Caul Baby by Morgan Jerkins (read any book .TXT) 📕

friend? Starting from the church . . .” Amara began to rattle off names of other parishioners until she finally landed upon Landon.

“Landon! What about Landon? Landon! Landon?” Laila stood up and kept repeating his name while pacing across the kitchen. Then her yelling quieted to mutters, with her teeth piercing her knuckles.

“Mom told me that you’ve been mentioning him. Aunt Laila?”

“What did Landon say to you? Anything? Anything?”

“Well—”

Laila lost her balance from pacing and dropped to the ground. She lay on the floor catatonically and Amara rushed to her side.

“Aunt Lay?” Amara nudged her. “Lay?”

Laila wheezed and looked up at her niece. “You know, you have some nerve waltzing in here with your fancy degrees to question me about my choices and whether or not I’m hiding something. You would think that as someone who’s also lost a child, you’d be more sympathetic.”

Amara leaned back against the island kitchen with her knees up to her chest. “What?”

“I knew you were expecting because you couldn’t stop stuffing your face. And you smelled. I could smell you, and you had the nerve to not tell me. Me! Your aunt Laila. But I stayed quiet, thinking you’d probably confide in me. And then I felt bad because it was your first loss. Hopefully it’ll be your last.”

Amara dropped her jaw. Laila smiled, impressed with the reaction she’d received, and said, “Aha. A hit dog will holler.”

The door opened. Denise was humming a jingle as she carried her groceries into the home. But when she came into the kitchen and saw Amara and Laila glaring at each other, she asked, “What’s going on here?”

“Nothing, Mom.”

“Aht, aht, it looks like a whole lot of something. Here, Lay, sweetie, let me help you get up.” Denise placed the bags on the kitchen table and guided Laila toward the corridor. “Okay, easy now.”

“No, no!” Laila snatched away and stomped back into the kitchen. “We’re not finished with our discussion. Is there anything else Miss Amara wants to talk about?”

“Was it Landon? That’s all I want to know. Was it Landon who connected you to the Melancons?”

“Landon who?” Denise yelled. “Landon? Not our Landon! Laila?”

“Ask Amara about her pregnancy!”

“What?” Denise yelled. “Now I know you’re off. Come on up the stairs. Let’s go get you some rest. I don’t want to hear anything about no pregnancy or no Landon.”

“Landon. Lan-don. Landon.” Laila cried as she repeated his name all the way back to her room. Downstairs, Amara was putting the pieces together: her aunt had never told anyone who’d brokered the deal for her to receive the caul from the Melancons. In that moment years ago, she thought she was protecting him, since the agreement was hush-hush and maybe he didn’t want the church or the entire community as a whole to know what he did on the side. But that protection left her empty-handed, with no baby and subsequently no man.

When Denise came back down, she asked, “Mar, what the hell is going on?”

“I’ll be back.”

Amara grabbed her coat and dashed out the front door before Denise could stop her.

24

Once Amara stepped outside, she saw a police car parked directly in front of her mother’s apartment building. Whoever was in the car flashed the lights at the same time that her feet hit the welcome mat. She hailed a cab that was fortuitously coming down the block and gave the driver another address in Harlem. As the driver approached the new address, Amara saw a woman in a purple muumuu slouched in a wicker chair, her legs spread wide, on her front porch. She had a sharp, gray streak on each side of her plaited brown hair and a thick crucifix around her neck. The intensity in her gaze made Amara realize that this woman wasn’t a stranger but Valerie, the mistress of the home herself, looking worn-down and dejected. Behind her, the paint was peeling off the sides of the brownstone, her hydrangeas were wilting, and her windows were covered in a thick film. The Valerie she’d known would never be sitting on her porch dressed in a muumuu. The Valerie Amara remembered would not have had so much as a single stitch out of place from her clothes or a strand left unstyled. While her presentation had always looked like it required a lot of work, she’d made it seem effortless, creating an understated yet undeniable elegance about her. But it seemed this version of Valerie had given up.

When Amara removed her sunglasses and smoothed down the back of her head, Valerie eyed her up and down and said, “Yes?”

“Valerie? It’s me, Amara.”

“Yes, I know it’s you, Amara. I asked, ‘Yes?’ because I want to know what it is that you want.”

Taken aback by her surliness, Amara straightened her posture and lowered her voice. “Can we talk inside? We have things to discuss.”

“Why must it be done inside? I got nothing to hide.” She stretched out her legs toward Amara and moved her knees in and out. “Do you?”

“Fine. Where’s Landon? I need to speak with him.”

“He’s not here.”

“Do you know when he’ll be back?”

Valerie’s eyes ricocheted to the police car parked along the sidewalk close to her home and said, “You ain’t have to get backup, you know. Thought we were family.”

“I didn’t call them.”

“Pft. A DA not having any connection to the police is like the Archangel Michael saying he don’t know Jesus. Come on inside, girl.”

Once the women were in the foyer, Valerie said, “Now, what is it you want to know about Landon?”

“I want to know when he’ll be coming back—it’s important.”

“I don’t think he’s coming back.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Ain’t that a blip? Oh,” Valerie scoffed. “I forgot. You haven’t been up in here in a while, so you wouldn’t know. And since you’re a grown woman now, let me just give it to you straight—Landon ain’t been faithful to me. I allowed it because my home—this . . .” She stamped her foot, and the ceiling creaked, causing Amara to look up with great