Church Girl Gone Wild (3 page)

The air was so thick with the smell of salted pork, hickory wood, and mildew I could feel it seeping into my pores banding together to plot a secret blackhead attack. The smell was worse than cigarette smoke and fried chicken grease combined. It was liable to be in my hair and my clothes for at least a full two day stretch. I picked invisible lint off my jeans nodding at the thought that of treating the smell like skunk spray, using tomato juice to get it out.

Once we were all seated at the small wooden dinner table Ava laid out what I guess was her best. The plates were chipped and cracked and the blue designs that might have been flowers or birds were all worn off. We sat in an uncomfortable silence with the plates clacking against the table like we were strangers with those “hello-my-name-is” stickers on our chests. I quietly scrutinized her as she moved mechanically around the kitchen. I was expecting apologies and instinctive sparks of love to come shooting back. But, watching Ava, with gray starting to creep into her temples and worry lines creasing her forehead I felt more curiosity about her than anything else.

She didn't look at me or Leslie. Ava didn't look at any of us or say another word as she scooted into the seat across from me. The chair groaned under even her tiny bit of weight. Her back went drill-instructor straight. The veins snaked along underneath the skin on her hands and forearms as she folded her napkin into her lap.
I wonder if that means she has high blood pressure or diabetes. She'll probably get pissed if I ask. Don't ask.

She glared at my napkin on the table before tilting her head and then glaring down at my lap waiting for me to do the same. I snapped it off the table with so much gusto I'd have made a magician proud. The thin coarse material rested lightly on my lap. This cheap heffa didn't even have real napkins. They were old as day thrift store men's handkerchiefs.
Boy, she had some nerve, have us sitting up in the middle of a pigsty while she's acting like she'd been trained at the academy for spoiled rich bitches
. Ava's eyes were hardened like someone used to having things held just out of her reach. I kept staring at her looking for something, anything to make me feel love or some kind of connection but I couldn't find it.

My stomach complained extra loud. At least the food smelled good. Ava could always cook. She used to turn powdered milk and eggs into a five star breakfast. Dinner definitely was not what I'd consider much of a birthday feast. Mostly because none of the foods were things I liked and they didn't really go together. There were candied yams, Mexican corn with cheese and cayenne, nasty bitter turnip greens which none of us liked, but I remember them being Ava's favorite. She'd made two small glazed hams with pineapple rings and a cherry top. From my angle one looked kind of charred. The other one didn't look as bad which is probably why there were two. Deacon said grace and Ava insisted on fixing our plates. As we ate it was so quiet you could hear the cob webs shifting in the corners.

I was trying to work down a stubborn piece of ham when Momma Rose's fork clattered to her plate. She started pointing wildly, tapping Deacon's arm. Leslie and I both giggled when she spit her food into her napkin, I looked over curious to see if she'd bitten into a roach. Now, that would have been priceless. Deacon's fork clattered to the table then Sue's. I stopped mid-chew. My fork was frozen in a death grip. My brain was telling my mouth that only Daddies came with tattoos that read, “Do Royal Deeds or Pay Royal Dues,” not hams. I got that watery feeling in my mouth around the piece of mystery man-meat. It was the same lettering, spacing, even the same size as the tattoo I'd seen on my daddy's upper thigh.

Deacon bucked up out of his seat. “Ava! Tell me this is your idea of a sick joke. Tell me this isn't what I think it is!”

A brief smile flashed across Ava's face as she raised her fork to take another bite. She pointed the bent prongs at Deacon.

“No Deacon, not what, but
who
you think it is. Psi with his all his lies, he was never good enough to marry our baby-girl and you know it. I was hoping you'd choke on his stinking ass. That
is
where the meat came from since he was mostly fat.” She stood up and slapped her hip.

“Your
what
?” Momma Rose suddenly blurt out. Her chest was heaving as she stared between Ava and Deacon.

Sue launched into what must have been every Japanese curse word in the book.

The rickety wooden chair splintered when Deacon slung it out of his way. He charged around the table with the greasy carving knife gleaming in his hand.

My mouth unhinged in slow-motion. The achy hole that'd just opened up in my soul blocked out the sound of Leslie crying next to me. I used the back of my hand to wipe my eyes.

Ava laughed. It was more like a stole-the-winning-base cackle. “Oh, let me guess. You never told Rose about us. Never told her Eva is
your
daughter?” She teased him, dancing out of his reach with more oomph than we'd seen the entire meal. “Don't look so shocked sis. Ain't like you was ever good with men, but you
always
had a way with money. Ozias, you could talk a nun out of her habit and into a bad one couldn't you Deac? So, how much of our inheritance did you sink into this black hole of a nigga Rose?”

“Enough!” Deacon roared lunging at her with the knife.

Ava twirled away from him. She spun past the counter turning to face him with the black barrel from memories past pointed at the center of his chest.

That was the same gun from my real life nightmare all those years ago.

It was too much to process at once. I stared at the sliver of Papa Psion meat on Deacon's plate back to the piece of my daddy on my own. The salty ham but not quite ham taste was becoming more obvious by the second. My chest felt tight. He wasn't my daddy. Deacon was my daddy.

Ava waved the gun around taunting Deacon.

I wavered between wanting her to shoot him and fear that a stray bullet would hit me or Leslie.

The room spun, everything went black. And suddenly I was eight-years old again standing outside our old house in Norfolk.