A Summer with Ms. Joy

By Hannah MacKey

Mama sent me to buy a gallon of milk before it got dark. It only took four minutes to walk, half that on a bike, to get to Mr. Leeroy’s Corner Store on Glenspick Avenue. I took my younger sister, Belinda, with me, and we rode the bike I got on my birthday. Two minutes to the corner store, four minutes chatting and buying milk, three minutes riding back after stopping for water ice. Nine minutes. That’s all it took for our house to catch fire.

Belinda hopped off the back of my bike, staring at the roaring flames billowing from our home. I got off after her and let my bike fall to the ground, and we stood there frozen with wide eyes and dry throats. The entire street was packed with busy fire trucks and firemen, right on top of where we had scribbled with chalk earlier. Our neighbors watched from their lawns, porches, underneath the shade of trees. Their eyes fixed to the combustion as if it were a firework display.

Belinda and I were wary of fire because Mama used to say, “Fires ain’t gorgeous ‘less they in a fire pit. When they burn through memories and infrastructure, they’re reminders of a tendency to scar.” Mama’s childhood home had been reduced to ashes while she and her older brother slept at a relative’s house. It had happened three decades ago, yet the event lingered in the lullabies she sang to us at night.

“Maybe Daddy left the stove on,” I suggested. “He was cooking eggs this morning, wasn’t he?” Belinda’s voice was soft, barely coherent. I kept my eyes on the flames as I spoke.

“No… no, Daddy went to work. Mama was cooking eggs on the stove,” Belinda said.

“Oh. Then, where’s Mama?” I asked, mouth itchy from watching the smoke fly up into the setting sky. Our attention turned to Mama running out of the house, clutching our entire livelihoods in her arms. She ran into the arms of a fireman, who directed her to a paramedic. Belinda and I continued to watch closely as the flames licked the interior of the rickety place from top to bottom. As the smoke engulfed the sky like a twisted dragon.

•••

A month later, after weeks of house-hopping from Mrs. Cook, to Raymond Gibbons, then down 34th to Gianna Bailey, Mama finally got ahold of Shirley Yvonne Joy—an elderly woman living by herself near Sathmore Lake just outside of Kent County—my grandmother. Through the duration of that hot, sticky summer, we moved to her place out on the lake, into a summer home Belinda and I never knew. My grandmother, up until that moment, only existed in telephone wires—for all I knew she was a myth. I couldn’t picture her outside of the detached voice that yelled at Mama while she fried up potatoes and whiting. They exchanged petty words and sugar-coated laughs about my grades in school, Belinda’s absent-mindedness, Daddy’s tendency to lose jobs. I would listen for a few minutes, ear up against the thin wall to the kitchen, my head chock-full of fairytales and curiosity, but eventually Daddy would come home, make Mama hang up, and hog the phone the rest of the night.

The voice’s name was Ms. Joy, not grandma, not grandmother, and whenever I asked Mama about it, she’d simply say, “Have you met her before—no? Then she ain’t nothin’ to ya.” She was always occupied when I asked her. This last time she was filing her nails, and I decided to be more determined than usual.

“But she is your mother, ain’t she?” I proposed, my head cocked to the side. “If she’s your Mama, then that would make me, Belinda, and AJ her grandchildren, right?” Then, Mama popped me on the lips and cursed God for giving me a smart mouth.

•••

In the middle of July, we pulled up to Ms. Joy’s house in a pastel blue Volkswagen Beetle that Daddy won through a contest posted in the Sunday paper. The first thing he’d brag to everybody at family functions was that he won a Beetle from a sweepstake for his loving wife and three children. That was when I was six, Belinda was just shy of one, and AJ was fourteen. Anthony-James was now twenty-two and had moved out a long time ago, so Daddy changed up what he was telling people. Blue beetle for my loving wife and two children—the other one thinks he’s grown.

Long overdue for maintenance, the vehicle was overripe and ached in the summer, with a battered brake that made the car jerk. Mama was left driving us in ninety-degree heat for forty-five minutes because there was no air, at least nothing working to circulate it. My arms and thighs, glistening with sweat, stuck to the leather seats. Every time I slightly shifted in my seat, I felt my skin prying itself off the fake leather. Mama had packed cold lunches for us, on account of Mr. Leeroy’s generosity: honey ham sandwiches with mustard and American cheese. He’d worn a pitying face as we dragged our legs, heavier than grief, up and down the aisles of the store. He offered his condolences, as did everyone who had heard about the pile of ashes and smudges of soot that was our home. I didn’t understand at the time why they serenaded us with words of melancholy and mourning. It could be rebuilt, I kept thinking. With money and time, it would be rebuilt.

Mr. Leeroy’s deli sandwiches went soggy by the end of the trip, and Belinda and I slept the car ride away. The lunches were as good as wasted. When we arrived though, I ended up eating the mushy sandwich to subdue my hunger and to avoid Mama’s heavy hand. Belinda silently tucked hers inside of her bookbag with a grin.

“Y’all get outta this heat and take a good look,” Mama said, fluffing her black curls in the rearview mirror. Once she opened her car door and pulled the driver’s seat forward, I followed her out and stretched my legs. Belinda was right after me. We had pulled up on a small patch of gravel not too far from the house, with the lake on the opposite end. I took in the area with awe.

It wasn't as large or as lavish as I’d imagined it would be, but then again, I didn’t know what a house on a lake should look like. I had pictured something closer to a log cabin married to a vast body of water. It seemed more like a trifling divorce, a relationship like Mama and Daddy’s where they didn’t really love in the way a couple should. Greenery wrapped itself around the entire place. Thin vines stretched across the yellow house, starting from the front porch and finishing at the white, flat-tiled roof. An ocean of tall grass rippled in the sweltering breeze. Some weeds made the front yard their territory: dandelions, English daisies, white clovers, the weeds which Daddy called, must be gone. I always thought they made our home look a little bit nicer. On the outskirts of the lake, cattails and burr reed grew confident and firm. There were lilies, too, the pretty pink ones I saw in magazines and picture books. Ms. Joy’s place was whimsical.

Instead of greeting us from the porch, a figure peered out the blinds from inside the house and gestured to the front door. We carried our belongings in three compact suitcases and two school bags. Mama could only carry so much from the flames: her fear, dignity, a pocketbook with four twenty-dollar bills. As I approached the house, something like excitement grew in my stomach. The two-story dwelling appeared decrepit and somber as if the foliage were keeping it from slipping into obscurity. Its stairs groaned as we went up them. When she got to the door, Belinda rocked on her heels, humming. Her hair, which was twisted into clunky braids with green barrettes tacked on their ends, swung back and forth.

“Mama, when’s Daddy gonna come?” she said. I glanced over at Belinda and rolled my eyes. Mama’s remained focused on the front door.

“He’s stayin’ somewhere closer to work,” she responded sharply. Belinda halted in place and seemed to bite her tongue. Mama didn’t bat an eye in her direction. Instead, she clutched her bearings tightly at the sound of a key unlocking the door. With every clink and scrape of the key inside the lock, she held her belongings tighter. Then the door swung open.

A woman who I knew to be Ms. Joy stood before us, huffing and puffing dark clouds. She held a cigarette in her left hand, her right rested flat on her hip, which protruded to her right side. Her body was much rounder than Mama’s, but something was still frail about hers. Like she could disintegrate if you blew at her. It didn’t make sense because her face was lively and set in a deep brown complexion. Her hair, slicked back into a low bun, was a glossy silver. A few coiled strands stuck to her forehead. Her lips were pursed. Her bronze eyes squinted. She was wearing a pink floral pattern, bleach-blotted nightgown which hung low to her ankles. It was one o’clock in the afternoon.

“You didn’t say you’d be here this early,” she said, blowing a gray cloud into Mama’s direction. Her voice wasn’t as raspy as I expected, saturated with attitude and spice, and smoke constantly billowed from her nostrils and mouth. Mama didn’t flinch or raise her hand to swat the smoke away. Her eyes froze over, fastened to Ms. Joy’s. Something frigid in that moment cascaded onto the porch, leaving a heaviness about the air. It slowly crept down the nape of my neck to the base of my spine. I shuddered.

“I wanted to beat the traffic,” Mama replied matter-of-factly. We only took backroads to get to Ms. Joy, and backroads meant Mama could go over the speed limit. She continued with a weary groan, “Can we come inside?”

Ms. Joy took a deep puff of her cigarette before turning away from us. “Sure, why not?”

That entire time on the porch I had avoided long eye contact with Ms. Joy. Her eyes were stone-cold, and I was certain mine would freeze over. Inside, we took off our shoes, placing them in a neat row next to the front door, and sat on a couch that reeked of mothballs and cigarettes. Ms. Joy eyed us carefully while taking a seat in a loveseat across from us. She leaned back and smothered her cigarette in an ashtray on the arm of the chair, gazing over our tired expressions and sweaty bodies.

The curtains were drawn, which made the room cooler but gave the atmosphere a darkness as well. There were no plants inside Ms. Joy’s house. A hardwood floor sprinkled with dark spots covered the whole living room area. I could see the dining room just past the living room, and a few specks of light glimmered from the windows on that side. There was a white door with the paint chipping off, mimicking the house’s exterior, and the lilac wallpaper peeled from the walls. There were family portraits of people I didn’t know and paintings of places I’d never seen, but none of it came together completely in my head. Ms. Joy noticed me scrutinizing the room.

“Something bothering you, Belinda?” Her voice startled me. I was quick to correct her.

“It’s Abe. That’s Belinda.” I pointed to Belinda who was sitting next to me and continued, “My parents thought I was gonna be a boy.”

“Didn’t know that part. Always wondered why my daughter gave you such a name.” She laughed to herself as if no one else was in the room, crossing one leg over the other as she did so.

“Anyways, it’s nice to meet you, Ms. Joy,” I said. Her eyebrows perked up when I said her name. She leaned forward in her seat, trying to keep herself from laughing once more.

“Ms. Joy? Is that what she told you to call me?”

Mama interjected, “Well, the girls don’t know you that well. You ain’t been in their lives anyhow, so what else they s’posed to call you?”

Ms. Joy seemed pained but wiped her expression away with a smile. “Where’s that husband of yours? Is he gonna be joining the fray soon?” Ms. Joy was quick to bounce back with more and more questions.

Mama rubbed a finger into her temple. “His job is deep in the city, and he’s lookin’ to get promoted soon. He thought it would be ‘detrimental’ to his work if he had to come all the way down here. Now, Ms. Joy, can you please show the girls their room?”

•••

I followed Ms. Joy down a hallway with floors that whispered to us. Down the corridor were stairs to the second floor and three more doors I was certain to explore after I got settled. In the bedroom, there were two twin beds with a nightstand in between them and a large window that illuminated dust particles waltzing in the air. Belinda sneezed.

“Bless you, dear.”

“Thank ya, ma’am.” Belinda wiped her nose on her wrist and patted down her green pleated skirt. I walked farther into the room and sat down on a bed, claiming it as mine. Belinda thought it would be nice to sit right next to me. Belinda always knew how to vex the ever-living hell outta me.

“This is where y’all are stayin’. If you need anything at all, my bedroom is down the hall. You ain’t allowed upstairs so don’t even try it.” Ms. Joy paused, and although I was glued to the green carpet at the center of the room, I knew she was looking at me. “And if I find your tail up there, I’m telling your Mama. The kitchen is open, but I start dinner after six, so I better not see y’all in there ‘round that time. Till then, feel free to get whatever you want from the fridge. Y’all can go outside and go to the lake, but if ya drown it ain’t my fault. Are we clear?”

Belinda and I exchanged glances before echoing each other. “Yes, ma’am.”

Ms. Joy swiftly left us alone to unpack our things, which wasn’t much given the circumstances. When two o’clock came, I changed into a new pair of shorts and a t-shirt. Boredom weighed heavy on my shoulders after only ten minutes. I looked through my book bag to see what I had, but to my dismay, I didn’t have anything to entertain myself.

“Belinda, you got any games?”

“Belinda, you got any games?” she mocked. She was situated on the other bed since I pushed her out of mine, lying down on her back and staring up at the ceiling.

“I didn’t ask for attitude. You probably don’t have anything anyhow.”

“I got some crayons and a coloring book…but they’re mine! Mama didn’t save you nothing.” She stuck out her tongue at me.

“Shut up.” I was long past the age where I’d pick fights with Belinda. Verbal fights used to crescendo into curled fists and nasty insults, so when she annoyed me, I would close my eyes and think of a place I’d rather be. No, not the burnt-up house, or the blue Beetle, but somewhere far away from Ms. Joy’s or any place connected to it. “I wonder how Mama’s doing.”

“Wait a minute, I got a game.” Belinda suddenly sprung up from her bed and waddled over to mine. I was quick to groan.

“I don’t like where this is going.”

“What? I was just gonna say hide and seek. I hate being inside. It’s too sad.”

I sat up and looked at my sister. “Why’s it sad?”

She didn’t answer me. Instead, she stood up suddenly and ran out of the room, expecting me to follow her. I let out an annoyed groan before doing so, running out into the embrace of the floral overgrowth. Our skin gleamed in the lights peering through tiny pockets of leaves above us, as we beelined over dirt, engraving it with our footprints. We ran until we forgot everything about the home we once knew and the home we were coming to know. At one point, exhaustion overwhelmed me, and I cried.

During the last game of hide-and-seek, I snuck back into the house, heart and attention immediately fastened to the stairs, the same stairs Ms. Joy had warned us not to climb. Adrenaline coursed through me. Fear wasn’t a deterrent, at least not now. Something was pulling me towards the wooden steps, and Ms. Joy was nowhere near them. Maybe it was the light trickling down the staircase, a source of light in the dim house, but in that moment, upstairs was the perfect hiding spot. Belinda called for me, her voice leaking between the cracks and crevices of the walls, but I didn’t respond. I turned around to make sure no one else was nearby, then tiptoed up the steps. My nerves caught up to me and before I knew it, I was standing on the top step, looking into a hallway with an end window brimming with warmth and radiance.

It wasn’t the most decorated space. There was plain lemon wallpaper that adorned the walls and three doors. Two to my left and one to my right. Before I stepped farther into the enveloping area, the realization that I was somewhere I shouldn’t be violently sunk in. Trembling, I threw myself farther into the hallway, falling to my knees when I heard the front door open and Belinda say my name.

“Abe, I’m getting a drink! I’m tired.” Her footsteps disappeared into the house, and I heaved a sigh of relief. I turned to the door on my right, my heart ready to pry itself from my rib cage and burst out of my chest. Crawling across the wooden floor, warm from the blanketing light, I grabbed the rusted doorknob and twisted it. The door was locked. My body tensed up at the sound of the front door opening again, and to my surprise, it was Ms. Joy conversating with someone at the door.

They exchanged muffled greetings, before Ms. Joy said, “I left my checkbook in my room. I’ll fetch it to cover the expenses for repairs, Mr. Edwin, just stay right there.” Her footsteps and voice echoed from the bottom of the steps.

I tugged at the door again, and though I had been certain it was locked, I could feel its handle grinding against the tension. I continued twisting as her footsteps turned into a climactic symphony. In a final effort, I stood up and pressed my fourteen-year-old body against the door while my hand twisted against the doorknob. It opened. I collapsed inside the room, hiding in the closest and most unfortunate thing I could find—a hamper. I put every article of clothing I could find across my body, hoping that the clothes were clean. They weren’t. As she grew nearer, I began to pray that Ms. Joy didn’t believe in capital punishment, and somehow out of the three rooms huddled together upstairs, her heavy feet never entered the room. After some time passed, I could finally hear Ms. Joy retreating down the steps.

“Found it, Mr. Edwin, right on my nightstand like you said,” she cackled. Once they were locked in conversation again, I tore the clothes away from me. My nose felt violated, but I could finally take in the room I was in, and at first glance, it was rather small. There was a single window at the back end of the room, looking out the side of the house. A pink bed was at the room’s center, and a large book was sitting on top of it. Portraits of a small family lined the walls, people I didn’t recognize. There was a closet just ahead of me, open and overflowing with clothing too small to fit me or Belinda by the looks of it. I walked to the book on the bed, which had a scratched-out title and a latch on it. I flipped the latch and turned to the first page.

“Chapter One, Odyssey. Odd-dee-see is how they say it in school, or is it odd-di-see?” I murmured to myself. I wanted to read it right then and there, but I remembered where I was. I took the dusty book in my hands and left out the open door. Ms. Joy was nowhere to be found at the bottom of the steps. I smiled, making my way down the steps, and stopped at the room Belinda and I were staying in. Placing the book underneath my bed, I opened the bedroom window and hopped outside, closing it after myself. I reentered through the front door like I was never inside to begin with, announcing to my sister, “I won! Goodness Belinda, you ain’t never been this bad at hide and seek before!”

•••

The next week was spent outside going knee-deep in the lake, seeking refuge in the vast shade of trees, and taking timeouts to drink water from a rusted fountain. We barely talked to or saw Ms. Joy, and she didn’t leave the house unless it was to smoke and read in peace, far from the laughter of her grandchildren and the coldness of her daughter. Occasionally, someone from town would stop by to deliver ham, milk, cheese, anything we could think of that went in the fridge. I quickly came to realize that Ms. Joy, besides the outside help she’d get from time to time, was self-sufficient. It was pure rocket science to me how she maintained a place like this for so long.

Dinners were sometimes flooded in dreary silence, but Ms. Joy’s food warmed our palates and reminded us of something comfortable. It was the only time we came together, since Mama worked during the day. We ate on a splintering dining table that wobbled like it was on its last legs, returning simple answers to Ms. Joy’s somewhat straightforward questions each night.

“So, you’re in third grade now? Must be smart,” she said, mouth full of rice and beans as she talked.

Belinda looked to Mama, seeking a silent affirmation she could speak. “Yes ma’am, my teacher said I could go up a grade and Mama said it was okay to.”

“Interesting.” She paused, moving on to me. “And what about you, Abe?”

I let out an audible, drawn-out sigh, trying to keep my composure and not let my attitude slip through my teeth.

“I’m in middle school, ma’am. Do you need to know my grade?” I was close to rolling my eyes before Mama pinched my leg under the table. “I’m in eighth grade, Ms. Joy.”

“I see. Two smart black girls in the family? Must run in our blood.” Her lips formed into a thin smile, a pitying kind of smile. “Sherie, where do you work now?” Ms. Joy’s smile remained thin. Her hands shook with every morsel of food she took up with her fork.

Mama took a spoonful of rice and ate it before saying anything. Then without looking at her mother, she said, “If you recall, I’m still working at the fabric shop. Long hours, arduous work, you wouldn’t know anything about that would you, Ms. Joy?” Mama looked around the dining room, at its walls and portraits, at a withered plant in the corner, and suppressed a chuckle. Her face twisted into a grimace.

Ms. Joy nodded, in the long-winded, gradual fashion that indicated she was processing all the words Mama just said to her. “You’re not the same bright-eyed, ambitious girl anymore, and you’re not as happy as I remembered you.”

“Happy, Ms. Joy? I wonder why I’m not happy. Maybe it’s the fire that destroyed everything we’ve ever owned and made for ourselves. Maybe it’s the job I have to work extra shifts for just to sleep easy and keep the girls out the streets. Maybe it’s because of your—!” As if she caught herself in the moment, Mama stopped mid-sentence. Ms. Joy’s words were enough to spark dynamite in my mother, a fiery explosion I’d never seen before.

“That’s a lot to narrow down, dear. Can’t say I understand why you’re throwing me into the mix. I ain’t the cause of your happiness, or lack thereof, Sherie.” Ms. Joy’s snide words fell onto the table.

Mama gripped her fork to the point I was certain her knuckles would pop through her skin and laughed under her breath. “You a goddamn lie.”

At that moment, somebody dropped a fork. Its body clattered against the hardwood floor until coming to a sudden stop. I didn’t realize I was the one who dropped it or that my mouth was slightly parted. Ms. Joy glanced at the silverware’s new resting place under the table and sighed. Her eyes were glistening, smile fading into the background of silence.

•••

Mama worked longer hours as the summer continued, waking up in the blinding gleam of morning, returning in the glow of night. Not even Mama attempted to reignite a relationship. Despite everything, we were nothing more than strangers to Ms. Joy.

In the days that passed, I completely forgot about the book hidden under my bed. During a particularly humid day, Ms. Joy prepared some watermelon in the kitchen. Belinda was taking a bath, so I felt safe enough to finally scrutinize the book’s contents. After the first page, “Odyssey,” there was a photograph of a young woman and man holding each other’s hands, with two children just in front of them. Each person was labeled with a smudged pen. I read them as quiet as I could to myself. “Me, Lawson, Raymond, and little…Sherie?” I racked my brain for a moment, and then everything clicked. The young woman with plump cheeks and thin lips, she had to be Ms. Joy. The boy with socks up to his knees had to be our Uncle Raymond who passed away before I was born, and Sherie, the girl with large, twisted braids and barrettes like Belinda, was Mama. I had never heard of Lawson, so I assumed he was Ms. Joy’s husband. They stood in front of a ruined property, singed and burned to oblivion. The photo was in black and white; however, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off in the blurred black background. It was strange how the family stood in front of what appeared to be irreversible damage, smiles plastered across their faces.

The next page was a different title reading, “Home,” and depicted Ms. Joy, in a long overcoat and skirt standing next to two older, unfamiliar faces. I ran my fingers over their darkened expressions and continued. The rest of the photos did not show Mama, Uncle Raymond, or Lawson, just the new faces I didn’t know and couldn’t fit into the family I saw previously. The final page was the most intriguing—it was titled, “Apologies,” and the photo was simple. There were three piles of baby clothes and shoes, marked with initials, “A,” “B,” and “AJ,” sprawled out across a table. This page was heavier than the previous ones, and on the other side, I found even more strange things: a bill of some kind folded up into a small square, and a heart shaped locket with an “S” engraved on the inside. My first instinct was to take the locket—so I did and shoved it deep into my pocket. I tried to take the bill, but it was taped to the page and I couldn’t pry it out. I wasn’t a thief by any means, and Mama and Daddy always told me that stealing could mean eternal damnation, but in my head, I was one step closer to figuring out Ms. Joy. Closer than ever to piecing together what happened between Ms. Joy and—

“So, where the hell did you get that from?”

I jolted upright and turned to face my grandmother, with both hands on her hips and a vicious frown. She definitely resembled the woman in the picture. Belinda stood behind her, peeking into the room and smirking at me.

“Sorry, ma’am? I don’t know what you mean,” I said, trying to act as innocent as possible. She made her way towards me, snatching the book from my grasp. She flipped through it, most likely searching for any damage caused by my clumsy and shaky hands. Slamming the book shut, she somehow never turned to the final page.

“I knew somethin’ wasn’t right. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice the door wide open? Or hear your goddamn feet?”

I continued to play dumb, dumber than a horse eating bricks. “Ma’am, I have no idea what you’re talking about. You told us not to go upstairs, so why would I break the rules?”

A grin befell her face. “I never mentioned the door was upstairs, sweetie.” She shoved the book towards me, nostrils flared. If I looked at her, I was sure I would turn into stone. I continued to shake my head side to side, a lump nestling in my throat. “Fine then, you ain’t got to tell me the truth ‘cause I already know it. I’ll be telling your mama the moment she gets home. I am far too old to be whupping bad black tail.”

With that, she left the room, book in hand. The locket grew colder in the pocket of my shorts as she disappeared. Belinda was on the verge of laughing, approaching my bed with a slight giggle. “Ooo, you gonna get in trouble!”

•••

“Little girl, you did what?” Mama had pulled me aside to the guest room she was staying in, hair wet and twisted in tight curlers, bathrobe wound around herself. I was sitting on the bed, arms crossed. Ms. Joy told her the moment she walked through the door, and from what I overheard, Mama wanted to get “settled” first before coming to talk to me, which could only mean I was in hot water.

“I went upstairs to play hide and seek a few weeks ago. That’s all I did Mama, really.”

“Then, what’s all this talk about you stealing a book, Abe? Why’d you take something that ain’t yours?” She waited for an answer, and when I didn’t give her one, she firmly cupped my face with her hands and got real close. “You better answer me when I ask you a question, Abe. Why’d you steal?”

I looked away from Mama before starting. “Because I hate how tense it feels between you and Ms. Joy, and I wanted to see if maybe she was hiding something. I mean, why else would she tell us to not go upstairs, Mama?”

“Abe—this ain’t your house, baby girl. You have to listen to the rules. Ms. Joy is giving us a place to eat and sleep until we get our house sorted out, so you cannot play your detective games and try to piece together something that ain’t there. Am I clear, Abe?” She let go of my face and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Yes, Mama. I’m sorry for stealing and going upstairs, I was wrong.”

“I ain’t the one you gotta apologize to,” Mama said, moving across the room to the dresser. I turned to her, my mouth slightly parted.

“But Mama—”

“No buts. Go,” she said, moving to the other side of the room and fishing in her purse. I got up to leave the room, nearly sucking my teeth, then reminded myself that I didn’t want to get a whupping on top of a lecture. Just as I stepped foot into the hallway, I pivoted back to Mama, taking out the locket from my shorts.

“Mama, I’ll leave you alone, but can you at least tell me what this is?” I held out the sapphire heart towards her. She squinted at what I had in my hand, walking very slowly to me. I had never seen Mama so captivated before but at the same time terrified. She took up the locket, studying it for a moment before her eyebrows perked up towards her hairline and fell back down into a puzzled look.

“This is from the fire…my fire, where we lost everything. Where’d you find this?”

“Just found it. Ask Ms. Joy,” I said, leaving the room without exchanging another word with her. Her face was as if she saw a ghost, the palest expression I had ever seen in a black woman’s face before.

 •••

The situation that changed it all came later when July bestowed one of its worst heat waves upon us. Several weeks had passed since the dinner, and subsequent dinners that followed the first all ended with the same abrupt comments and awkward silence either from Ms. Joy or Mama. The atmosphere stung with soft animosity. I spent more time by the water, but around this time, Ms. Joy had come up with a new rule for us to follow: If Belinda and I wanted to go in the lake, she had to be outside to supervise us. This was the first time outside of dinner and snarky remarks that she wanted to be with us, even if it was in the most roundabout way.

“Probably ‘cause we can’t swim,” I said to Belinda as I threw on a large t-shirt and shorts over top my bathing suit. Belinda spun around immediately in the bedroom and pinched me.

“We—We? Speak for yourself, I learned at the YMCA!” she exclaimed, placing her hands on her hips proudly. I rolled my eyes.

“You can barely swim, stupid. If I threw you into the water, you’d drown.”

We marched out to the lake and found Ms. Joy lounging back in a beach chair situated underneath an oak tree. She had a magazine in her lap and was smoking a cigarette, which she quickly smothered when Belinda and I disturbed her peace. She waved her hand in the air as she spoke.

“Y’all go on ahead, I’m not taking a dip. Y’all don’t wanna see all that,” she said, voice slipping into a chuckle as we walked past her. I straggled behind Belinda on purpose, then plopped right next to Ms. Joy and her imposing energy. Ms. Joy scoffed. “Why ain’t you in the water?”

Belinda waded out farther and farther until she was waist deep. I pulled my legs to my chest and held them there to prevent my heart from squeezing through my rib cage.

“‘Cause I don’t wanna right now.” I looked up at her, meeting her eyes, staying there for a long time. Hers left first, going to the leaves above, then back to me to see if I was still searching. I was. She pulled down the shades that were positioned on her forehead, craning her neck upwards to the leaves again. I pulled my sight away. Belinda treaded farther into the cooling water. I wanted to get in, but curiosity tugged at my brain. “I wanted to apologize for stealing your book. It was wrong of me, and I shouldn’t have gone upstairs either. I should be more grateful for all the stuff you’re doing for us, so…”

“I accept your apology, dearie. No need to be so sappy. Is there anything else you want to ask me?”

I thought for a moment, then a question passed through my brain like lightning: “What’s up with you and Mama? Do y’all hate each other or something?”

This question stirred her. She sat up; some gray curls moved from her face as she did and she cracked her neck to the side. “You ask lotta questions, dear.”

“Mama says that, too.”

Silence followed. A moment of delay and pain resurfaced in her face. I wonder now if she was drowning in guilt or regret.

“I don’t hate your Mama, but she hates me and got every right to.” She hesitated, continuing awkwardly, “This is the first time for her, too.” She paused again and looked up as if to grasp at the right words. “The first time she’s seeing me face to face in about thirty years.”

I turned to Ms. Joy, with breath in my lungs in preparation to speak, then nothing at all. I exhaled. The gust escaped, and my attention returned to Belinda. She was further in, head bobbing up and down beneath the surface of the water. When did she get out that far? I squinted, seeing her arms gliding across the water, then in a frantic motion, shooting up towards the air. I stood, worry puncturing through my heart. I tried to muster her name. It was easy, so why couldn’t I do it? Belinda, that’s all I had to say. Like the time she tipped over a pot of hot oil, and the time she fell down concrete steps, I had to say her name to draw her attention to me. Instead, another name came running out of my mouth.

“Ms. Joy...I think she’s drowning.”

“What you mean?”

“She ain’t moving right, Ms. Joy. My—My sister is drowning!” My voice peaked sharply, turning panicked and pained.

Mrs. Joy remained seated, a slight frown etching across her face. “Why don’t you go after her then?”

“I-I can’t,” I stammered quickly. “I can barely float, ma’am.” Belinda’s head continued dipping under the water’s surface, remaining above it for brief seconds before plummeting back down. Her struggle was silent, no screams, nothing but her thrashing motions and the wind making its way across the lake.

“Call me grandma, and I’ll grab your sister,” she said.

I took a step back from her. I couldn’t tell if she was being serious or not. Ms. Joy after all had a strange sense of humor. I turned to her crying out, “Ms. Joy, please go get her. She’s barely above water!”

“I said call me grandma, and I’ll fetch her. I ain’t Ms. Joy to you and never have been.” She stood up from her seat, walking to the edge of the water. Why now, of all times, did she have to be like this?

“Ms. Joy, if this is a joke, it ain’t funny.” I tried to be firm with a wavering voice.

“Grandma. Not Ms. Joy,” she reiterated once more. Belinda’s head slipped underneath the water. My heart sank straight to my feet. I didn’t have time to think about her request, and for my sister’s sake, I had no time to fight what she was asking.

“Grandma—please.” As if I had commanded her, she leaped into the lake, swimming and recovering Belinda’s sunken body. I dropped to my knees, unable to say or do anything, feeling utterly helpless. Ms. Joy had been in the water for less than a minute, but it felt like weeks had passed and I was already preparing for a funeral. Maybe I understood where Mama’s hatred lay with Ms. Joy.

Belinda was limp in her arms, chest resting still. I watched as Ms. Joy placed her flat on the ground and started pumping her chest with both her bony hands.

“Is she gonna be okay?” I finally managed to say.

There wasn’t a reply, at least not over the pounding rhythms of my heart. After a few excruciating moments, there was a sound of life. Belinda coughed and gagged, spitting out much of the lake water that had been inside of her onto the ground. Ms. Joy heaved a sigh of relief.

•••

July was coming to an end and I still didn’t understand her. No one told Mama about what happened, but Belinda was shaken to her core. Ms. Joy’s words after all had been loud and clear to me. “You can’t tell your Mama about what happened. She wouldn’t understand. If you do, I just might ring your neck, Abe.” So, I didn’t tell, because I believed her. I believed her, with every single syllable.

A current had formed in the lake, and instead of trying to float on her back, Belinda panicked and went under. The farthest she had been since that incident was where the water just met the solid ground. Belinda still thought it was pretty. Ms. Joy didn’t need to supervise us anymore since we seemingly had no intentions to greet the lake as openly as we did. I thought about her words about Mama and her insistence on calling her grandma, curiosity and restlessness swelling within me. Mama hated when I asked her questions, but I had to know. That night, I crawled into my mother’s bed like I was a child woken up from a nightmare, sneaking on my tippy toes to not disturb the sleeping house. She didn’t flinch at all and enveloped me in a tight embrace.

“Abe, you haven’t done this in a while. Scared, baby?” she said, voice dragging as her drowsy brain tried to catch up with the words tumbling from her mouth.

“No, Mama.”

“Then what gives?”

I didn’t say anything at first and felt like I couldn’t. My chest was tight and my head heavy with thoughts. I started slowly, still organizing everything I wanted to say, “I…I just don’t understand you and Ms. Joy. I really don’t. It’s been bothering me.”

“Why, Abe? Is she not what you thought she was gonna be?”

“Well, yes and no. She’s less grandma and more…stranger.”

“I see.” Mama sat up in the bed and turned on the lamp next to her. The room was flooded in a faint radiance. When I placed my head in her lap, she ran her fingers through my hair, mumbling to herself, “Why don’t this girl have her bonnet on? Coulda sworn I packed it.”

“Do you hate Ms. Joy?”

My question stopped Mama in her tracks. She exhaled through her nostrils, hand halting on my scalp. “No, I don’t hate Ms. Joy. I’m just learning to accept her, even for the missteps and mistakes.”

“Mistakes like what?”

“Mistakes like…” She thought for a moment before continuing, “throwing a cigarette into a waste bin and catching the house on fire. Like missing every recital I had ‘cause she was too tired from work. Like…leaving to escape abuse, but by doing so, leaving me and your Uncle Raymond to deal with it, then never contacting me until I turned twenty. She slipped me a check to go to a good college, but I rejected it, to prove I didn’t need her.”

“And did you ever need her?” I asked.

She shifted uneasily and patted my head. “Not all the time, but sometimes I did. This place was a summer home we would visit when I was your age. It hurts,” she said, hand stopping again, “that she vanished to a place like this, where the memories are locked away in the floorboards.” Mama tilted her head down at me, smiling fondly before looking around at the room. “Sometimes I think she’s trying to recreate history. After all, she’s stuck in a place she’d rather forget.”

“So—you don’t hate Ms. Joy?”

Mama laughed weakly, reaching over to the locket on the nightstand next to the bed. She admired it, then gripped it in her hands. “Girl, you sure do ask a lot of questions.”

“Yeah, Ms. Joy says that, too.”

That night I slept by my Mama’s side, curled up and hot, but none of that bothered me. I wasn’t fully content, and years later I would revisit the house, and its tendency to linger prominently in my memories, with many unanswered questions. My fingers would brush against the peeling wallpaper and broken picture frames, as I thought about the enigma. Sometimes I’d put my ear up to the wall just to hear its ghostly recollection.

***

July ended abruptly after what happened. Dinners were still uncanny and silent, but the small talk carried us through. Belinda was completely unaware that Ms. Joy almost didn’t save her, and it wasn’t something I told her until we both had lives of our own. When I did, she shrugged at me. “So?” she ended up saying, mouth full of burger at the time. “I survived, didn’t I?”

 She continued to offer Ms. Joy smiles and innocence without a single care in the world. Although dinners remained relatively the same, there was a shift elsewhere. Two voices talked amongst each other late at night, upon Mama’s arrival home. She would say something, and a voice entangled with cigarettes would respond. It didn’t seem like they hated each other at all but felt like a bittersweet reunion.

“You work too much,” I heard Ms. Joy say as I listened from the hallway.

Mama chuckled through her nose. “I’ll be fine. My friend found something cheap thirty minutes out from our old house. Should be ready the first weekend of August. I thought I was working to save that damn place, and so was my husband, but I’ll let ruin be ruin.”

“Hope you’ll still visit, though. Belinda and Abe have been a treat to have around, and I wouldn’t want you to disappear on me like I did you.”

My chest felt heavy with those words. Mama didn’t have a single clue about what Ms. Joy did to me or Belinda. Part of me wished I had never given her the locket in the first place. I inched away, but I could hear Mama’s voice, echoing faintly through the halls.

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

The next days after that came and went, and I remained cautious of my grandmother and her mysteries. There was more within her I wanted to unlock.

August came, and there we were standing next to the blue Beetle, packing up the little we had to go with us, in three compact suitcases and two bookbags. We loaded up as Ms. Joy watched us from the porch smoking a cigarette. She clearly wasn’t one for greetings or goodbyes. Unspoken words hung all about the air, scattered about the house. I took a deep breath, worried about forgetting. I wouldn’t.

As we filed into the car, Belinda suddenly darted off to Ms. Joy, but she stopped in her tracks, as if she were confused with what she was doing. When she sprinted back, practically throwing herself into the backseat, I simply turned to Ms. Joy and her house.

Loud enough for everyone to hear, something compelling me to say one last thing to her before we left, I said with fearful confidence, “Bye, grandma!”

Waving obnoxiously, I followed my sister into the backseat. I don’t know what compelled me at that moment to call her grandma. She never fulfilled what I thought a grandmother should be. However, in that moment, an itching thing tickled my throat, and I said what first came to my mind. There was an expression on Ms. Joy’s face I hadn’t seen her make before. Her mouth had drooped, and her lips curled into themselves before forming a smile. She returned the gesture, waving just as I had done before, and stood in place, taking a puff of her cigarette before snuffing it in the dirt beneath her foot, engraving herself in a slew of summer memories I was too confused and afraid to forget.