“Oh, yes, the South!” Jewel exclaimed, savoring the gesture of dangling a shot more than the shot itself. “I just came from living in Memphis, which come to think of it ain’t no better than Chicago. It’s war down there too with the police. But I can say that more Black people might want to start looking to the Confederate states again. Segregation laid low for a while but it crept up North when nobody was looking. At least down South you can get a decent house and don’t have to be holed up in these … these buildings.”

Jewel always offended Ma without realizing she did. Even if it was just by starting a conversation on a subject that would keep Ma quiet because she knew nothing about it. Scheherazade reincarnated, Jewel began stories I had heard time and time again.

“Shivana, can we go to my house?” I heard Jessica say, but I ignored the child. Everybody else did. Why should I keep trying to be different? Diana Ross masquerading as Billie Holiday became too much when she sang Southern trees bear strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees … She sounded so gloomy and faraway, and I knew from watching that movie so many times that she had cried when she sang it. I stifled an erupting sob with my own shot of Kool-Aid.

For hours the women talked about the sadness by not talking about it, a survival mechanism inherited from humanity and passed down by blood. Like grieving family during a long funeral weekend, their conversation scratched only soft surfaces: old loves, old jobs, the neighborhood’s demise, future plans made up on the spot, the music of has-beens. They didn’t notice me, my back to them, my face blotchy and wet as I stared at the adjacent brick building’s chipped burgundy paint. Hopeless and green, I ached that I hadn’t been there, handcuffed to a peeling silver radiator and facing the flared nostril of a cold, glaring gun right along with Leroy. I listened intently while keeping the children out of grown folks’ business until twilight, when Renelle finally carried them and a hefty plate of leftovers back up to the sixth floor.

FOUR

WHEN MY BABY came inside me, I started dreaming again.