“Why not?”

“I was gon’ call her later.”

Al just look down toward the floor, then back at me. “Later? One day it might just be too late, Charlotte. You oughtta stop acting so childish.”

Next thing I know, Al is reaching for the phone, but I go over and snatch it from him. “She’s my mama, not yours!” I yell, and start crying again.

“What’s wrong with Ma, Daddy?” Tiffany’s asking. Her and Monique are standing in the foyer, unzipping their ski jackets. Looking at them, you’d swear Monique was older, since she’s taller. Both of ’em are prettier than any of those girls that be in them music videos on BET. Run circles around a whole lot of Miss Americas, too. People forever telling me that Tiffany is Vanessa Williams’s double.

“Your Granny Vy is in the hospital, but she’s gon’ be all right,” Al says.

Tiffany walks around to see if she can get a better look at me. My eyes must be red and shiny, ’cause she looks at me like she can’t believe I been crying. The kids ain’t used to seeing me act weak and stuff. I usually cry when I’m mad, not hurt. I straighten up. Crack a smile. Tiffany cracks one, too.

“You guys go do your homework. Trevor’s going to get a pizza.”

“Yeah!” Monique yells.

“Anybody wanna come with me?” he asks.

“Nope,” Monique says.

“Not me,” Tiffany says. They don’t like his driving either.

“Just order the thing, go, and come right back,” I say. Al reaches in his pocket and gives him a twenty. After the girls go upstairs and Trevor heads toward the garage, Al stands there and looks at me with the phone in my hand.

I’m thinking: I wanna call, but what am I gon’ say? Sorry for hanging up on you and not calling for four months? Why you have to be so stubborn, Mama? You coulda called me, too, after all, you the one who was yelling at me.

“Well?” he says, shaking his head, then goes on back upstairs and turns on the TV. I look down at the Essence magazine I wrote the number to the hospital on, but for some reason I find myself dialing Smitty’s number instead. When his wife answers, I’m tempted to hang up, since we ain’t never been close except sitting next to each other at company dinners or in the same row at church and what have you, but I figure she might get suspicious and accuse Smitty of something stupid if I do, so I say, “Hi, Lela, how you doing?”

“Charlotte?”

“Yep. It’s me.”

“What a surprise. How’s everything?”

“Fine, Lela. Look. Can I ask you something, woman to woman?”

“I guess so. Like what?”

“You ain’t mad about Smitty going fishing?”

“Going where?”

“Fishing.”

“When?”

“This weekend. With Al.”

“Smitty ain’t going nowhere this weekend except in the backyard. He’s been promising to build us a shed, and unless we have another snowstorm, that’s exactly what he’s gon’ be doing. Plus, his uncle died and the funeral’s on Saturday. You sure he said this weekend?”