Silver Sparrow

care of me. I was taking the AP exam in biology when Raleigh pul ed me out of school to come up here. That test cost fifty dol ars, and my mother paid for it.”

“She takes good care of my James, too, I imagine.” Miss Bunny sighed.

“She does,” I said. “Her name is Gwendolyn Yarboro.”

“And your name is?”

“Dana,” I said.

“I know that. But what’s your ful name?”

“Dana Lynn Yarboro.”

Miss Bunny touched her hand to her forehead. “Did James sign your birth certificate?”

“No, ma’am,” I said. “But Raleigh did.”

She shook her head. “Those boys. Brothers; I don’t care what nobody says. If they are in it, they are in it together. Are you an only child, baby?”

I said careful y to Miss Bunny, “How could I be an only child?”

Her face shifted, and she touched the space on the bed where her leg would have been. “I didn’t mean anything by that. Lord. This is a mess. You ever seen Chaurisse?”

I shrugged. “Not real y.”

“She’s a nice girl,” Miss Bunny said. “I’m real proud of her. This is going to kil her. Her mama, too. But Laverne, she’s from this town. She grew up hard; she’l bounce back. But Chaurisse was born and raised in Atlanta. She don’t know nothing about suffering. This is going to tear her apart.”

“That’s not my fault,” I said.

Miss Bunny patted the space on the bed again. “Sit down.”

I moved to the place on the bed, crackling the plastic mattress cover. I didn’t face my grandmother, keeping my eyes on the gauzy curtains of the doorway. She laid a hand on my back.

“You remind me of Laverne. When I first met her, she was about your age. Mad at the whole world, and with pretty good reason. Her quarrel was with her mother. Yours is with James, and you have a right to it. I’m not trying to take nothing away from you. You have a tough shel on you.

Chaurisse, she doesn’t have none of that.”

“I don’t feel sorry for her.”

Miss Bunny said, “Dana, I wish James had seen fit to tel me about you earlier. I wish he had brought your mama up here today.”

“She always wanted to meet you,” I said.

Miss Bunny reclined in the hospital bed. “I real y can’t see a good way out of this.”

We sat there a while longer, not saying anything to each other. I worked on my breathing, although the room smel ed of camphor and just slightly of urine. Beside the bed was a bouquet of red roses that didn’t give any scent at al .

“Take something of mine,” Miss Bunny said. “Take anything you want out of this room.”

I walked myself around the smal bedroom. There wasn’t much to choose from. On the dresser, where perfume bottles and figurines should have been, rested amber prescription bottles, a stack of rubber gloves, and a box of syringes. The only ornament was a porcelain ring holder in the shape of two fingers, displaying what looked like a man’s wedding band. On the night table was a wooden jewelry box. Music tinkled out as I opened it. The only thing inside was a star-shaped brooch of faceted aquamarines.

“This?” I asked.

“Why did you pick that?”

I shrugged. “I just like it. It’s pretty.” I didn’t know enough family history to know what mattered and what didn’t. I chose the brooch the way I would choose something in a store.

“Good enough,” she said. “I told Raleigh I wanted to wear that pin to my funeral.”

I dropped it back into the music box. She had spoken the word funeral with a burst of air, like she had to force the word out. I twisted toward her, but she had turned her face toward the wal . “I can pick something else. Did somebody special give it to you?”

“No. I bought it with my own money. Years ago, when I was stil interested in looking pretty. A couple of the stones have fel out, but it’s stil a nice piece.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’l tel Raleigh to take it off my col ar before they close the casket and put me in the ground.”

“Ma’am,” I said, “please don’t say things like that.”

My grandmother took my living hand in her dying one. “I never had no quarrel with the truth. I hope somebody says something like that at my wake.”

10

UNCLE RALEIGH

IN THE SUMMER 1978, my mother had come to a crossroads. I am neither religious nor superstitious, but there is something otherworldly about the space where two roads come together. The devil is said to set up shop there if you want to swap your soul for something more useful. If you believe that God can be bribed, it’s also the hal owed