Lost Daughters (24 page)

A
FTER MAUREEN ENDED HER CALL, SHE JOINED VIRGIL ON MONETTE'S
cluttered back porch. A broken lawn mower, some auto parts that had begun to rust, and piles of newspapers dominated both sides of the porch floor. There was a glider on one side, but it was practically covered with old magazines, gardening tools, a large boom box, and what appeared to be a cat's litter box, even though there was no other evidence of a cat. The only place left to sit was on the steps. Virgil occupied the top step. Maureen sat down next to him with a hearty groan.

“Virgil, you all right?” she asked, grabbing his hand and squeezing it. She was surprised at how cold his skin felt on such a warm spring night. “You look terrible.”

“I feel terrible too,” Virgil replied, staring straight ahead toward a rosebush, a well-tended vegetable garden, some more useless pieces of junk scattered all over the backyard, and an assortment of fruit trees. “I'm still kind of shell-shocked, though. How about you? How you doin'? You got more of a load dumped on you than me. First all that stuff I told you, now this thing about my mama havin' a baby before she had me.”

“I don't know just how I'm doin' yet,” Maureen admitted. “I guess I'm shell-shocked too. A few minutes ago I was feelin' like I was havin' some kind of out-of-body experience. My body felt all right, but my mind seemed like it was floating all over the place.”

“You want to talk about what Monette said about Mama Ruby's first baby?”

There was a peaceful look on Maureen's face, and she felt strangely calm. “I guess we need to talk about it some more,” she answered.

“I'm still tryin' to let it all sink in. I never expected to hear what we heard this evenin'. All this time, I had a real sister anyway,” Virgil said in a scratchy voice.

“Virgil, you did have a real sister all this time. Me. Now you have two.”

Two hours later, Ruby's biological daughter, Maureen Clemmons, arrived at Monette's house. Her footsteps on the front porch floor were loud and moved quickly, like a racehorse galloping toward a finish line. She didn't even bother to knock or ring the doorbell. She snatched open the door and steamrolled into the living room, huffing and puffing like a wolf.

Virgil held his breath and wobbled up off the couch. He stood in the middle of the floor staring at the newcomer with his eyes burning and his lips trembling. “Oh Lord! You must be our big sister!” he managed. “Old Mo'reen.”

“Well, if I ain't I'm wearin' the wrong underwear!” the other Maureen roared. “I'm here!” She punched her huge, lumpy chest with her fist and guffawed so loud and hard she choked on some air. This sister was a country woman to the bone—coarse, loud, and unapologetic. She also wore a pair of men's house shoes and a long flowered dress that looked like a tropical bedsheet. Her thick, gray-streaked hair was in a single braid, wrapped around the sides and top of her head like a crown. She had the same husky voice that Mama Ruby had had but mercifully, Virgil was happy to see, not the same girth. This Maureen was fairly tall, but she weighed only about a hundred eighty pounds. Like Virgil, she had light brown skin and attractive features. “Well, now, y'all must be Virgil and Mo'reen. My baby sister and my baby brother!”

The younger Maureen rose from her seat and stood next to Virgil. Lee remained in the wing seat by the couch. Monette, with her hands on her hips, stood in the middle of the doorway leading to the kitchen.

“I been itchin' to meet y'all for years,” Old Maureen squealed. “But let's get one thing straight now. I ain't that old, so I don't want to be called
Old
Mo'reen. Since I'm the biggest, y'all call me Big Mo'reen.” She paused and looked at Maureen. “We'll call you Little Mo'reen from now on.” Big Maureen wrapped one arm around Virgil's waist and her other arm around Maureen's waist at the same time. “It's a cryin' shame that it took this long for us to meet.” She sniffled and released a few tears of joy.

“Sister, we didn't know about you until now,” Virgil said. “You bein' our sister and all.”

“Aunt Othella didn't tell me everything when I met her. She told me that my mama had a baby boy after they moved to Florida. I didn't know nothin' about her havin' another baby girl too,” Big Maureen crowed, smiling around the room. “Who would have thought that I had a baby sister that looks like a movie star. You can't beat this with a hammer!”

“Shoot! This ain't no real big deal if you ask me. I got quite a few half sisters and half brothers that I ain't never met. My daddy got around,” Monette revealed.

“Me too, I believe,” Lee said. “The rumor went around for years that my mama had a baby boy that she gave up when she was a young girl.” He paused and mopped sweat off his face with the back of his hand. “Most everybody in the world got kinfolks they don't know nothin' about. Just like Little Mo'reen and Virgil.”

Oddly enough, Lee's last comment made Maureen feel a little more at ease. She was glad to finally see a smile on Virgil's tortured face.

“Who would have thought that Aunt Ruby had two baby girls both named Mo'reen,” Monette said.

Everybody in the room laughed.

“I . . . my grandma Simone told me that my mama didn't want no babies at the time and that's why she gave me up. When I was a kid, I prayed every day that she would want to meet me someday.” Big Maureen had to stop talking and sit down on the couch. After she'd honked into a handkerchief and wiped the tears from her eyes and the snot off her nose, she continued. “When I heard about the God-fearin' woman my mama was, I figured she didn't want me in her life to scandalize her good name. I made up my mind a long time ago that I wouldn't try to find her, unless she put out the word that she wanted to be found. When I heard she died, I squalled like a panda. I wanted to go to her funeral, but I didn't want to bring no shame on my mama, not even in death. Her daddy was a man of the cloth that didn't tolerate worldly behavior. All I heard from that side of the family was what a sanctified woman my real mama was.”

“I wish you could have met Mama Ruby,” Maureen said, easing down on the couch next to Big Maureen. “She was one of a kind.”

“That's an understatement if ever there was one,” Virgil chimed in.

“Now, exactly what do you mean by that, Virgil?” Lee asked, looking puzzled.

“Um, there wasn't nobody else like her,” Virgil offered.

“There never will be another woman like Mama Ruby. She was the best mama in the world to me and Virgil,” Maureen added.

Around midnight, Virgil called home to tell Corrine that he had just met the sister he didn't know he had.

After boo-hooing for a few moments, Corrine told Virgil, “Now you got two sisters.”

B
IG MAUREEN LEFT AROUND
2:00
A.M.
,
BUT SHE PROMISED TO RETURN
the next day after she had visited her husband in the hospital. Virgil and Maureen accompanied Lee back to his house.

Lee curled up on a pallet on his back bedroom floor and fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Maureen was glad to have some time alone with Virgil in the living room. “You doin' all right now?” she asked Virgil. She eased down into a huge gray easy chair facing him on the couch.

“Somewhat. I'm just feelin' real strange . . . and sad,” Virgil said mournfully, kicking off his shoes. “Everything ain't really sunk in yet.” He paused and gave Maureen a pensive look. “I know you said I ain't got nothin' to be sorry about, but I want to tell you again that I am so sorry about everything.”

“Do you wish Mama Ruby hadn't kidnapped me now?”

“Yeah. I mean no! Oh shit, I don't know what I mean no more. What my mama done was wrong. I can't say that enough. But havin' you in our lives was a double blessin' to her and to me.”

Maureen gave Virgil a weak smile. “It's a shame that Mama Ruby couldn't keep her own baby girl, but if she had, things would have turned out a whole lot different than they did for all of us.”

“You mean Mama Ruby wouldn't have stole you?”

Maureen nodded. “She wouldn't have had no reason to. You said she took me on account of she wanted a baby girl so bad.”

“Yeah. That's what she told me. I think in her mind that made it all right. That and the fact that she truly thought God was in control that night. Makin' it look like you was born dead, then makin' you come back to life after she got you to our house.”

Maureen looked at Virgil with a stiff look on her face. “God don't direct none of His flock to kidnap somebody's child. If He really wanted Mama Ruby to have another baby girl of her own, He would have sent her another husband and blessed them with a new baby that
they
made.”

Virgil shrugged. “That's right. I guess I'm just tryin' to keep Mama Ruby from lookin' too bad.”

“Virgil, we both know that Mama Ruby's heart was always in the right place. There ain't nothin' you can say about her that would make her look bad to me.”

“One thing I didn't tell you . . .”

“Uh-oh,” Maureen said, holding her breath, wondering if she had made her last statement too soon.

“If you hadn't started cryin' when you did that night, it would have been too late.”

“What do you mean?”

“We had the shoebox ready to bury you in. I was just about to go in the backyard and dig a hole by the pigsty.”

“Oh. So I could have been buried alive, huh?” The thought made Maureen's head spin.

“Uh-huh,” Virgil agreed. The same thought almost made him pass out.

Maureen's flesh felt like it was trying to crawl off her bones. She rubbed one arm and then the other. “No matter what, I . . . I don't think we should
ever
tell Big Mo'reen about me and how Mama Ruby took me and killed my real mama. Not even on
our
deathbeds.” Maureen narrowed her eyes and looked at Virgil long and hard. “It wouldn't do no good for Big Mo'reen to find out that her mama was a criminal, huh?”

“I'm glad you feel like that and I hope you never change your mind,” Virgil said. “I guarantee you, I won't be confessin' nothin' on my deathbed.”

Maureen rose with the sun the next morning and called home again. She was surprised that neither Loretta nor Mel answered the telephone. They hadn't mentioned having any jobs before she left, and it was only 7:00 a.m. in Florida. She couldn't imagine where the two of them could be this early. There was a concerned look on her face as she proceeded to leave a message on the answering machine. “I just wanted to check in and let y'all know that everything is still goin' really well. We met some cousins and a half sister we didn't even know we had. Believe it or not, her name is Mo'reen too. Mama Ruby had her when she was a teenager and couldn't keep her, so she was raised by somebody else. She's been with her daddy's family for some time now. I'll explain more about that when I get home.”

When Maureen called, Loretta and Mel were in the shower together, giving each other a tongue bath. They didn't even bother to check the answering machine that day or the next. When Maureen returned home the following Monday evening, one of the first things she asked was, “Ain't that somethin' about me and Virgil havin' a half sister?”

“What half sister?” Mel and Loretta asked at the same time.

Mel was on the couch with his bare feet crossed at the ankles on top of the coffee table. Loretta was facing him in the wing chair with one leg hanging over the side of the chair arm, like she was clinging to a lifeboat. Maureen didn't approve of Loretta's position at all. It was a vulgar and suggestive way for a female to be sitting in front of a man. Especially when all Loretta wore was a bathrobe.

“Lo'retta, I hope you don't sit that unladylike in front of none of the people you model for. That's how porn stars sit,” Maureen jabbed, shaking her head. “Get your lazy leg off the arm of that chair, girl!”

Loretta immediately pulled her legs together and sat up straight. “I was just tryin' to get comfortable, Mama. I got the cramps,” she pouted. “I didn't even hear you come in.”

“Maureen, why didn't you call me to pick you and Virgil up from the airport?” Mel asked, nervously scratching the side of his head.

“I left a message on the answerin' machine tellin' you what time to pick us up. You didn't call me back to let me know you got the message, so we took a cab home,” Maureen said tiredly.

“Mama, I don't know why you didn't just drive that new car I bought you to the airport and leave it there until y'all got back home,” Loretta commented.

“It don't matter. I got there and I got back home,” Maureen said dryly, looking around the room. She was glad to see that everything was as neat and orderly as she had left it.

“What did you just say about a half sister?” Mel asked. He moved his feet off the coffee table and sat up straighter too.

Maureen set her suitcase down and eased down onto the couch next to Mel. “I left a message on the answerin' machine about that too,” she replied, looking from Loretta's surprised face to Mel's. “Didn't y'all listen to it? I called around seven o'clock Saturday mornin'. Where did y'all go that early?”

“We had a power outage around that time,” Mel lied. Lying was something he had become so good at that he could do it on cue and sound sincere. “It was the longest outage this street has had in months. We got up early that morning and went to my friend Mark's house over in Liberty City. Mel paused and groped for a few more appropriate words. “The outage didn't affect every resident on our street, or even in our building.” He added the last sentence in case one of the neighbors told Maureen a different story. “We stayed with Mark until he left for Key West this morning.”

“Don't worry, Mama. The power wasn't off long enough for the ham hocks you put in the freezer before you left to thaw out,” Loretta threw in.

“Oh. That's good. We can have them for dinner this evenin',” Maureen said. She snatched a rolled up newspaper off the end table and started fanning her face. “Well, I'm glad to be home. It's hot here, but that Louisiana heat was stiflin'. It was as close to hell as a human bein' could get and still be alive on Earth.”

“So, when do we get to meet your half sister? Is she a great big fat woman like Mama Ruby was?” Loretta asked with an amused look on her face.

Maureen chuckled and shook her head. “Not hardly. She was a little on the heavy side, but not half as fat as Mama Ruby was. I would say she weighs close to two hundred pounds.”

Loretta's jaw dropped and her eyes crossed. “Two hundred pounds? And you don't think that's that fat?” Loretta threw her head back and howled with laughter. Mel had to hold his breath to keep from snickering himself.

“Well, that is kind of heavy, I guess,” Maureen chortled. “Anyway, believe it or not, her name is also Mo'reen. Everybody called her Big Mo'reen and they called me Little Mo'reen.”

“How old is she?” Mel asked, looking just as amused as Loretta. “If your mama had her when she was a teenager, she must be pretty long in the tooth by now.”

“Big Mo'reen is a little past fifty,” Maureen replied. “She's got grown kids and grandkids. They all live in other states. She's comin' to visit us later this year, maybe for Thanksgivin' or Christmas.” Maureen smiled.

Despite everything that had transpired, Maureen was in one of the best moods she'd been in since she was a child. When Mel pulled her into his arms later that night, she felt like her life was almost complete. If she could bring herself to love him, it would be.