Suzie Mae is sixty-five. She always was missing a few links and now it seem like her bulb just keep getting dimmer and dimmer. I thank she got a touch of that Alzheimer’s but don’t nobody wanna fess up to it, ’cause she always been a few nuts shy of a fruitcake, as Viola herself used to say. I thank it’s ’cause she ain’t never gave birth. But then Suzie Mae’s husband died from some kinda cancer back in ’71, and according to Viola, she still sleep with his picture like she waiting for him to come back from a war. Suzie Mae always have been a religious fanatic, going to church four and five nights a week, and giving almost all her Social Security money to the church. But two years ago after her pastor talked her into having what she told Viola was a healing fling, Suzie Mae found out just how big his flock was and that’s when she decided to study the Bible at home. After that incident, she wouldn’t let nobody in her house. Talked to you through the door. I heard her kitchen pipes froze right before last Christmas and her sink got backed up, so she washed dishes in the bathtub. From what Charlotte told Viola, it still ain’t fixed. But Suzie Mae said she don’t want no help, ’cause she don’t need no help.

Speaking of lost. I done lost touch with my own kids. Outta touch is probably what I mean. I don’t know ’em too good. Not on a personal level. I do know they good kids. Got good souls. The girls done turned into real women, which is kinda hard to believe when I thank about it. First of all, they grew like weeds. All three of ’em gotta be between five seven and five nine. Being the only boy, Lewis surprised me and didn’t turn out to be no more than six one or two. I don’t know how that happened. But my little girls. One minute you rubbing Vaseline on they ashy faces and watching they long thick braids swing back and forth when they jumping rope, and the next thang you know, they got breasts and wearing pantyhose and heads full of soft black curls and eye shadow on top of they eyes and they lips is some kind of creamy red or pink. Seem like all I did was blink and I was taking the training wheels off my baby girl’s bicycle and when I looked at her again she was driving, had caught up with the rest of the kids.

As for Lewis, me and him ain’t never seen eye to eye. He stay pretty much out my way and I stay outta his. Ever since he got arrested the first time and wouldn’t listen to nothing I had to say—swung his fist in my face like he wanted to hit me—we ain’t had too much to say to one another since. He feel like he always been a man, and you can’t tell him nothing. In that way, we just alike. But I stopped trying to talk to him son to father a long time ago. I’m hoping, the next time I see him, maybe we can just talk man to man. See if time make a difference. I love all my kids, I do, but, working so doggone hard all them years, I missed ’em growing up. Viola was always there and I thought I was doing my part by paying for the roof over they head and putting food on the table. But a man can work too hard. I see that now. He can miss a lot: years. They just go by. You look down at your hands and they full of fat green veins, knuckles knotty from arthritis, knees bad, white of your eyes is brown, and you wonder where was you when you was supposed to be doing all this living? At work. I missed the prime of my life. That’s what I did.