ground to make sacrifices. In the literal sense, it’s also a place to change direction, but once you’ve changed it, you’re stuck until you come to another crossroads, and who knows how long that wil be.
Although I was only nine, I was away from home two weeks that summer. My godmother, Wil ie Mae, took me to Alabama to spend some time with her family out in the country. She thought I was too much of a city girl, that I needed to spend some time barefoot. Drawing my bath each night in the footed tub, Wil ie Mae looked more capable than she did in our living room drinking gin-and-tonics with my mother. Out in the country, she drew her hair back in two plaits and tucked the ends under; she stuck her feet in her shoes bare-legged.
I was accustomed to hot, muggy summers, but the heat in Opelika was more comprehensive. August was canning season, so the women were busy washing tomatoes, peaches, and beets. Wil ie Mae was saving her money to buy two window air conditioners; in the meantime we kept cool with window-box and funeral-home fans. The front door flapped behind what seemed an endless parade of Wil ie Mae’s nieces, nephews, and cousins, who stole eggs from the icebox to see if they could actual y fry them on the blacktop road. Across the street, a lady sold Styrofoam cups of frozen Kool-Aid for a dime, but my mother had told me not to eat from strange people’s houses. I spent most of the time in the kitchen, up under Wil ie Mae, who would stumble over me from time to time. The atmosphere was thick with the sugary smel of boiling fruit. I would lick my forearm and taste salt.
At night, I shared a pul -out bed with Wil ie Mae, who dusted herself al over with talcum powder cut with cornstarch. I missed my own room, the noises of the city, and my beautiful mother. “Why didn’t she cal me today?”
Wil ie Mae arranged the sweat-damp sheet around me. “She can’t cal you every day. She loves you. I love you. Raleigh loves you. Everybody loves you. Al you have to do is go to sleep and be patient.”
I didn’t know how to respond to this, so I settled myself down onto the oversoft pil ow.
“She’s coming for you, Dana. You can take that to the bank.”
I learned things those two weeks in Alabama. I learned how to diaper a baby, how to hang clothes on the line so that the linens hide your ladythings. I learned how and when to kneel during a Catholic service and I learned that there are grown men who find little girls to be very pretty.
Wil ie Mae’s uncle, Mr. Sanders, asked me to sit on his lap after church. I refused the gum he offered, but I climbed onto his lap because I didn’t know that I could deny an adult any favor. I sat myself across his knees, but he tugged me toward him until the smal of my back was flush against his abdomen and the top of my head fit in the nook beneath his chin. He was stil wearing his green tie from mass as he bounced me on his thighs, breathing into my ear with breath that smel ed of apple cores.
Wil ie Mae walked into the bedroom wearing only her slip, stained at the waist with sweat.
“Sanders,” she said, “you put that girl down and stay the fuck away from her. Touch her again and I’l cut you, nigger. You know I wil .” She caught me under my arms and pul ed me away.
Her uncle said, “I wasn’t doing her nothing.”
“You are a nasty dog, Sanders,” Wil ie Mae said. “Get out of here.”
The uncle ambled out and Wil ie Mae hugged me hard. “You okay? You al right, Dana? What happened?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“You sat up on his lap and that was al ? He didn’t touch you anywhere?”
“No,” I said.
“Lord have mercy.”
“But —”
“But what?”
“But could he touch me and I wouldn’t know it?”
Wil ie Mae hugged me again and gave a relieved little laugh. “Lord,” she said. “Stay close to me til your mama comes for you.”
“I want to go home.”
“I know you do, but you just got a few days more. Gwen has some things to take care of.”
That night, she placed a col ect cal to my mother. The very next day, I was sitting on the front porch with Wil ie Mae hul ing peas when I saw the old Lincoln coming down the road.
Wil ie Mae squinted toward the car and the dust kicked up by its wheels. “Dana, your eyes are young. Tel me who’s driving.”
“It’s the old Lincoln. That’s Uncle Raleigh.”
“Praise Jesus,” said Wil ie Mae. “Praise him.”
I wondered what my mother would say about the way I looked. I had ignored Wil ie Mae’s mother’s warning that I shouldn’t play in the sun; my complexion, already dark, deepened into something richer. With my press and curl al sweated out, I scratched my dirty scalp as Raleigh helped my mother out of the car. She was dressed in a light blue suit and a hat to match. Even her shoes were the same swimming-pool shade.
“Did you do it?” Wil ie Mae asked.
“Not yet,” Raleigh said.
“I didn’t want to do it without Dana,” my mother said.
“Do what?” I asked.
“Wil ie Mae,” my mother said, “is there someplace I can talk to Dana in private?”
Wil ie Mae looked around us at al the kids playing in the yard. She looked toward the interior of her mother’s house, which was certainly packed with women canning vegetables. “Sorry, Gwen. This place is al booked up.”
