What Lies Beyond the Veil(Of Flesh & Bone #1)(10)

“Seven pennies?” I ask, curious. I reach into the small pocket of my shorts, where I got more money than that hidden, cause I found a dime earlier by the pond.

“Yeah, he only made pennies,” Granddaddy says, then folds his hands, slow, into his lap.

Before we came to Lansing, I heard Momma call Granddaddy a penny pincher. And when I asked her what it meant, she said that he ain’t ever gon’ give nothin’ away for cheap. I wonder if that’s why Momma thinks he’s so stingy with money, cause his granddaddy worked so hard for only seven pennies. Or cause when he finally made his own money, it got took by that mean white man. I wanna ask, but then Granddaddy turns the volume up and the sounds of Wheel of Fortune fill the room.

I stand to go back outside. I came in to ask Granddaddy if I could call Momma, but it don’t seem like a good time no more. And what I really wanna ask now is if I can still play with them white kids, since I got this dime in my pocket; plus, things ain’t even like that no more. But Granddaddy seems sad now, so I don’t ask.

“Can I play outside?” I ask instead.

“Stay away from around that house,” Granddaddy grumbles without looking my way.

I nod, even though Granddaddy don’t see me. I can’t tell if he’s lost in Wheel of Fortune or lost back on that sidewalk with his friends. Either way, he don’t move when I leave, not even a flinch when I let the door slam shut behind me.



* * *





Back outside, I find a spot in the middle of the grass out front and sit down with my legs crossed and my list unfolded in my hands. I think bout what I would’ve said if I had called Momma. I was probably gon’ tell her that I know why she had to leave us here and it’s okay. But then I remember her sad frown as she backed out the driveway. That same sad frown that I been looking at since the night Daddy died. I get that Momma is sad, but her sad is so big that it takes away from other people. Sometimes it feels like Momma’s grief for Daddy keeps me from having my own grief for Daddy. I bet it’s hard to lose a husband, but it’s hard to lose a daddy, too. I guess she don’t get that, though, cause her daddy been right here this whole time, and she barely even sees him.

I squint my eyes as the sun shifts higher in the sky. On second thought, maybe it’s good for me and Momma to have this time apart. Maybe it’s good I ain’t call.

I fold the list into a tight square that fits in my pocket, then lay out in the middle of the green grass, not quite happy or sad. I count the long, skinny blades poking between my bare toes. By seven, I’m bored. I flip over and pretend I’m a swimmer in a deep, olive ocean. Then flip on my back and look at the sky. Ain’t no clouds in all that blue. I close my eyes and listen to nothin’.

Then, the nothin’ is replaced by the rattle of a too-loud car on the road. I recognize the sound immediately, cause one time the muffler in Momma’s car went bad and when we drove past a school, a little white boy at the corner yelled at Momma, “Turn that car down now!” Nia and me both laughed and laughed, but Momma ain’t smile not once.

The loud muffler is right in front of Granddaddy’s house now, pulling into his long driveway. I hoped for a second it would be Momma, sorry for leaving and ready to take us back home, but the loud muffler’s roaring from inside a beat-up truck that might be even worse than Momma’s old car, cause this truck is smoking and coughing and roaring up a storm. Just when I think it might explode, the engine stops and the nothin’ fills my ears again. But now I am too curious to go back to nothin’.

Eighty-six steps til I’m standing at the passenger-side door. The truck’s red, but the kind of red that ain’t really red no more cause it’s so peeled and chipped. I stand on my tiptoes. Inside, there are crumpled paper bags on the seat and a Bible with a bent front cover on the floor. The cup holder ain’t holding no cups cause it’s too busy with coins and candies and a foil-wrapped sandwich that’s got a big bite taken out of it. In the driver’s seat is a man with the darkest skin I’ve ever seen. He sees me staring and smiles. I run, fast, to Granddaddy’s porch, but before I get there, Granddaddy is coming out, looking straight at the truck in the driveway. The man is gettin’ out now with the bent Bible in one hand and the bit sandwich in the other, smiling with teeth so white they glow like Chiclets next to his jet-black skin. Even funnier is the way he walks, like he has a leg made of wood. He hobbles over to the porch slow, while Granddaddy waits and I am frozen.

“Well, hiya there,” he says, tipping the hat from his head to reveal thin patches of hair speckled with gray. I think he might be tipping the hat for me, cause he smiles like I should know what to do next. But I just stand there.

“My name is Charlie,” he continues, “and you must be Kenyatta.” I frown at Granddaddy, who barely talks but somehow gave this stranger my name. I scoot closer to Granddaddy, even though he’s really a stranger, too, wondering what he told this man bout me.

I nod instead of answering, and that seems to be okay with Charlie, who faces Granddaddy and adds, “Looks just like her.” I guess he’s talking bout Momma, even though nobody ever says I look like her. As I watch Charlie focus on gettin’ up the three small porch steps, I wonder how he knows Momma. It takes him forty-nine seconds to make it up on the porch, plus I even counted with the Mississippi in the middle like Nia taught me.