"You look tired Mommy..." I went to sit in my mother's lap.
"Wanna know something?" She looked up at me, patting my cheek in affection. " I named you after my best friend..her name was Wyetta Sims."
"Really?" My hands went to my face as the smile I had broadened.
"Yup, and even tho she was pretty looking, her beauty was skin deep."
The acrylic nail on her finger poked me— a gesture made to my heart. A frown appeared on her forehead, and she began to cough, I pulled back. "You want some water?"
What came next horrified me just as it did her. I rushed to get her a paper towel.
"Here,"
"Thank you."
"M-"
"I'm fine, I don't know why it happened."
Clearing her throat, she shifted in the chair. I sat across from her, playing with my fingers, a little frightened about what happened. She looked at me for a moment.
"The bank is threatening to foreclose the house,"
I knew what foreclosure meant.
"It's your senior year in school. I want to see you make it out of this neighborhood, Wyetta, Overtown ain't nothin' but oppression and depression. I'm sure you see it. Don't waste your life cookin' and cleanin' for the white man. Cook and clean your own house. "
Even though I didn't have it all planned out like the rest: preparing for college to get their degrees—I wasn't panicking. She retired for the night, leaving me at the table.
The next day, we unpacked the groceries that evening and settled into the kitchen.
"Yetta, wouldn't it be nice if I baked a little today?" Moma murmured, as she went through the contents of the fridge.
"Oh, yeah, that lemon cake this time,"
"Did you ask Cindy about Rhonda?" moma gathered the ingredients for the cake.
"I did, she's been home a lot," I went to get a fresh apple from the fridge.
"Well, why don't you go and visit?"
"I guess that would be nice..."
Knowing that my mother would be baking soon, I went around the kitchen in search of a cookbook that her mom had passed down. The book hid beneath a pile of newspapers, as the burn mark on the spine gave it away.
"Good, now that you're going, tell Cindy to send me some more of those herbs. I'll send a few slices of the cake with you. Open the book and give me the rest of the ingredients, I don't want to miss a thing," Moma coughed so hard into her sleeve that the lockett fell open around her neck.
My gaze drifted from the book to the necklace.
"Moma...what was she like?"
"The ingredients, what are they?" she busied herself greasing the baking pan.
"You never talk about her," I dropped the book on the counter.
She snatched the book and opened it. "Pass me the eggs or get out of my face,"
***
أنت تقرأ
Seventeen Magazine
العاطفيةShe wanted a life that escaped Jim Crow and its laws. Life in Overtown, originally called Colored Town during the Jim Crow era, was nothing but oppression and depression. A time when civil rights became the overwhelming domestic issue of 1963. One...
