Long Shot (Hoops 1)

There are so many differences between the city and St. Martine. Being here the last year, I understand why Lo saw living with our great-grandmother as a blessing.

How she must have laughed when I claimed to know MiMi as well as she does. What a ridiculous notion. When we showed up on her modest doorstep, I barely recognized her. I don’t know exactly how old she is, but traces of great beauty still remain on her face, even past ninety years old. She has fewer wrinkles than she should, her skin carrying the patina of age, shined to a high polish.

And her eyes—those eyes can see your soul in the dark.

Lo hadn’t told her much about my circumstances, except that I needed to come home. But when I stood on the front porch and the blue door to MiMi’s green house swung open, her eyes probed mine in the dim porch light. That omniscient gaze sliced through the humid, heavy air, narrowing and softening with every new thing she read in my soul and dug out of my heart.

Her thin arms drew me close, and she whispered to me in French. I didn’t understand what she said. I didn’t need to. The power of her voice, the life in her words, winnowed to the bottomless pit where I hid my hurt. Before I knew it, my pain and disillusionment, my disappointment and regret, poured out of me into the silver braid hanging over her shoulder.

“Maman?”

Sarai’s sweet voice startles me and forces me to turn away from the bayou. She’s learning more words every day, half of them French, because people speak that here more than anything else, and the rest of them English, because that’s all I know to teach her.

“Hi, princess.” I bend and scoop her up. “Did you walk down here by yourself?”

She nods, bobbing the pigtails I scooped her dark curls into.

“Eat.” She clumps her fingertips together and presses them to her lips, making the sign.

“Time to eat?” I ask, waiting for another nod. “What’s MiMi got for dinner? Wanna find out?”

The patch from MiMi’s to the river’s edge is short, safe, and well-worn. This arch of trees provides the coolest spot for miles, and I find myself down here every chance I get. In the summer, humidity is the sultry breath of the south. I’ve given up on taming my hair since the moist air coaxes it into tight coils that hang down my back and around my shoulders. There’s a freedom to it.

Caleb liked my hair straight. He wanted everything a certain way. Wanted me a certain way. With distance and time, I realize I probably initially gave in to many of his preferences to make up for the fact that I just didn’t love him. Didn’t. Couldn’t. I’m not sure I ever did. If I hadn’t gotten pregnant, Caleb probably would have been “that guy” I dated in college who ended up in the NBA. Maybe we would have had a long-distance relationship for a little while that eventually ran out of steam and followed a path to a natural end.

But I did get pregnant, and everything changed.

I barely recognize the woman I’ve become, so different from that girl, fresh from college, driven to achieve whatever she set her mind to.

“Affame?” MiMi asks, lifting the top from a pot on the stove and smiling through a cloud of steam.

“Yes, starving.” I grab three plates from the hutch against the wall, silverware, and three of the linen napkins MiMi still eats with each night. At two years old, Sarai can barely reach the table, but she strains up on her little toes to set the forks down by each plate. She’s mature for her age. Bright. Observant. And so beautiful

.

“Etouffe!” she says when we sit down to eat, her smile pegged with baby teeth.

“Grits,” I correct gently. I raise my spoon to taste and close my eyes to savor. “And shrimp. So good, MiMi. Mine never turn out this good.”

She has taken up my culinary education, which my mother never really bothered to do.

We eat in relative silence for the first few moments, but that won’t last. At MiMi’s age, her mind still races with questions, and her curiosity makes for lively conversation.

“You like Jerome, eh?” MiMi’s silver brows lift and fall suggestively over mischievous eyes. “He likes you so much, he may start delivering the mail on Sunday soon.”

“Oh my God.” My cheeks flush with embarrassment, and not from the heat in the non-air-conditioned house. “He’s our mailman, MiMi, so I like him fine as far as mail goes, but nothing else.” I attempt a stern tone, but my lips twitch at the corners and so do hers.

“You are beautiful, young.” MiMi narrows one eye at me before taking a bite. “You have needs.”

“I have needs?” I cock a dubious brow. “So … Jerome, the only man I see on a consistent basis, qualifies to meet these supposed needs of mine because he delivers our mail on time?”

There’s nothing like MiMi’s laugh. It starts as a cackle then swells to a guffaw, the sound booming from her small body and floating through the air like bubbles that settle around you and pop with energy. It’s the kind of laugh that invites you to join in.

“Besides,” I say when our laughter fades and we turn our attention back to dinner. “I don’t know if I do have those needs. I’m satisfied with a good meal and my princess.” I lean over to kiss Sarai’s silky mop of curls.

“You buried your needs with your pain,” MiMi says, her voice sobering and her eyes probing. “But they are still there.”

“Are they?” My index finger makes a circuit around the porcelain rim of my bowl. “Maybe once, but …”