22
jonquinette
Never had I wished that I had started my own accounting firm more than when I went into work that Thursday and asked for Friday off. You would have thought the world had come to an end by the expression on Mr. Wilson’s face.
“Jonquinette, we really need you here tomorrow,” he whined.
“We’re backed up on a lot of things.”
“Hmph, I thought we were all caught up. I only have one thing in my in box and that will take me less than ten minutes to straighten out. Fridays are slow but anything that comes in, I can surely knock out on Monday morning.”
“Are you ill?” Mr. Wilson asked me.
“No, I actually need to go see my father in North Carolina.”
“I wasn’t aware that your father was still alive.”
He said that as if I regularly discussed my private life with him. For all he knew, my mother wasn’t among the living and she lived right in Atlanta.
“Yes, he’s alive,” I said.
“Well, is he ill?”
“Yeah, he is,” I lied, sensing that Daddy would have to be practically on his death bed in order for my day off to be a crisis.
“What’s wrong with him?” Mr. Wilson pried.
I didn’t want to wish anything too bad on Daddy so I said, “He runs an auto repair shop and there was a mishap.”
“What sort of mishap?”
“Um, one of the cars fell off the lift. Luckily, it fell to the side but it did bang against his leg and it’s broken.”
What I said couldn’t have sounded more outlandish and I realized it after I said it. Amazingly, Mr. Wilson believed me. He winced and said, “Ooh, that sounds painful. You should go check on him, in that case.”
“Thank you.”
He started walking out of my office but paused. “Now, you will be back here on Monday, right?”
“With bells on,” I replied. When he left, I added, “More like with shackles on my feet.”
Darnetta came in as I was talking to myself. “Did you say something?”
“Oh, no, just thinking aloud.”
Darnetta sat down without an invitation. “So what’s up, girlfriend? We haven’t had a chance to talk much since the wedding. What happened to you that night anyway? Logan said you got sick but you seemed fine when I picked you up and all throughout the wedding.”
I deliberated over an answer but knew I couldn’t take too long to fabricate one because Darnetta would figure me out.
“Um, I must have eaten something that didn’t agree with me. Either that or I ate entirely too much. My stomach was upset. Plus, I had cramps.”
“Hmph, please don’t mention cramps. I’m on my period now and mine are killing me.”
“Have you been drinking hot tea?” I asked her, legitimately concerned for her well-being.
“No, tea and I don’t agree with each other. It always makes me feel bloated and I feel bad enough already.”
“What about some of that over-the-counter medication for cramps?” I asked.
“I’ve tried every brand they make and nothing seems to help.”
“All I can say is the person that invents something to stop menstrual cramps is going to be one wealthy man.”
“It won’t be a man who invents it,” Darnetta said. “That’s the quandary now. I bet you all the ones on the market were invented by people who have never felt a single menstrual cramp in their lives.”
We both laughed.
“Probably true,” I agreed. “Well, the good part is that we only have to suffer the madness for a few days a month.”
“Yeah, but three days on a period can feel like three years sometimes.” Darnetta got up and went for the door. “I’m going to call you soon so we can hook up again.”
“Okay,” I said, knowing good and well that I wouldn’t be hanging out with her ever again. I wasn’t even clear about what had happened the first time that I did.
It took me four hours to drive from Atlanta to the outskirts of Charlotte. He lived in a small town called Trinity. Once there, I drove around for more than an hour searching for my father’s house. Everyone in the small town knew each other so I stopped an older African-American couple and asked them. They said Daddy fixed their cars for them and was a great man. Then they gave me directions. One or both of them must have been senile because it took me a while to figure out that they had told me to turn left on High Bridge Road when I should have turned right.
It was dusk when I finally arrived. I was shaken to see the condition of the place. From the outside, it looked like it was about to give way. While Daddy had never been one to define himself by his surroundings, this was definitely not what I expected.
I rang the doorbell and was stunned when a little girl answered the door.
“Can I help you?” she asked in the sweetest voice.
I glanced up at the house number on the porch to make sure I had the right place. “Um, does Henry Pierce live here?”
“Daddy!” the girl yelled out as she disappeared around a corner.
Daddy?
A moment later, my father appeared and had to take two steps back when he saw me. “Jonquinette?”
“You say that like it’s a question. Has it been so long that you don’t even recognize me?” I asked.
“Of course, I recognize you.” He embraced me, then pulled me inside. “Come on in, please.”
The little girl stood there swaying her hips. She was adorable with fudge-colored skin and big brown eyes. She had her shoulder-length hair in two pigtails tied with violet ribbons to match her short set.
“Jonquinette, this is Flower. Flower, this is your big sister, Jonquinette,” Daddy said, making a formal introduction.
I got the impression that Flower never knew of my existence. I couldn’t blame Daddy for not telling her. Since I had not responded to any of his letters, he had to assume that she would never meet me. She would have been confused to know that she had an older sister who was never around.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Flower,” I said, extending my hand, which she graciously accepted and gently shook.
Daddy sighed and looked at me. “I’ll explain everything.”
I told him, “You don’t owe me an explanation.”
We all migrated into his living room, which was very basic but neat. At least he hadn’t become a slob over the years. He had a tattered couch and loveseat set that had seen much better days, a scratched-up coffee table, and a new nineteen-inch television sitting on top of the original box by a window. It was hot and his air-conditioning unit in the window wasn’t working too efficiently. I immediately started sweating.
“Flower is a very pretty name,” I told the little half-sister that I never knew existed.
She blushed like it was the biggest compliment she had ever had. “Thank you. My mother picked it out.”
“Well, she did an excellent job.” I surveyed the house. The dining-room table was bare and there were no pictures on any of the walls from what I could see; definitely no visible signs of a woman’s touch. I wanted to know if Daddy was remarried without coming out and directly inquiring about it, so I asked, “Is your mother here?”
“Oh, no.” Flower shook her head and hips simultaneously. “She doesn’t live here but she’s coming to pick me up Sunday night.”
Daddy cleared his throat. “Flower, why don’t you go get washed up for dinner.”
“Okay, Daddy.”
Flower pranced off and I could hear her little footsteps running up the stairs.
“No running in the house!” Daddy yelled after her.
I laughed. “Some things never change. You used to yell the same thing at me.”
He grinned. “That’s because you wouldn’t listen and ran through the house every single day.”
I picked up a department store sales paper from the coffee table and started fanning myself. “She’s adorable. How old is she?”
“Six.” He went over to the air conditioner and banged on it. “Sorry it’s so hot in here. I’m trying to save up to get central air but it’s not easy. Even with regular clients, it still isn’t easy making a good living in this backass town.”
“Well, Daddy, no one told you to give up being a computer programmer.”
He and I both sat down on the sofa.
“No,” he said. “They just told me to give up my whole damn family, which was the same thing as giving up my life.”
I could tell that he was still bitter about the divorce and wanted to say something like, “You made your own bed so lie in it.” But I didn’t. It wasn’t my objective to visit him and incite drama after so many years.
“I guess you neglected to mention her in your letters,” I said, getting back to Flower.
He sighed. “I didn’t know how to word it. I figured if I told you I had another daughter, I’d never get a response.”
I disagreed. “Actually, it probably would’ve been the exact opposite. If I’d known I had a little sister, I would’ve wanted to meet her.”
“You want something to drink? I have some orange juice and milk.”
“No, I’m fine for now. I already knew you had orange juice and milk because…”
“Those are the only two things a person needs daily to survive,” we said in unison. Daddy used to wear that saying out when I was a child. If my mother didn’t have anything else in the house, she knew she better have milk and orange juice or Daddy would have a fit.
We sat in silence for a minute, feeling each other out with our eyes.
“To make a time-consuming story short, her mother, Allison, and I are just good friends,” he said, evidently referring to Flower’s mother. “We took pleasure in each other’s company for a while and Flower was the result. We haven’t fooled around in years. We just share custody and try to make sure she has a normal life.”
“Unlike my life, which was never normal,” I blurted out.
He put his hands on his knees, like he was bracing himself for something physically painful. “I don’t know what to say.”
I stroked him on the hand so he would ease up some. “No need to say anything. We’ll chat about it later. I’m planning to stay for a couple of days, if that’s okay?”
He smiled like he had won the lottery. “Jonquinette, you have no idea how okay that is. You’ve made my day, my year, my decade, by showing up here.”
I was hoping he would still feel that way by the time it was all over, said and done. “So, what’s for dinner?”