By the time the ambulance arrived not one of the black teenagers remained in the vicinity. Got out of there in their car and on foot, fast as they could.

White cops gonna show up, see black boys and a white man down on the street and suspect the worst. And if they tried to run then, risking a bullet in the back.

The Return

HESITANTLY KATIE HAS SAID, SHE THINKS IT WILL BE ALL RIGHT.

I am wondering what all right means.

If I return to South Niagara. Stay with her and her family.

For my first real visit in more than thirteen years. A week, two weeks?

If Mom will agree to see me, that is all I want.

For Daddy has died. (It is difficult for me to utter these words—Daddy has died.)

All right now—for Daddy has died, and the bitterness has died with him. It is hoped.

Or possibly Katie means it is all right for me to return to South Niagara though our brother Lionel has been released from prison and is living here. All right—Lionel won’t murder me.

It is hoped!

ON THE PHONE WE’D CRIED TOGETHER. AND SEEING EACH OTHER, first time in years, we hugged each other, hard. And we cried.

“Oh, Violet! I am so sorry.”

So sorry I cut you out of my life. So sorry I ceased to love you.

In that instant I forgave my sister. Of course.

We did not seem to each other like adult women. Grieving for our father we were young girls again as if no time had passed.

Years that had drawn us apart. My sister had been my closest friend and she was married, she’d had a baby (a daughter) without me. Scarcely with my knowing. How was it possible?

Now, Katie would be my sister again. No mistaking the relief in her face, her happiness at seeing me, running to greet me, hug me, as I drove up in the Honda Civic, peering through the windshield at addresses in an unfamiliar part of South Niagara—West Cabot Road.

“Oh my God, Vi’let—it’s you.”

Laughing, in each other’s arms. Tears shining on our faces hot as acid.

From my aunt Irma I’d heard the (belated, shocking) news. My father had died of a massive stroke the previous week. He’d been drinking heavily, it was said. Strangers had found him in the street outside the Shamrock Tavern, they’d called an ambulance but he didn’t survive the night.

Both Katie and Miriam tried to contact me but had only outdated phone numbers. Irma recalled that I’d transferred to the state university at Mohawk and in this way managed to be connected with me through the university’s student affairs office, after some difficulty. Oh Violet. I have sad news . . . .

The family was in shock. Jerome had died so suddenly, without warning—so young, at only sixty-four.