me the protocol so if I am ever in a position to be chauffeured for real, I’l know what to do: Never touch the door handle, under any circumstances. Even if the goddamn sedan is on fire, wait to be let out. The same goes for being let in. His final rule was
“Do I look okay?”
“Miss Bunny won’t care,” Raleigh said. His voice cracked. “Miss Bunny won’t care about that at al .”
“Did she ask for me?” I wanted to know.
MY FATHER AND RALEIGH were known in Ackland as “Miss Bunny’s Boys,” though only James was her flesh- and-blood child. “These here are my sons,” she would introduce them, daring anyone to make a distinction between James, dark-complected like his dead father, and Raleigh, white as a dinner plate. Miss Bunny herself was a medium brown color, as though she were the product of her boys.
Raleigh’s real mother, Lula, was a redbone girl from Richmond, Virginia. Why she would move from the relative metropolis of Richmond to a three-stop-sign town like Ackland was a mystery. When anyone asked her, Lula only said, “I couldn’t get along with my daddy.” She was fifteen when Miss Bunny met her. They worked together, cleaning house for the same white folks. Miss Bunny arrived in the mornings and left in the evenings after the supper dishes were washed and walked herself home to prepare a meal for herself and her husband. Lula’s job was to look after the children, so she stayed al night.
Miss Bunny and Lula found themselves pregnant at the same time, though Miss Bunny was pleased with her condition. She’d been married almost three years with no baby. Every married woman wanted a baby back then, whether she knew how she was going to feed it or not. Lula was miserable, and Miss Bunny couldn’t blame her. It was 1942, but Lula said she felt like she was living on a plantation. Miss Bunny felt the same way sometimes, even though she had her little home to go to at night, and her own husband, and a thin gold-plated band to make it al clear.
James and Raleigh were born in the same month, but Miss Bunny hadn’t seen Lula since she was seven months along and had run off with twenty-six dol ars folded thin and stashed in the lining of her suitcase. She was trying to get to Chicago but only reached as far as North Carolina.
She returned when Raleigh was six months old, sitting up by himself.
By then, Miss Bunny was keeping house for some new white folks. The hours were longer, but these employers were nicer, letting her bring home leftovers. Her husband didn’t like eating cast-off food, but Miss Bunny said it was good food, she had fixed it herself. What difference did it make if she cooked it at home on her own stove or over at the white people’s house? These new white people needed an overnight girl. Miss Bunny told Lula about the vacancy.
“What’s the husband like?” Lula said. “I can’t go through this al again.”
“He’s crippled,” Miss Bunny said. “Polio.”
THEY WORKED TOGETHER several more years. Miss Bunny and Lula talked about everything except their sons. Miss Bunny was crazy about James Junior and Lula couldn’t stand the sight of poor Raleigh. And it real y was the
IN 1949, WHEN James Junior was almost eight. James Senior was kil ed in a mil accident. This I knew. James Senior died in the middle of the week, so Miss Bunny would get his pay up until Wednesday and that was al . She wanted to cry about it, and she did, but there was only so much time for lying in bed wailing. She had to eat. James Junior needed to eat. Miss Bunny knew she was going to have to find a live-in job.
RALEIGH SAYS HE doesn’t know whose idea it was. He doesn’t know which woman — his mama or Miss Bunny — felt she walked away with the better deal. What he remembers is Lula packing al his things into a cardboard suitcase held together with a strap.
“You’re going to live with Miss Bunny and James. She’s going to look after you from here on out, okay? Don’t look so sad. She’s a better mother than I am by twice. When you grown up, you might hate me, but when you talk against me you can never say that I lied. You can curse my name if you want to, but you won’t deny that this is the best thing that anyone ever did for you.”
Raleigh was just a little boy, hungry sometimes, but lonely always. He cried, which was unusual for him. Having been underloved for al his short life, he’d learned not to attract his mother’s attention in any negative way. When he came to understand that she was casting him off like an empty egg carton, he lost control of himself.
He has no recol ection of throwing himself on the floor or the spasms ending with letting go of his bladder. He knows this happened only because Miss Bunny told him how Lula ran to her house and said, “You’l have to get him, Bunny. I can’t face him. He’s over there howling like a dog. I just can’t take it.”
Miss Bunny said, “Lula, he’s just a little boy. What do you mean you can’t face him?”
“You just go and get him, Bunny,” Lula whispered. “If you want him, go and get him.”
Miss Bunny told Raleigh she found him lying on the concrete porch.
“I’m going with you?” he said.
“Yes, son. You are.”
She took his hand and they walked the half mile home. His wet pants scrubbed his thighs raw, but he was a child who had long before learned not to complain.
“I’m your boy now?”
“You are,” Miss Bunny said.
“How come?”
“Because I love you.”
