Page 77 of Stronger Than Blood
Finally, all I could see was a circular cloud whirling around him, slowly causing him to spin with them. Then, like those tornados you see online that for whatever reason lift up and disappear into the sky, he twirled around the corner of the room rising higher and higher until I heard a gush of air. Just like that, he was gone along with the rest of my family.
The first thing I noticed was an intense feeling of peace that surrounded us. I realized it was the first time in my memory that the house had felt free; nothing lurking in dark corners, nothing wanting to attack and kill me.
“He’s gone… He’s really gone,” I said.
“They all are,” Kalinda said and ran her hand up and down my back in a comforting way.
When I turned toward Rory, my tears were once again returning, and I welcomed his strong arms as he drew me into his embrace.
We sat around Granny Ida’s bed as we waited for the mortician to pick her up and take her to the funeral home. Then, having cried all the tears I had left to cry, I made the necessary phone calls. Brenda and Joann, because I knew they’d know how to let the rest of our community know they’d lost one of their most cherished matriarchs.
After the funeral home had taken Granny Ida, we sat around the living room while our sadness mixed with the relief that the entity had been taken with her.
Right before we all turned in for the night I remembered Granny had whispered something to Kalinda before she’d passed. “Kalinda, what did Granny say to you before she left?”
“Aah.” She smiled over at me. “It was something my own grandmother once said to me. ‘Love is stronger than blood.’”
I must have appeared perplexed because she began to explain, “I’d told Ida about Dupris’s transition and how that’d been difficult for her mother. Before Dupris was born, my grandmother prophesied of Dupris’s birth. She knew that one day my nephew would become my niece, although it was never that clear until she was born. My grandmother had predicted that the legacy of our family’s gift would move down to Dupris after she transitioned, and that the rest of the family would reject her.”
Kalinda looked at me then. “The prediction was confirmation that I would be right in choosing my love for my niece over the conventions of our other blood relations.”
I nodded, realizing now why Granny had said that to her and not me. Kalinda surprised me then when she added, “Mick, today when all your relatives came together to remove Prestonfrom this home, they didn’t do so because they were your relations, they did so because they loved you.
“It’s their love that made his defeat possible, do you understand that?” she asked.
A tear slipped out of my right eye and landed on the back of my hand. “Yeah, love is stronger than blood, and that goes with how I feel about you and Rory now too. I love you like family, and it doesn’t matter if we’re related by blood; it only matters that we are linked by our connection to one another.”
Kalinda smiled and came over, kneeling in front of me and taking my hand. She turned to Rory who came over and knelt next to her. When he took both of our hands, she continued, “That’s the message your Granny Ida left for all of us, but also for herself. It was as important that she knew she was leaving you with people who loved you.”
I sighed and hope overshadowed my sadness as I looked at Kalinda and Rory. “Thank you, Kalinda, and you too Rory,” I said and smiled at the two people who were still supporting me through this really hard day. “You are my family, and… and I’ll always be grateful that you are.”
***
The week after the funeral, home health services collected the bed, along with all the necessary items to keep Granny Ida at home. Then Kalinda and Rory helped put the dining room furniture back the way it’d been before we’d turned it into a makeshift bedroom.
“She’d want it that way,” I’d told Kalinda when the bed had been moved. “She would hate thinking we left it empty just because she was no longer using it.”
Kalinda smiled and nodded. There wasn’t anything to say because she and Rory knew her as well as anyone. You couldn’tlive with someone as powerful as Granny Ida for almost a year without getting to know her.
When Jonah, Granny’s attorney, went over the will with me, there were no surprises. She’d given me everything. I already owned the house. She’d had me sign the deed shortly after coming out of the nursing home.
I’d inherited Uncle Eddie’s building and the money we’d made from the sale of his hooch, although most of that was tied up in the now very successful moonshine distillery, and yeah, I know that’s not what it’s called, but it’s what I always thought of it as.
Granny had wanted Joann to have most of my grandmother’s belongings. Of course, I was more than okay with that. I hadn’t really been told, but Joann and my grandmother were raised like twins, being first cousins.
When Joann came over to go through her belongings and carry them away, she’d cried as she shared stories of their childhood, and then we laughed as she told us about the shenanigans the two wild young women had gotten into.
Granny had promised Brenda an old cast-iron skillet, which I hadn’t even known existed until Brenda came over and found it in the back of the cabinet under the stove. Apparently, it had belonged to my great-grandfather’s grandmother. I couldn’t even grasp how far back that was. There was also a rolling pin that had hung on the wall in the dining room, next to the china hutch, which she wanted Brenda to have. That had belonged to one of the female ancestors far back in our history as well.
I was so glad the two cousins had been given things from Granny’s and their lives.
Once all was said and done, I sat on the front porch swing, watching the traffic, not thinking about anything in particular. I’d taken several days off, and Essie had told me Arden was doing a wonderful job filling my shoes.
Dupris had been right about him. Just as she’d been right about the feather and letting Granny Ida go when I did. Somehow, I knew my willingness to set her free, without trying to hold onto her, was what had given her the power to take that son of a bitch out of my life forever.
Thank God for that. I felt so guilty over the other decision I’d made, though. As much as I loved Granny Ida and the life she’d given me, I no longer wanted to live in her house. Yes, he was gone, but it would always be where my nightmares had started.
As much as I felt Granny Ida there, I also felt the negative. The murderer, my grandmother’s death, and even my mom’s numerous bad choices.
