"She's standing over there, outside that curtain where they have Granny. I'm scared, Mom. What if something happens to Granny? Can you please come now? Please?"

"Yes I will, baby. You just stay right there with Miss Loretta, you hear me? Can you ask her to come to the phone?"

"Miss Loretta, my mom wants to talk to you."

My heart is beating so hard I can't stand it. I'm already out of the bed. Standing up. Walking around. Wondering how fast can I get to Vegas at this time of night. There're no flights out of Burbank at this hour, and that's the closest. . ."

"h.e.l.lo, dear."

"Miss Loretta, how is Mama?"

"I don't know right now, sweetheart. I don't know."

"Okay, look, do me a favor. Get Shanice out of there, please. I don't want her there if anything happens, do you understand?"

"Yes I do."

"Thank you. I'll be on the first plane out of here. Keep her with you, please. Miss Loretta."

"I will."

"Thank you. What hospital are you at?"

"Sunrise. And the doctor's name is Dr. Glover. Here's the number. . . ."

I write it down and get up and put my clothes on so fast that it seems as if the clock hasn't even moved. It'll take me fifty minutes to get to Burbank Airport, and what did I do with that piece of paper I just wrote the number down on? There it is. I run downstairs and push the garage-door opener and get in my car and start the engine. I decide to call the hospital now. I ask for Dr. Glover, and he comes on the line.

"h.e.l.lo, Dr. Glover. My name is Janelle Price and I'm Viola Price's daughter and I'm on my way to Burbank Airport because I'm trying to get there as soon as I can, and I wonder if you can tell me how my mother's doing? I mean, I know she's in ICU, but can you tell how long she might have to be in there this time?"

There's total silence on the other end, so I back the car all the way out of the garage, thinking that maybe I've been disconnected or I'm just not getting a good signal, but then I hear a man's voice say, "I'm sorry, but your mother didn't survive."

"What? Wait a minute. Let me back up a little more." And I do. I back this car all the way out into the f.u.c.king street. "Now, could you repeat that, and please speak a little louder?"

"I said your mother didn't survive. She's pa.s.sed on."

I heard him the first time. But. I was hoping that in between that sentence and the next, maybe she might've been strong enough to fool them by taking one more breath. Mama's good at that. Not giving up. I wonder if they checked her carefully, because she could be napping. These asthma attacks wear her out. She's told me that a million times. She could just be asleep. Somebody should check. I open my mouth to tell the doctor this, but no sound comes out. Absolutely nothing. And then I pound the steering wheel with my fists until I have no energy left. The phone falls to the floor of the pa.s.senger's side and my head drops against the steering wheel. But I have to wait. Right here. In this driveway. In this car. Until I can move. Until I can figure out how to get through this thick loud silence.

Chapter 30.

One Entrance to Another "Its moving right now, Cecil, put your hands here and feel," Brenda say.

She's next to me, laying on her back. At first, I'm scared-I ain't felt no baby move inside n.o.body's stomach in thirty-five years-but the next thang I know she taking my hand and putting it against her warm smooth skin and my fingers is spread out wide as they can go and she slides it around and then I feel a little hump and it gets higher and then moves right under my hand and I jump. "Hey!"

Brenda laughs. "Wait, I think he's over here now."

"He?"

"He or she. It can't be but one or the other, Cecil."

And, sure enough, here he come again! This feels weird. I can't even imagine what it must be like for Brenda, being that its swimming around inside her and all. "Seem like it would kinda hurt," I say.

"It feels good, to be honest with you. But it sure don't hurt. Sometimes it tickles. Praise G.o.d."

I slide my hand around her big belly some more and wait and wait and don't nothing happen for the next five or ten minutes.

"She sleep. Show's over," Brenda say, but don't move my hand. "I'm sleep, too," she says, and I just lay right here listening to her breathe till it sound like a light whisde, and then I roll over and do the same until that alarm clock whisde a litde louder and I know it's 3:30 a. M., rime to get up and go to work.

I don't know why I took this job. Sometime I stand here for hours and just walk back and forth from one entrance to another, watching for anythang that don't look right. I help people out when they can't find the bathroom or they drunk and can't remember where they parked they car or can't remember what casino they in. That kinda stuff. Don't nothing exciting ever happen in here. That's why I ain't got no gun, just this uniform. But anybody looking at me should know I couldn't catch 'em if I had to. I mean, I'm still walking every day and starting to enjoy lifting a few of them barbells, but I couldn't do no sprinting if you paid me. I'm only bench-pressing a hundred pounds. I seen girls in there lift more than that. The way I figure it, something is better than nothing.

Is that my name I hear over the paging system? Naw. Who in the world would be paging me? I start staring at the roulette wheel for the hundredth time and try to guess a number which don't come up. In all the months I been working here, I only got one number right. It's hard to win when you gamble. I done finally figured that out. I done lost too much of they money and mine, and it ain't even fun no more. Matter of fact, I'm seriously thanking about trying to reopen one of the Shacks, depending on how much we get for the house.

"Would Cecil Price please report to the security office? Cecil Price to the security office."

I heard it that time. That was my name. I ain't never heard it announced that loud before. It kinda make you feel important. Like everybody should stop doing what they doing and look around to see who Cecil Price is. I hope they ain't fixing to tell me that the IRS is taking my check. I hope that ain't what this is about.

I open the gla.s.s door and see Billy, the head guy, sitting behind a desk. "Somebody was paging me?"

"Yeah, Cecil, you got a call from a Loretta. She asked you to call her as soon as you came in. Here's her number."

"Did she say what it was about?"

"Nope. She just said it was important and to calJ as soon as you can. She didn't sound too happy, if that's any help to you."

It's Viola. I know it is. I can't thank of no other reason why that woman would be calling me at my job. When was the last time Loretta called me anywhere? I look down and he still holding that pink message slip. I thought I took it from him already. "Thanks, Billy."

"Hope everything's all right, Cecil."

"Me, too."

"You can use that phone over there if you want to, or go on into that empty office, if you think you might need some privacy."

"I thank I will." I don't know why I don't turn the light on, and by the time I press the last digit of that telephone number, something tell me that Viola's gone. And if she is, it's my fault. I shouldn'ta sent them d.a.m.n divorce papers over there the way I did. I shoulda known they would upset her, and when she get real upset she can work herself right into a attack. I pray to G.o.d that that ain't what's happened. Please let me be wrong.

"h.e.l.lo," I hear Loretta's litde voice say. She sound dred, and I can tell it ain't 'cause I woke her up.

"Loretta, this Cecil. Have something happened to Viola?"

When she don't say nothing, that's how I know. "Where is she?"

"At Sunrise. They said she didn't help them this rime, Cecil."

"What you mean?"

"The paramedics said they'd been out here before and Vy always did what they asked her to, but this rime, they said, she didn't help them. That she didn't fight that hard."

"She didn't fight that hard," I say, and right then is when I feel my whole body sink in this chair and drop over this desk. I wanna sit up straight and talk to Loretta, I do, but I can't find the strength. I wonder if this is how Viola felt. Like she wanted to, but couldn't. This my wife she talking about. My wife of almost thirty-nine years. The woman who had my babies. The woman who raised 'em. The woman who tried to help me to be a better man but I was just too d.a.m.n hardheaded and too lazy and, later on, just too proud to listen. Didn't wanna admit that she knew what was best for me, when I knew all along she did. This is the same woman who s.n.a.t.c.hed my heart right out my chest and put it on top a hers and then pressed down hard. So hard it felt soft. I loved Viola more than she ever knew. But I never knew how to show a woman how much you loved her. n.o.body ever showed me how to be tender. n.o.body ever taught me how to relax, and then, just surrender. Is it too late to ask, "How you do that, Vy?" I wanted to take you to Paris, but back then we didn't have no France money, and later on, when we did get a few extra dollars, we had kids and then a house note and then the Shacks, and n.o.body had no time to do nothing but work. I'm so sorry, Vy. I didn't mean to mess up all your dreams. I swear, I didn't.

"Cecil?" Loretta say.

"I shouldn'ta never sent them papers over there yesterday. This is all my fault!"

"Hold it! It is not your fault. As a matter of fact, she signed them and they're in the mail. Cecil, can I tell you something, even though I know this isn't the best time?"

I wipe my nose and eyes on my sleeve. "Go 'head."

"Viola loved you. I don't have to tell you that. But she also told me that she was glad you left."

"What?"

"She said you needed to be with somebody who could still appreciate you, because she couldn't."

"But she used to, Loretta. She did."

"Cecil, when women get older, sometimes our minds and bodies and hearts go through all kinds of stressful and even traumatic changes and we are not our old selves, and it hurts when we don't know how to get our old selves back. We look around and everything's changed. Our kids are grown and don't need us anymore-at least they don't think they do. Our bodies are old and look nothing like we think they should. And in some ways all these things make you feel a sense of hopelessness, a sense of loss on top of loss, and you don't even know you're grieving, but we are indeed grieving.

I've been doing it for quite some time. And your wife: your outspoken, big- mouthed, cuss-like-a-G.o.dd.a.m.n-sailor of a wife, Viola Price, who was my best friend, helped bring me back to life after Robert died. We were going on a cruise next week, and, Cecil, I know you're hurting, but I'm going to miss her something fierce, too."

I make myself sit up, 'cause I realize that I ain't the only one who losing Viola. What about the kids? Lord, how they gon' handle this?

"Cecil?"

"I'm still here, Loretta."

"I have something for you."

"What you mean?"

"Viola gave me something yesterday afternoon to give to you."

"Wait a minute. When did this happen, Loretta?"

"About two hours ago."

Two hours ago I was rubbing Brenda's stomach.

"She told me to give you this envelope if anything ever happened to her."

"What?"

"I have it right here. She just asked me to tell you that she would appreciate your waiting until the first Thanksgiving after she's gone to open it."

"A envelope? Thanksgiving?"

"Uh-huh. Viola also hoped you would spend it with your biological children, just this once. If you can't, then she doesn't want you to read this until you can. Shall I hold on to it, mail it, or what?"

"I don't know, Loretta. I can't thank right now. Let me thank. I wonder why Viola had to write something to me. . . . Do the kids know?"

"I'm sure they do by now. I'm sure they do."

"What about Shanice? Where she at?"

"She's right here with me, sleeping. Janelle's trying to get on the first flight out this morning. They're both taking it pretty hard."

"I know. I'll be over there in a litde while, but I gotta be still for a minute or two."

"I understand, Cecil. I understand. Just let me know what I can do to help."

I sit here for a long time. Until some fella turn the lights on and ask if I wouldn't mind going into a different office to finish blowing off steam. He said women ain't worth half the tears they generate and for me not to worry, 'cause, after his wife called him on this very same phone to tell him she was leaving, it didn't take him no time to find a replacement.

Chapter 31.

Old Purses I don't even remember the plane ride. I know it took almost twenty-four hours to get home. Dingus met me at San Francisco Airport and drove me home. I remember his face when I told him. I still hear Charlotte and Lewis's voices when I had to tell them over the telephone. And Daddy. He's suffering from guilt when he shouldn't be. All of this feels like it's been a bad dream, a very bad dream, and I don't think I truly woke up and accepted the reality until I walked in here-into Mama and Daddy's house-and she still wasn't here. She wasn't anywhere. And there was nowhere I could call to talk to her to get her to come home.

Dingus is a mess. Shanice is so broken up there doesn't seem to be anything anybody can say to console her. Janelle even slept in Mama's bed. I'm not that strong. I'm afraid if I smelled her sheets I'd lose it completely. I can't afford to be out of control right now, because I'm the one who's been asked to make the arrangements for her funeral, which is going to be in Chicago, where she was born. Where we were all born. Imagine that: a funeral. And Mama's going to be the star attraction. Everyone's going to come out to see her: Viola Price. I wish they didn't have to. I wish everyone could've come and seen her live and in color, right here in stupid Las Vegas. I wish those paramedics had worked harder, or not tried to be such f.u.c.king heroes and gotten her to the hospital sooner. I wish Mama had called them five minutes earlier. I wish she hadn't eaten that greasy spaghetti before she went to sleep. Wish she hadn't inhaled paint and carpet and gas fumes all in one day.

But she did. And no matter how much I-or any of us-wish, she's not even here for us to chastise. As the oldest, I got away with telling her off, and if she were here, it would give her an excuse to cuss me back out. She always accused me of thinking I'm "so d.a.m.n smart and know every-d.a.m.n-thang." But I don't. Mama. I don't know anything except that I want the calendar to flip back a day, the clock to tick in reverse for forty-eight hours so we can go back and do this s.h.i.t differently, do this right, so that Viola Price will be able to breathe on her own. So that there will be no funeral in three days.

None of us are actually talking. We're just moving through this house like zombies. Charlotte's not here. She said she's got too much to do trying to get things ready for friends and relatives coming in from all over, and did we forget about Quiet Hour? When everybody comes to her house after the services?

We're still waiting to find out if they're going to let Lewis out for the funeral. Daddy called and said he's coming by later. He sounded old. Tired. Like he might not survive this. I feel sorry for him. Even if he'd been thinking about coming back home, it's too late now.

Janelle and I have to go through Mama's things all by ourselves. I've never gone through her things before. Never gone through anybody's things. We haven't started, because Miss Loretta's on her way over here. She said she has to tell us something. Something important. I've just been opening and closing the kitchen drawers, wondering what we're going to do with all these forks and knives and spoons. When I looked in Mama's linen closet, there were tons of sheets and pillowcases, all of which had been starched and ironed and stacked flat. She even had a separate pile of handkerchiefs. I never once saw Mama with a handkerchief in her hand.

"Paris, wake up! Miss Loretta's here," I hear Janelle say. She's shaking me. I didn't even realize I'd fallen asleep on the couch.

"Okay!" I yell, sitting up, but feel a crick in my neck.

"I'm sorry, dear."

"It's all right, Miss Loretta. How are you?"

"I'm probably feeling pretty much like you all, if you can understand that."