They were friendly, as friendly as a white man and a colored man can be. Bo liked white folks.” She shook her head. “And they killed him.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Because he never came back,” Gloria Mine said, her eyes hard. The room fell silent.
“Tell me about my mother,” Esther asked after several seconds.
“I’m your mother.” Gloria thumped her chest. “I’m the one who raised you.”
Esther pressed a hand to her lips, and for a moment I thought she was going to lose the battle she was waging with her emotions.
She nodded, conceding the point. “You’re my mama. But I need to know who my mother was.”
“I don’t know anything about her.”
“Mama . . . please. Please.”
“All I know is her name and her reputation. Maude Alexander. Some fancy white lady. She was always in the papers. Loved attention. Lived on Fifth Avenue, and she was trouble.” She glanced at me like I was guilty of the same thing. “That’s all I know. But that’s her . . . in the picture.” She nodded toward the photo in Esther’s hand. “She sure didn’t do us any favors.”
Gloria stood and left the room, but a moment later she was back with a little pink dress and a tiny pair of matching stockings. She set them in Esther’s lap. “When the man brought you, you were wearing these. The blanket you were wrapped in was that white thing you slept with until it was worn to shreds.”
“You cut it into rags,” Esther whispered, clutching the pink clothes.
“You were ten years old, Esther. It was in tatters.”
“Why didn’t you tell me then?”
“Tell you what?” Gloria Mine asked, her tone plaintive. “What good would it have done? You’re hurting now. You didn’t need to hurt then.”
“I would have understood why you treated me different.”
Gloria looked taken aback, and her hand fluttered to her chest. “I didn’t treat you different! I loved you,” she said, adamant. “I love you.”
Esther’s jaw tightened and her eyes shone, but she shook her head.
“Loving me was harder for you. But now I understand. I just wish you’d told me sooner.”
“I wasn’t ever gonna tell you. I wish you didn’t know. No good can come of it. And now that you’ve heard it, you need to put it out of your head.”
Esther stared at her in amazement. “How am I supposed to do that?”
“The Alexanders don’t want you, Esther. I know that’s a hard thing to hear. But you can’t go knocking at their door, telling them you’re their long-lost baby girl. They knew you were lost . . . and they didn’t care. The Alexanders were glad you were gone. They got rid of Bo too. They’ll run you off, or they’ll hurt you, even more than I’m hurting you now. None of this needed to be said. Ever. Forget about them. They’ve forgotten about you. They’ve forgotten about Bo.”
“They haven’t forgotten about Bo,” I said.
Both women looked at me. Esther in devastation, Gloria in condemnation.
“And they haven’t forgotten about you,” I said to Esther. Son of a bitch. What a damn mess. “And if they did . . . they’re remembering now.”
“How do you know?” Esther whispered.
I reached over and turned up the volume on Lee Otis’s radio. Esther’s voice filled the room.
“He’s a bomb . . . and it’s gonna get loud . . . He’s a bomb . . . and you can’t keep him down.”
“They’re playing it on the radio,” I said. “Remember?”
“What were you thinking, Esther?” Gloria groaned. “That song is going to bring the devil to our doorstep.”
Seconds later, the door burst open and Lee Otis and Arky barreled into the apartment, Alvin and Money behind them. Lee Otis had blood on his forehead and the front cover of his book was dangling by a thread.
“What happened?” Gloria Mine cried, rushing to her husband’s side.
Lee Otis showed her the book, his expression beseeching. “Do you think we can fix it?” he asked. “Maybe stitch it up or something?” He was far more concerned about the book than his injury.
Arky led him to the sink and began dabbing his face with a wet cloth.
“What happened?” Esther repeated, looking at Alvin and Money.
“They were shooting at us,” Money hissed. “A car drove by and the next thing we know, there’s a gangster sticking his gun out the rear window.”
“A big white guy came running up the street, shooting at the car. Otherwise we’d have been toast,” Alvin added.
I ran from the Mines’ apartment, raced