His First Wife

I wanted so badly to hold him and hug him, but something in me wouldn’t let that happen. I just looked back at my father and we sat there in silence, all three of us, together for about thirty minutes. It was one of those moments where I couldn’t, didn’t, want to say anything. I was tired of being sad and angry and just done with everything that was going on. Jamison. My father. There was nothing else to be said. I just needed more time to think. I wondered what I’d done wrong in all these years. I was just now realizing that I’d abandoned my father, denied my true feelings about being without him for so long. What else was I hiding from myself?

Jamison and I left the nursing home together. I kissed my father and promised I’d be back the next day for what Jamison called Granola Wednesday. Then, he said, it was funny to watch my father refuse to eat granola. He’d put it in his mouth himself and then spit it out.

“Can I come see Tyrian to night?” Jamison asked after walking me to my car.

“Sure,” I replied. “I don’t think he has any plans.”

“Great.”

“And can you bring my thick bathrobe from the bathroom,” I asked. It was getting colder outside and Aunt Luchie’s old house had an icy draft.

“No,” he said surprising me.

“Excuse me?” I asked, getting into the car.

“I said, ‘No.’”

“Jamison,” I said, “I don’t have time to play games with you.” I tried to close the car door but he wouldn’t let me.

“I need you to understand that I fully intend on getting you back, Kerry,” he said. “Whatever you want. Whatever you need. I’m going to give it to you. But I want you back. I want you home.”

“You can’t have that. You already made your decision.”

“Yeah,” he said, “and it was on a cold February morning when I agreed to distract a girl at a Spelman dance for my best friend.”

“Stop it,” I said, pulling at the car door.

“I fucked it up. I know I fucked it up, but I didn’t do this all by myself,” he said. And then we were both crying. I still had my hands on the door, but my fingers unraveled slowly.

“There’s so much shit we deal with every day . . . from everyone around us that sometimes it seems impossible for us to just be. To just be in love.” He pulled me out of the car and into his arms. “I wonder sometimes, Kerry, that if we’d met in another lifetime without all of the stuff would we be okay. If I could love you as much as I could and you could do the same and no one could come between us. You know what I’m talking about?”

I nodded my head and rested it on his shoulder, wetting his coat with my tears.

“I know I can’t protect you from the world,” he said. “But I can’t give up on us. I can’t do this without you. You’re my wife.”

We stood there in the parking lot crying. I could hear everything he was saying so clearly, and

now while I’d hated what we’d been through, I needed to hear those words long before Coreen ever came into either of our lives. I knew I wasn’t ready to go home just yet, but something in my soul told me that our love, our marriage was worth fighting for.

Hell No, We Won’t Go

Now the March on Washington was in August and even Farrakhan was smart enough to hold the Million Man March in October, so why did Aunt Luchie and her crew decide to hold a rally to protest changes at the hospital in the middle of a very cold and windy December? And why in the world was I with them? We’d been standing out there in the cold in front of the hospital chanting and walking in a circle and every inch of my body—from my baby toes to my ear lobes—was completely frozen. And that wasn’t even the bad part. The bad part was that I had to be the youngest person out there protesting and I was sure that at any moment one of those feisty seniors would faint from the cold and need to be rushed into the very hospital we were protesting.

We were out there because a board had voted for a nonprofit to take over Grady’s operations. I thought it was a great idea and that the shift was just in time. The hospital had recently failed an inspection and was running out of money fast. The change would bring millions of dollars from public and private groups. At the very least it would be saved from shutting down, which was their initial goal and now it seemed the place would be better. But Aunt Luchie said the plan wasn’t enough. It would take dollars out of the community where they helped poor people and put them into a bunch of silk-lined, executive pockets. Unlike the old board, the new board wouldn’t have to answer to the public or help the uninsured and the poor. That’s the position Grady used to hold. Where would those people go now?

With my new outlook, I got so fired up about this I sent Tyrian to my mother’s house for the day and set out to be heard. While I was freezing, I admit that the whole thing was pretty exciting. There were only about fifteen of us—a few church leaders, a man from a local radio show, and seniors from the civic organization Aunt Luchie belonged to—but we were being heard. Aunt Luchie had a bullhorn and was leading us in an off-key medley of chants from “No Justice, No Peace” to “The New Grady Is Shady.” A few doctors gave us a thumbs up as they walked by and even some of the people driving by in their cars honked to show support. One man came back with a few cups of coffee and a basket of doughnuts. To warm my frozen fingers, I volunteered to hand out the stuff. As I looked into the faces of each of the protestors, I felt more confident that what I was doing was right and that even if the hospital didn’t change its course, people needed to know that the poor were important to us. My heart warmed my entire body as I thought of the possibility of the women I would someday help, women who probably had been touched by Grady in some way and would surely need its services again. If I was going to assist them, I had to protect the hospital and its mission to provide services for them. Grady wasn’t perfect, but I had to make sure they had somewhere to go, somewhere to take their children.

“If your father could see you now!” Aunt Luchie whispered in my ear as I walked by. “He’d be so proud.”

I smiled and kissed her on the cheek. Since my first visit alone, I’d been spending most afternoons at my father’s side. I just felt like I needed to be there with him. No one knew if he’d ever be okay, but I decided for myself that I didn’t want him to be alone again. If he was going to die, he’d know somehow that his family was there for him. My mother’s refusal to come with me to the hospital let me know that she was incapable of being there and I didn’t have time to force her. I couldn’t ignore him anymore. I had to focus on my dad and getting him better.

We didn’t speak much when I was there. He still hadn’t made eye contact with me and as far as I knew he didn’t even know I was in the room. But I still sat there and sometimes talked about Tyrian and my mother’s antics. And he’d get real quiet sometimes, almost like he was listening. The nurses couldn’t say if it was a sign or anything, but it was enough to suggest that maybe he was making a connection. And even though I kept telling myself I was there to help him, in the silence in that hospital room, I was also helping myself. I was thinking and planning and freeing my mind from all of the garbage and rules I’d let fill my head. If my father was all of the things my aunt said he was, I needed his strength, his vision to really figure out who I was. I wondered what my life might have been like if he’d always been there. If he’d kept my mother happy. I didn’t resent him for not being there. But I did know that I had to stop pretending that I was okay with it. That it hadn’t affected me.

“You think they can hear your bullhorn in the hospital?” I asked Aunt Luchie. “That we’re really making noise?”

“Oh, that’s not the point,” she said. “Protesting isn’t only about upsetting the perpetrators; it’s also about making the public more aware and getting the word out about what’s going on through the media. That’s what makes the change—awareness and national embarrassment.” She switched the bullhorn back on and turned to the group shouting, “The New Grady Is Shady.”

And we replied with the same words. I kept circulating through the crowd, making sure everyone was warm.