“Does she want to meet me?” My voice was whispery, so I cleared my throat and tried again. “What did you tel her about me?”
“I told her that you are my daughter. I told her how smart you are.”
“What did you tel her about my mama?”
“We didn’t talk so much about Gwen,” James said.
I didn’t feel right. “Didn’t she want to know where I came from?”
Raleigh said, “Dana, lower your voice. Miss Bunny is sick. She doesn’t need to hear al this fighting. She’s in a bad way. Just let her go in peace.”
“Raleigh,” I said, shrugging off his touch. He pul ed back and for a moment I regretted hurting him. “I am not fighting with anyone. I am just trying to find out what al James told Miss Bunny. I want to know what he told her about my mama.”
James said, “I t-t-told her about you. You are her kin and I want her to lay eyes on you before she goes.”
“But what about my mama?” I said. “She’s important, too.” Raleigh seemed on the verge of tears. “Please stop fighting. Let’s just go inside.”
“You didn’t make my mother out to be a whore, did you?” I asked.
“No,” Raleigh said. “James wouldn’t say anything like that to Miss Bunny. Tel her, Jimmy. Tel her what you said.”
“I told her your mother was dead,” James said. “I told her you were raised by your grandmother.”
“Did you at least tel her you loved my mother? That it wasn’t just a quick thing?”
James nodded. “I told her that I love you, Dana. She knows if I love you, then your mama must be special.”
I shook my head. That wasn’t how it worked.
“Dana,” Raleigh said, “don’t waste Miss Bunny’s time. She doesn’t have much left.”
My father took my hand and escorted me into Miss Bunny’s bedroom, which was separated from the living room by a sheer curtain. Although I had been told how sick Miss Bunny was, I stil expected her to be plump and lemon- scented like a second-grade teacher. I had no idea of what dying real y looked like. The only people I had ever seen with serious il nesses were on hospital dramas, like
Miss Bunny was sixty-five years old, which seemed old to me at the time, but now that my own mother is nearing fifty, I understand how young my grandmother was when years of hard work, starchy foods, and bad genes caught up with her. She looked ancient, as old as anyone I had ever seen on television or in real life. Her skin was thick and stippled like the peel of an orange and her eyes were murky. The saddest thing was her hair.
Someone, probably Laverne, had arranged it in a dozen pin curls, as though she were preparing to go to a party later that evening.
“Mama,” said James, squeezing my hand. “This is my daughter, Dana Lynn.”
“Come closer,” Miss Bunny said with a voice that was strong and almost man-deep. “Come here, child.” To James she said, “You and Raleigh go on to the Burger Inn or something. Go on. Don’t worry. I’m not going to go to glory before you get back.” She laughed, but no one else did. “Truly.
You two get out of here. You wanted me to meet my granddaughter. How am I supposed to get to know her with you two breathing down my neck?”
Raleigh poked his head in between the pale curtains that served as Miss Bunny’s bedroom door. “Jimmy?”
I could see how they must have been as children. Raleigh looking to James, not Miss Bunny, for direction. James looked into his mother’s face.
“W-w-what d-d-do you need to talk to her about? Why c-c-can’t we just visit together?” He went to the window and swiveled the wand to open the blinds.
“James, I want to talk to her about woman things. Now shoo, boy.”
James backed toward the curtained doorway, as if he didn’t want to turn his back on us. He bumped into Raleigh, and Miss Bunny laughed again. It wasn’t a robust sort of laugh; she was too weak for al of that. But stil , I knew that she found the situation amusing. She continued with the breathy laugh until James and Raleigh had left in the Lincoln.
When they were gone, the house was empty-feeling and more quiet than I was used to. Miss Bunny let her head fal back onto the eyelet pil ow slip. She just lay there breathing for a while, and I didn’t bother her.
“My left leg is gone,” she said to me.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
“They said taking the leg would save me. It wasn’t a beautiful leg, but it was mine, and I had never figured on not lying whole in my casket. Life is ful of things you never figured on.”
I didn’t say anything back. I knew I was a surprise to Miss Bunny, but nothing was a surprise to me.
“If I could get out of bed, I would hug your neck,” she said.
“I never turned anybody away from my door. Your daddy knows that. I took in Raleigh, and later Laverne. I have never turned anybody away. Never sent nobody back.” She shut up and worked on her breathing some more. “I love you,” she said to me, just as she had said to Raleigh so many years ago. I know that it was supposed to make me feel warm and welcome, but instead I wondered if she saw me the way she saw Raleigh — as an unfortunate bastard, unloved and pissy.
“Don’t look at me like I am an orphan. My mother’s not dead,” I blurted. “She’s a nurse and she takes good
