Page 61 of Can't Get Enough

Girl, I know that’s right,” Aunt Geneva says, her voice booming all over the house.

Is there a certain age when talking on speaker phone is the default? Because every call my mother and Aunt Geneva take seems to require them to use speaker so the whole house is subjected to both sides of their conversation.

“Goodness gracious!” her friend cackles loudly from the other end. “I might have to run around the church on that one.”

“God is good,” Aunt Geneva says.

“All the time,” her friend replies.

“And all the time,” Aunt Geneva says.

“God is good,” they finish together.

Though I’m not in church regularly anymore, it’s a call-and-response script so familiar and somehow comforting, that I’m smiling as I review my schedule for the day on my iPad.

“All right, Hen,” Aunt Geneva says, walking into the kitchen wearing leggings and a long T-shirt declaringVirginia Beach Is for Lovers. “I’m gonna head out to the store. Pick up some fish for dinner. You sure you’ll be all right till I come back?”

“Aunt G, she’s my mother,” I say. “We’ll be fine long enough for you to run to the store.”

“Yeah, but a lot has changed. Make sure the locks are done up while you’re on your calls. You know the code. Even with the doors locked,just to be safe, don’t leave your keys out. Once the code wasn’t set and she got out. Tried to drive. Got all the way to South Carolina.”

“When? You didn’t tell me that.” I hear the accusation in my own voice and regret it immediately.

“Hendrix, now listen. I know you gotta be in Atlanta and your mama refuses to leave this house, so this is where we are for now.” Aunt Geneva bends one of those looks on me that, when I was a kid, seemed to see down to my very soul. Still does. “But I can’t waste time and energy I need to deal with all this making sure you know everything all the time.”

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just hard not being here.”

“And it’s hardbeinghere. Baby, it’s just hard.”

This constant state of vigilance is a lot for my aunt, and not for the first time, I wonder how sustainable this setup is, how long before we have to change things. Change is rarely easy. Now for Mama, it can be her worst nightmare, which also makes it mine.

“It’s gon’ be all right, though, Hen. God got us,” Aunt Geneva says with the ease of someone whose faith stands strong like the Rock of Gibraltar. She rifles through her purse. “You seen my keys?”

“I saw ’em on the bathroom sink,” Mama says from the kitchen doorway. “You going somewhere?”

How long has she been standing there and what did she hear?

“Just to make grocery,” Aunt Geneva says evenly, as if we weren’t just discussing Mama before she appeared. “I’ll be back. You need anything?”

“Salt-and-vinegar potato chips,” Mama replies and takes a seat at the kitchen table beside me.

“Now you know that ain’t good for you,” Aunt Geneva says. “How about some rice cakes?”

“Soon I won’t even know who I am,” Mama snaps with a rare flash of bitterness. “At least let me eat these potato chips while I still remember that I like them.”

It’s quiet in the small kitchen, save the whir of the refrigerator motor.My aunt seems at a loss for words, and I certainly don’t know what to say to that.

“I’mma pick up some of that kiwi you like,” Aunt Geneva replies after a few seconds. “Lemme go grab these keys so I can come back and make dinner.”

She exits the kitchen, leaving Mama and me alone. I arrived last night and in some ways, it feels like we don’t know each other well anymore. Of course, so much is changing for her and for me, too, but it seems more fundamental than that. Like we’re strangers who’ve been told we’re to act like family. We’ve never had trouble finding things to talk and laugh about, but this new reality is proving even more complex than I’d anticipated.

I peer through the kitchen window to the badly neglected garden, which used to be Mama’s pride and joy. Maybe getting back out there would give her something to focus on.

“What do you say we get out in the garden, Mama?” I turn to her with a smile. “Plant some of your favorite flowers. That might be fun.”

“Sounds like work,” Mama grumbles. “And it’s hot. Like I want to get out in the fucking garden in July and work on some damn flowers.”

Shock ripples over me. My mother never curses. I’ve never held back who I really am. I told her I lost my virginity in tenth grade and have not looked back. She knows that I pretty much only attend church when I come home for Christmas. Out of respect, I’ve never, as she would put it, “laid up with some man” in her house, and I check my expletives at the door. So to hear those words from her completely throws me off.

---