A Ride to the Wedding

I said goodbye to another piece of childhood, watching the bride, pretty in organza bows and orchids. She was billowed in joy, not like the morning when she finally opened the door after I had knocked for an hour, fearing she had overdosed. The woman who had offered me a ride to the church turned up the air conditioning in her apartment. I groped for small talk as she rubbed her brown shoulders, and leaned forward on the couch to finish her cigarette, a tall can of beer. She grabbed her wrap, walked into her kitchen, stirred sugar into her ice water.

On my way to her bathroom, she directed, “Don’t sit on my toilet!” I obeyed. We trailed the speeding limousine ribboned in turquoise and she complained about having cramps. When she asked me how I got to her house, I said I took a cab. Six blocks in heels was a long walk in the heat. She’d never take a cab in this town, she ranted. She hated Haitians, especially the taxi drivers. Using what was left of her middle and index fingers, nubs without fingernails,

she found a rhythm and blues station on the radio. I pulled the tulle on my hat closer to my eyes and hoped it wasn’t a Haitian who maimed her. Maybe I should have said that our chained relatives could once have been heading for the same auction block. Maybe her peoples’ ship docked in the Caribbean where the captain sold my ancestor as he waited for the end of an autumn storm. But she did not want to hear me link us. I didn’t say that sometimes we drink poor man’s soda, sweeten our ice water, too. I hid myself, as if defending what I am.