The Dear One Read Online Free PDF Page A

don’t have power, Feni.”
    â€œI don’t have the power to keep that girl from coming—”
    â€œHer name is Rebecca. No more ‘that girl.’ Understand?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œYou don’t have to be her friend. But she is going to stay with us.”
    â€œI guess she can’t sleep in the guest room?”
    Ma shook her head. “It’s way too cold in there for anybody this time of year.”
    â€œI knew it!” I said, folding my arms. “And now comes the part about Grandma’s room . . . .”
    â€œI was thinking that would be a good place for her. It’s warm and near the bathroom.”
    â€œIt’s out of the question,” I said firmly.
    â€œWhat do you mean, ‘It’s out of the question’?”
    â€œNot Grandma’s room, Ma.”
    Ma touched my cheek and instantly, water welled up in my eyes. “Feni . . .”
    â€œDon’t do this to me, Ma. Don’t give her Grandma’s room.”
    â€œYou have to start letting go, Feni.”
    â€œDon’t make me, Ma,” I cried. “Don’t make me. Not now. Please not yet, Ma.”

Five
    MA WAITED UNTIL SHE THOUGHT I HAD CRIED MYSELF to sleep before she left. When I heard her go downstairs and close the den door, I tiptoed down the hall to Grandma’s room and pushed the door open. It was bare now except for a double bed against the window and a wooden rocking chair. Ma had taken down the pictures on the wall years ago. Some of them were in the photo albums downstairs. Dad had taken some.
    â€œWhen you die,” I whispered into the emptiness, “the pieces of you get all separated.”
    Sitting on Grandma’s bed, I cracked open the window.
    My grandmother had been my best friend. I was eight when she was dragged four blocks by a city bus while visiting San Francisco.
    Grandma’s friend Reese had been traveling with her and said the bus driver didn’t see Grandma step off the curb and came around the corner of Market Street without stopping. Grandma’s dress sleeve got caught on the front fender, and it was one of the dresses Grandma had made herself, so it was double-stitched at every seam.
    When Grandma died, I didn’t speak for two months. There was a fire in my head threatening to burn me alive. But I sat by my window, letting the hot summer sun burn it to ashes.
    They buried her beside my grandfather, whom I never knew, in a small plot that said CALEB.
    â€œA long time ago,” Grandma had said, when we visited my grandfather and put white lilies on his grave, “colored folks weren’t allowed to be buried here. Your granddaddy is probably rolling over and over, knowing that he is buried in Shepherd Cemetery. Lord, I can just see him smiling from ear to ear.” Grandma grinned then, at some little secret she and Grandpa shared. When she sat me down beside her husband’s grave, her face grew calm. The silence of the graveyard scared me. Shivering, I moved closer to her.
    â€œThe day your granddaddy died, me and your mama had just come back from her checkup at the hospital. She was pregnant with you, and she was staying with us then, since she and Bernard had decided she needed some country air. So when we got back, I made her a nice bed, told her to climb in it, and went to tell your granddaddy that everything was fine. I walked as slow as I could over to where he was working, because I had this feeling in the back of my throat like something wasn’t right somewhere. When I got there, couldn’t have been more than a hundred feet from the house, your granddaddy still had the pinking shears in his hands. He was sitting against that tree like he was waiting for me. Had his eyes wide open and sweat dripping down his pretty brown face.”
    Grandma looked around the graveyard. “Now, the birds had been making noise all morning, but when I got to where your granddaddy was sitting, everything