Speaking of late. This morning I get two messages from my lovely sisters, trying to lay a guilt trip on me for not rushing out to see Mama, knowing I don’t get on nobody’s airplanes. I mean, what am I supposed to do, just drop everything, jump in my Suburban, and drive to Vegas? This household would fall apart if I was gone for more than twenty-four hours. Besides, they can afford to go see her, ’cause they all live out there on the coast. I don’t. And I can’t. Money don’t grow on trees in Chicago.

Plus, I’ll be honest, when we all under one roof, they get on my nerves. Seem like everybody gotta compare notes: Who’s doing better or worse than the last time we saw each other? Did you ever get new mattresses for the girls’ rooms or are you still spending it on stuff you don’t need? That’s Mama. And who done gained too much weight and need to lose some? That’s Janelle. Who’s looking older than they should? Whose shit is raggedy? And so on and so forth. So I ain’t exactly in no big hurry to see all of ’em at one time.

Deep down inside I know Mama probably don’t mind my not coming. She ain’t all that crazy about me no way. Everybody know it. She dropped me when I was a baby. Everybody know that, too. She was supposed to be giving me a bath, but the story goes that Paris had slammed her finger in the door and was screaming so loud that Mama forgot all about me, and when she went to check on her, I fell off the counter and hit the linoleum. Had to be rushed to the hospital. At first they thought I might have brain damage, but Aunt Suzie Mae told me that by some kind of miracle I broke my own fall and just ended up with a big knot on my head. If things hadda happened differently, I coulda died. But they said I was all right and sent me home a few hours later. To this day, Mama ain’t never apologized to me for that.

She always have favored Paris, and I don’t think it’s ’cause Paris was the oldest either. Paris couldn’t do no wrong. She was so perfect. So smart. So this. So that. And Janelle, being the baby, got her way all the time. Daddy spoiled her rotten, which is probably why she turned out to be such a leech. And my one-and-only brother. Lewis. What a poor excuse for a man he turned out to be. But that’s Cecil’s fault.

I love my family. I do. But I resent the hell out of ’em, too. Most of the time I feel like a outsider, ’cause I’m here in Chicago and they all out there. I didn’t like California for two reasons: I thought it looked better on television, and my boyfriend, who ended up being my husband, wasn’t there. I ain’t been to Vegas yet. We might go this summer, if I can get Al to switch our plans around. We been to see his people in Baton Rouge for the past six years, and I told him point-blank: this time we going to visit mine.