circle over her hands, her rings glinting when she shifted.
She had on her soft house dress and compression socks and that little gold cross that had outlived trends and funerals and heartbreak.
She didn’t look at me when I came in. Didn’t need to.
“Close my door, baby,” she said, eyes still on Jessica Fletcher. “You letting my warm air out. ”
“Yes, ma’am.” I eased it shut and stood there a second, just breathing in the familiar.
“Don’t stand in the entry like you ain’t got a home,” she added, and that made my mouth tilt. Taking my jacket off and hanging it up, I dropped onto the couch.
We sat like that awhile—her watching TV, me watching her. That quiet wasn’t empty. It was a net. She cast it and waited. She’d been doing that to me since I had light-up sneakers.
Truth was, I still felt like that boy in her living room sometimes.
The one who held Jada’s hand too tight the day they told us our parents were gone; the one Grandma collected from a neighbor’s porch with a paper bag of clothes and a spine made of grief.
Thirty-something didn’t change that. A steady job, 401(k), a dozen shirts ironed in my closet—none of it touched the way her house could turn my lungs soft.
The commercials came on. Grandma turned the volume down with that careful thumb. “I dreamt of fishes last night.”
I blinked. “What’s that mean again?”
She didn’t answer right away. She looked at me the way she did when she wanted me to hear with more than my ears. “When I was a girl, my mama used to say if you dreamt of fish, somebody’s carrying. Not always you. But somebody in the circle is pregnant.”
It hit me low and hard, the way a truth does when you’ve been pretending you’re not standing right next to it.
“The last time I had that dream,” she went on, voice gone soft with old joy, “your mama and daddy had come by after church. Your daddy had that shy smile he kept for her. Your mama sat right where you sitting, patting her skirts like she had secrets. I didn’t say nothing then.
Two weeks later she called me— Ma, I’m late. I told her, Baby, I know. ”
A smile worked itself across Grandma’s face like sun breaking a stubborn cloud. “Couple months after, they handed me you, and you stared at me like I was a puzzle you already finished.”
I swallowed. “Grandma?—”
She lifted one eyebrow. Waited.
“Rayna’s pregnant,” I said. “We found out. She’s… she’s scared. I am too, if I’m honest. But I love her.”
She let out a breath like a prayer had landed. “I wondered how long you were gon’ take to say it out loud.”
Grandma set the remote down, hands folding on the arm of her chair. “What you gon’ do?”
“Be there,” I said. Simple first. “For her. For the baby. Whatever she needs.”
“That’s the floor,” she said gently. “I asked you about the ceiling.”
“I want to marry her.” The truth snapped into place with the clean click of a ball dropping center pocket.
Grandma nodded once. “Okay then.”
“Okay?” I couldn’t help the breath of a laugh. “That’s it?”
“Boy, you want me to throw rice in this living room?” She smiled. Then it faded to something weightier.
“You got anchor in you, Quentin,” she said.
“But you ain’t dead weight. An anchor don’t stop a ship from moving—it just keeps it from drifting too far out.
Lets it rise and fall with the tide, but always got a place to come back to.
That’s what you give her. Let Rayna know she can ride her waves, baby, but she got something solid waiting when she’s ready to rest.”
I leaned back, those words finding a place to live in me. Bring her where y’all going.
For a beat I saw my father’s hands. Big, careful hands that smelled like motor oil and Palmolive when he’d wash dishes for my mother after dinner.
He used to tap my shoulder when we crossed the street—two taps.
I got you. He wasn’t loud. He didn’t puff.
He just showed up, every single day, until a bad curve and a worse driver took them both from us.
“I’ve been thinking about him,” I said. “A lot. About the kind of father he was. He made small things feel big—sitting in the bleachers at my JV game like it was the playoffs, taking me to the library on Saturdays, teaching me how to tie a tie even though I swore I’d never need it.
He didn’t get to finish. I want to finish. ”
“You gon’ be a good daddy,” Grandma said, and she didn’t dress it up. She just placed it like a fact. “You got your father’s hands and your mother’s listening. That’s a good mix for a child. Jada’s gonna be a good auntie too.”
Jada was my next visit before I went back to the love of my life.
Grandma cleared her throat. “Now… when you gonna ask her to marry you?”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “We haven’t even come up for air long enough to talk like that.”
“Hmph.” Grandma tilted her head. “You ain’t gotta get on your knee tonight. But you do need to get down in your spirit and settle what’s already true. That’s the promise you carry to her. Not a question mark. A sentence.”
I laughed under my breath. “You a preacher now?”
“I’m a grandmother.” Her smile was quick. “It’s a promotion.”