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“That’s not what I said,” I murmured to Evan. “I said we’d talk about it this summer.”
“Oh, I’ll have to start collecting squares for a quilt,” Nana Jessie said. “I can cut some of my mama’s old dresses.”
“That’ll be good luck for her,” my mother cheered. “Oh ... a girl, a baby girl. Finally another girl in the family.”
“Who said it’s going to be a girl? I never even said I was going to—” I tried, but this time my father cut me off.
“Ain’t gonna be no girl. It’s bad luck for the first baby to be a girl. Got to be a boy to pass on that blood line.” He nodded to a smiling Evan and then glanced disapprovingly at Jr.
“Yes, sir,” Evan said proudly, poking out his chest like my father.
“Now, after the boy, then you two can go right on and have a girl quickly,” my father went on. “Don’t wait like me and your mother did with you. Had you and Jr too far apart. That’s why you don’t get along. Have them back to back.”
I kicked Billie beneath the table. Along with my father’s long prayers, she’d seen this too many times at the dinner table—me entangled in the vector of my family’s trajectory planning. Usually, Jr just went along with the plan; I took the approach of holding out until they changed the subject; Justin just ran away. As everyone else continued to eat and sip on their iced tea merrily with the thought of my two children, I looked to the tenth chair in the dining room set, empty and tucked away beside the china cabinet, and thought of Justin. Sometimes it seemed like he was the lucky one.
“So, I guess my baby sister’s going to beat me,” Jr said, walking me and Evan to the door after May and I’d helped my mother clean the kitchen. Billie and Mustafa left early to give Nana Jessie a ride home and my father departed with a plate he was taking to Mother Oliver, who’d been on our shut-in list at the church for years.
“I’ll go get the car,” Evan said, rushing out ahead of me.
“Beat you at what?” I asked Jr.
“Having a baby.”
“That’s still to be decided.”
“Children are great. A blessing to any family.”
“What do you know about it?” I asked. “You sound like you have one.”
“Journey,” he said, looking off, “just do it. Stop being so stubborn.”
“Stubborn? You make it sound like I’m buying a car.”
“You never could commit to anything.”
“I can commit to not listening to you.”
Jr had a way of twisting what seemed like human concern into the platform for an insult. I had to fight back or be slaughtered.
“Journey, I’m not trying to argue with you,” he said, opening the front door and gesturing for me to step outside. Evan was already sitting in the car at the head of the oval driveway that parted before the front door. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“What’s up?” I asked, already knowing what he was about to bring up. Whenever Jr did take time to talk to me—and it was rare—it was either to say something bad about Justin or bring up my taking over the entertainment ministry at the church. Besides the children’s ministry, which Jack ran, the entertainment ministry was the biggest department at the church. Newly formed, it included dance, our visual arts direction, theater, the orchestra, the marching band, all of the choirs, and the biggest deal at the church since my father announced he was considering a move to television—audio and visual production. When all of the smaller ministries were organized under the umbrella of entertainment, my father instructed Jr to appoint a salaried director. The sixfigure position would be the seventh of its kind at the church. Included were Jr’s leadership of all of the ministerial directors, my mother’s position as the executive officer of the women’s clinic, the church’s executive director who presided over all financial matters, and Jack, who doubled as assistant pastor and director of the children’s ministry.
“I think it’s time for you to come be with us,” Jr said. “You know I still have that position open and waiting for you.”
“We talked about this before.” I stepped down to the bottom step. “I’m at the school ... I love what I do.”
“Would you stop being selfish and think about your family ... our legacy? This is your father’s church. We can’t entrust such a big role at the House to an outsider. Someone not in the family. There’s too much at stake for us to do that again.”
“Outsiders? Are you still angry about Jack? Is this about him?”
Jack had been a pebble in Jr’s shoe for some time. Our father appointed him as assistant pastor and when he put him in a fully salaried position over the children’s ministry—with equal pay to Jr—my brother took it as a pers
onal attack. Suddenly, Jack couldn’t be trusted and Jr was waiting for him to mess up.
“Don’t bring that nigga up in front of my father’s house.” Jr raised his voice in a way that wasn’t at all normal—even for him. I’d pushed a button; that was clear. I just didn’t know which one.
“Look, I don’t see why you think I’d be better for the job than anyone else. I have no training. No experience. I’ve been teaching all of my life. I don’t know how to do anything else.”
