Nervous

He grinned. “That’s because you wouldn’t listen and ran through the house every single day.”

I picked up a department store sales paper from the coffee table and started fanning myself. “She’s adorable. How old is she?”

“Six.” He went over to the air conditioner and banged on it. “Sorry it’s so hot in here. I’m trying to save up to get central air but it’s not easy. Even with regular clients, it still isn’t easy making a good living in this backass town.”

“Well, Daddy, no one told you to give up being a computer programmer.”

He and I both sat down on the sofa.

“No,” he said. “They just told me to give up my whole damn family, which was the same thing as giving up my life.”

I could tell that he was still bitter about the divorce and wanted to say something like, “You made your own bed so lie in it.” But I didn’t. It wasn’t my objective to visit him and incite drama after so many years.

“I guess you neglected to mention her in your letters,” I said, getting back to Flower.

He sighed. “I didn’t know how to word it. I figured if I told you I had another daughter, I’d never get a response.”

I disagreed. “Actually, it probably would’ve been the exact opposite. If I’d known I had a little sister, I would’ve wanted to meet her.”

“You want something to drink? I have some orange juice and milk.”

“No, I’m fine for now. I already knew you had orange juice and milk because…”

“Those are the only two things a person needs daily to survive,” we said in unison. Daddy used to wear that saying out when I was a child. If my mother didn’t have anything else in the house, she knew she better have milk and orange juice or Daddy would have a fit.

We sat in silence for a minute, feeling each other out with our eyes.

“To make a time-consuming story short, her mother, Allison, and I are just good friends,” he said, evidently referring to Flower’s mother. “We took pleasure in each other’s company for a while and Flower was the result. We haven’t fooled around in years. We just share custody and try to make sure she has a normal life.”

“Unlike my life, which was never normal,” I blurted out.

He put his hands on his knees, like he was bracing himself for something physically painful. “I don’t know what to say.”

I stroked him on the hand so he would ease up some. “No need to say anything. We’ll chat about it later. I’m planning to stay for a couple of days, if that’s okay?”

He smiled like he had won the lottery. “Jonquinette, you have no idea how okay that is. You’ve made my day, my year, my decade, by showing up here.”

I was hoping he would still feel that way by the time it was all over, said and done. “So, what’s for dinner?”

23

jonquinette

Daddy wasn’t much of a cook; again, some things never change. He made his best attempt at making spaghetti and it needed major sprucing up. He had no spices in the house at all except salt and pepper so we made do with that.

Flower was the exact opposite of me as a child. She was conversational. Throughout dinner, she told me all about attending first grade at George Washington Carver Elementary School. She explained how he had helped out farmers by inventing more than three hundred uses for peanuts. Without having to tell me, I knew that the school had to be in the black section of town. There was no way white people in North Carolina would allow their kids to attend a school named after an African American; not the part of North Carolina we were in.

I found out that her mother, Allison, was a veterinarian and according to Flower, “the saver of all of God’s creatures.”

I couldn’t remember the last time I had held any form of conversation with a child but I truly enjoyed it. Children are so innocent and full of life. They have no expectations, no misgivings and thus, no frustration.

Daddy was pretty quiet throughout dinner, more than likely still astonished that I had even showed up. It’s like one of those things you always daydream about but become content that it would never happen. His letters over the years had pleaded with me to reach out to him but I refused. I’m glad he never showed up on my doorstep because it would not have turned out the same way. Everything works on God’s timetable, not our own.

As I thought that, I realized it had been too long since I had attended church and there was no excuse for that. I would have to get back to my normal schedule and begin tithing again.

I asked Daddy, “Do you attend church?”

He looked up from his plate. “Every Sunday, like clockwork. You?”

“I try to, but I will admit that lately I have slacked off a bit.”

“Well, how about we all go together this Sunday?” he asked.

Flower squirmed anxiously in her seat. “That would be great, Daddy. Then all my friends from Sunday school can meet my big sister.”

Big sister! Two little words that spoke volumes and meant big responsibility. Even though I had just met Flower and had absolutely no idea how her mother would react when she met me, or if her mother even knew about me, I made a promise to myself to play a significant role in her life. I would have given anything to have a sibling, older or younger than me, to talk to when I was a child. Parents just can’t understand everything, even though they were once children themselves. Every new generation faces different challenges. People just don’t seem to get it.

Again, some things never change. I realized that when Daddy whipped out a bunch of board games after dinner. He always loved to play games. Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble had been replaced with more modern games like Scattegories, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and Jeopardy.

We played two rounds of Scattergories, Flower and I against him. We beat him something terrible each time until he gave up.

After that, we made old-fashioned thick milkshakes in a blender, I was surprised Daddy had one, and sat out on the swing on the front porch gazing at the stars. Flower sat between us and did most of the pushing with her feet, even though she was the smallest. She would slide down to the edge of the seat just long enough to push us off and then pull herself back up.

“Gosh, it’s so peaceful here,” I said, after realizing a car hadn’t passed the house in more than fifteen minutes.

“Always has been,” Daddy said.

“How come you never brought me here as a child?” I asked Daddy. “To visit Grandpa?”

He shrugged and didn’t respond.

My paternal grandmother, who I never knew, died before I was born but my grandfather didn’t die until I was in junior high. Still, I never met him, only saw pictures. Daddy had just gotten a phone call one day, came out of his home office announcing that his father had passed, and the next morning he left by himself to return to North Carolina to “give the old man a decent burial.”

I remember the day he left. A torrential rainstorm occurred. Momma was vexed about him driving in such bad weather, but he told her, “I’ve got to do what has to be done,” and left.

He came back four days later and never spoke of it again. That was why everyone found it so bizarre when he ended up back in North Carolina a couple of years later running his father’s auto shop that had lain dormant since his death.

Daddy looked at his watch and then at Flower, who was yawning and had positioned her head on his upper arm. “Flower, it’s after your bedtime. Go ahead and put on your nightclothes and you can take your bath in the morning.”

“Okay, Daddy.”

She started scooting forward to get down off the swing. I teased the bottom of one of her pigtails. “Maybe I