Gara put down her sparkling sugar water and her book. Then she took up the hundred-dollar bill and the short list.
“I’ll have it by three o’clock tomorrow,” she said. “If it’s earlier than that, I’ll call you.”
I smiled and made a mock salute.
I was about to leave when she asked, “How’s the kids?”
“Fine. Great. Jesus and his girl had a baby.”
“They gettin’ married?”
“We’ll see.”
“How’s Bonnie?”
“We’ll see,” I said again.
I headed for the door before she could question my answers.
THE LITTLE YELLOW DOG must have been chasing gophers in the backyard, because he wasn’t barking as I came up on the porch. Frenchie knew the sound of my car. Bonnie had told me that she knew I was coming from a block away just because of his angry bark.
But that day I made it all the way to the front door undetected. The door was open and so only the screen separated me from the sounds of the house. I could hear Essie crying a few rooms away and Feather speaking in French. Her time in Switzerland in the clinic and then later with Bonnie and Jesus had taught Feather to converse easily in that tongue. But the only person she spoke French to on the phone was Bonnie. Now that my daughter was becoming a woman, they chattered like girlfriends.
I reached for the door handle and stopped. Feather laughed out loud and said something that was both a question and an exultation. I spoke some French, Creole mostly from my childhood in Louisiana, but the fast-paced Parisian that Bonnie had taught Feather was too much for me.
I pulled the screen door open but didn’t walk right in.
“He’s here,” Feather said in a voice she tried to muffle. “I gotta go.”
She’d hung up by the time I came in.
“Daddy!” she cried, and ran up to hug me.
I held her harder than I should have. But I needed to hold on to someone who loved me.
“Hi, baby.”
Feather leaned back and looked into my eyes. She knew that I’d heard her. She wanted to help me feel better.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Don’t worry.”
“Hi, Dad,” Jesus said.
He was standing at the door to the kitchen wearing a brown apron and yellow rubber gloves.
“Hey, boy.”
“Hello, Mr. Rawlins,” Easter Dawn said. She was standing by Jesus’s leg, flour on her hands and cheeks.
“You guys cookin’, huh?” I said.
“I’m making pound cake,” the little doll said. “And Juice is washing the dishes and helping.”
“You want to help me with lunch?” I asked her.
The child’s black eyes glittered and her mouth opened into a perfect circle. Domesticity was her bastion of power in her father’s house. He never made a decision about household matters without first consulting her. And Easter almost always had the last word.
I HAD OXTAILS in the refrigerator. We dredged them in flour and seared them in lard with green peppers, diced onions, and minced garlic. While they simmered, we took out the pound cake, set rice boiling, and chopped up some brussels sprouts, which we sauteed in butter and then laced with soy sauce.
While we did all this cooking, the child and I discussed our adventures.
Feather was spending another day at home taking care of her. They had gone to the art museum, then read Feather’s history book and done her lessons for school. I realized that I had to enroll Easter in school or Feather’s education would suffer.
I tried not to think about how Bonnie would have taken care of all that when she was there.
Bonnie had made the house run smoothly, even when she was away on international flights for Air France. She hired people and had friends do chores that made my life easier.
How could I have thrown that concern away?
“Did you find my father?” Easter asked, and I was drawn back into the world.
“Gettin’ close. How long did you live in that house across the street from the big tire?”
“I don’t know . . . a week, maybe.”
“Hm. I found some people who might know where he is,” I said. “They’re supposed to call me tomorrow morning with what they know.”
“Who did you talk to?” she asked.
“A man named Captain Miles. Black guy in the army. Have you ever met him?”
Easter was standing on a chair next to me at the stove. It was her job to drop in the vegetables while I stirred
