I smile slightly but don’t say anything. One of the ladies fixes me a plate, and another one calls my uncle and tells him I’m with them. And when he asks what they plan to do for the night, they tell him, “Get drunk and get tattoos.” Once Uncle Ty gets off the phone, the game starts.

I thought I would be a witness to a nice old-lady card game; I was wrong. This is a cage-match situation. The women talk trash and try to psych each other out. All the while debating everything from the best card player to whose grandchild is the smartest. They go hard on everything, from politics to dressing recipes. But under the trash talking, it’s easy to see just how much the ladies love each other.

There are a few things I do not anticipate them getting into, like stock tips and the best place to get edibles. But my favorite part of the night, the part that makes me laugh the hardest, is when Ms. Doris tells us about the fiiiiiiine new neighbor who moved across the street, and how he does not have curtains in his bathroom.

“He’s a handyman,” Mrs. Doris says, full of mischief. “He’s coming over tomorrow to fix my garbage disposal.”

Ms. Hightower replies, “Your disposal is new. It’s already broken?”

Mrs. Doris smirks. “No. But it will be when I get home.”

I don’t know how they’ve done it, but they’ve made me happy. It feels so good to sit among them. I feel truly safe.

Between the four of them, they have eighteen children and twenty-two grandchildren. They tell me that this entitles them to give me advice. So I listen closely as the night comes to an end.

“You young people run into some problems and you want to just give up,” Ms. Doris says. “Good Lord, if the ones before you had done that . . .”

“There ain’t a place darker in this world than the soul of some white folks—not all of them, but enough of them to make it feel like it’s gonna be midnight forever,” Ms. Hightower adds.

Mrs. Celie cosigns. “Humph.”

The last word of the evening is from Mrs. Pascale, the eldest of the group. “Ayo, you listen, and you listen real good: There’s nothing that shines a light in your world like knowing someone loves you. And that mama of yours, she loves you. You hold on to that; that’s your flashlight. Hold on real tight, because I’m old and I said so.”

Chapter Seventeen

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