of death, he was a mean old coot. What did he say as that heart attack squeezed his innards?”
Then comes the roar of my collective family, “Come at me, you bastard!”
Daisy’s tambourine is ecstatic. My aunts and uncles hoot and holler, once again caught up in the spirit of the day. We’re nearly done with this oppressive tradition. The anticipation is palpable.
Jack’s voice cuts above the cheer. “And on that very day our Candace Pickens was born! What day was that?”
“This day!” Cousin Red calls from across the yard with a wink for me. He’s no taller than me and never will be, but he makes up for it with biceps and soul.
“That’s right. Happy birthday, Candace!” Uncle Jack cries. “May you carry this curse for a great many years!”
That, too, gets a rousing chorus of cheers as though there’s nothing at all wrong with wishing a girl happy birthday by reminding her she’s expected to die. The cheering quickly morphs into a discordant round of “Happy Birthday,” and at the end, Nanny Craven lifts her jar of moonshine.
“Candace,” she calls, bidding me to approach.
This is also a tradition. A strange communion somehow meant to demonstrate my willing participation in this family superstition. All my life, I’ve joined Nanny Craven at Grandpa’s headstone and sipped from a small jam jar of white grape juice to bring this ceremony to a close. This year, she makes no move to swap the jar. I weave through the crowd of living and dead to reach Nanny’s side. She presses her mason jar to my open palm with a dare in her eye. The nerves ruffling my stomach are senseless; this will not be my first sip of liquor, it will not even be the first sip I’ve taken around my family, but Clary hooch is the holy grail of moonshine and I’ve waited all my life for a taste.
Don’t cough, I warn myself. Don’t you dare cough, Candace Pickens.
I take the jar. Nanny Craven’s face spreads into a dangerous grin. Her lipstick stains one side of the rim. I choose the other and confidently bring the jar to my lips.
I am too confident. Warm liquor splashes against my mouth and nose. The sip I meant to take is more like a gulp. It’s all I can do not to sputter at the sharp taste. My eyes water and I hear all my kin holler and laugh.
“Y’ain’t a fish, girl,” Nanny Craven chides. “Save some for Sol.”
Even she is amused by my novice performance. Tears, made from pure alcohol, I’m sure, crowd my eyes. I barely see Grandpa’s grave when I tip the jar and make my offering.
Jack has one more point to make. He begins it by clapping a hand to my shoulder. “We call it a curse, but this cycle is how we know Craven blood is thick. Whether we’re Cravens or Pickenses or Tatums or even Lirettes, we are bound together, to this place and each other.”
Smiles travel through the crowd like a virus. For a moment, all past hurts and slights, no matter how extreme, are forgotten. Second cousin Bart even reaches over to give second cousin once removed Joshua’s hand a shake. Never mind the fact that Josh sold Bart’s truck so he could buy an engagement ring for the fiancée he’d stolen two weeks prior. Even I feel a tiny swell of pride at having such a committed family. Everyone has been seduced by Uncle Jack’s tale. This is manipulation at its finest.
Then it’s time to eat.
The aunts file out of the graveyard first and down the small hill to where our feast awaits in foil trays and foam coolers. The menfolk brought folding tables and chairs out earlier in the day. They even saw fit to plant a generator where it could power a few Crock-Pots and strings of lights, haphazardly draped along the low branches of magnolia trees. My cake’ll be a two-tiered tray of Twinkies and Snowballs, and we’ll sit here in the shadow of our graveyard until the sun’s down and the food’s gone because this is how we party in the Craven family.
Nanny grips my arm in her bony hand, claiming me as her aid, and we begin our shuffling descent down the slope.
“Your mother says you’re waiting on some bad news,” Nanny says, prying. One of her favorite pastimes is mashing my buttons. It’s my opinion that Nanny guards a secret hatred of me for killing her husband.