The Other Half of My Heart (17 page)

Minni squeezed her sister’s arm. She tried to swallow her
laughter, but some of it escaped through her nose, making a sound like a snorting horse.

Suddenly Keira was on her feet. Grandmother Johnson scooted them into the aisle. “Move. Now!” she whispered fiercely.

If the reverend doctor had noticed, he didn’t show it. He picked right back up where he had left off, calling people to come forward who needed God to touch them and make them well. People filled the aisle, moving toward the front of the church. Minni, Keira and Grandmother Johnson were suddenly walking upstream.

Did God know how to deal with gastrointestinal distress? Perhaps Grandmother Johnson should join the people going forward.

Minni stumbled alongside their grandmother, who dragged them to the end of the red carpet and through the first door, past the picture of the honorable Reverend Dr. James Julius and his first lady and down the front steps.

The glowing Jesus must have worked some kind of miracle, because Minni and Keira kept all their laughter inside until they were safely in their room, their faces buried deep in their pillows.

“S
he’s old and wrinkled and her skin looks like puff pastry. And one of her eyes is all cloudy and pale, almost glowing. It’s spooky.” Minni sat cross-legged on her bed. She was finally getting a chance to tell Keira about Laverna Oliphant. The past two days, they’d barely had a moment to themselves, and at bedtime they’d spoken to their parents, and one night to Gigi as well. They’d fallen asleep before Minni remembered to describe her encounter with the mysterious neighbor.

Now, after an afternoon of reading
Black Beauty
, with Grandmother Johnson watching over their shoulders and doing far too much intruding, then dinner and a game of hearts, they were at last alone in the attic. Recounting Grandmother Johnson’s untimely emission in church had made them roll with laughter and left them wide-awake.

“Do you really think she practices voodoo?” Keira asked, slipping into her nightshirt.

“Grandmother Johnson said she saw shrunken heads hanging in her kitchen window.”

“Shrunken
heads?”

“I guess they have something to do with voodoo.”

“Sounds gross.”

Minni bolted upright. “I know. Let’s sneak out tonight and peek in her window!”

“You mean spy on her?” Keira sounded dubious.

“Not really. Just look and see if we can find anything to back up Grandmother Johnson’s claims. Like I said—she’s old. Really old. She probably won’t even be up.” Minni’s curiosity about this stray-loving, possibly voodoo-practicing neighbor had been piqued, but truth be told, she was too spooked
—and
concerned that Miss Oliphant might know of their involvement in the poop-on-the-door incident—to have any kind of real conversation with her.

“Okay. You got me. Let’s do it.”

They changed back into their clothes. As soon as the snoring started, they snuck downstairs. As they passed the bathroom, the floorboards creaked so loudly, Minni was sure they would be caught. They grabbed each other, their eyes glued to the door at the end of the hall. The snoring kept on like a small aircraft engine, and they tiptoed toward the kitchen, practically tripping over each other to get outside.

A soft glow came from the first-floor windows alongside Miss Oliphant’s house. “They’re too high,” Keira said, peering up. “There’s no way to see in.”

Maybe it was how well their scheme had worked this morning. Maybe it was the bright, shining moon. Whatever it was, Minni was feeling brave. “Stand on my shoulders,” she said.

It was a stunt they did all the time at home—something Keira had learned in gymnastics. She had taught Minni how to be the “under-stander,” the person on the bottom who needed to be strong, balanced and trustworthy. Minni had shown promise from their very first attempts, although it had still taken them several times to execute the mount flawlessly.

“Good idea.”

Minni spread her feet and bent her knees. She focused on being as rooted to the ground as the elm trees lining the street. Keira put a foot on Minni’s thigh and grabbed Minni’s hands, and up she went. Then step, step and she had a foot on each of Minni’s shoulders. Minni grasped her sister’s calves and worked hard not to sway. “What do you see?” she whispered.

“Candles—everywhere. Do you think she’s having a séance?”

“How would I know? I can’t see anything! What’s she doing?”

“She’s at her dining room table, surrounded by candles. She’s got some cards in a circle in front of her.”

“Playing cards?”

“No, they’re big. She’s flipping one at a time, with lots of pausing in between.”

Minni’s pulse quickened. “Tarot cards! She’s reading someone’s future!”

“Or trying to find out who put that bag of poop on her door.”

Minni’s arms and legs suddenly felt weak.

“Let me down! You’re shaking!” Keira lowered one leg and then the other so that she sat on Minni’s shoulders. Minni started to kneel, but her legs buckled. Keira tumbled to the ground.

“Sorry.” Minni grabbed Keira’s hand and pulled her up. They hurried into their house, up to the attic, and fell onto Minni’s bed, chests heaving from exertion and the thrill of their escape. They had collected some very intriguing intelligence about the enigmatic Miss Oliphant.

Perhaps Grandmother Johnson hadn’t exaggerated. Could her neighbor actually read futures and cast spells?

T
he next morning, Grandmother Johnson was limping. She hobbled into the dining room, where Keira and Minni sat pushing soggy bran cereal around their bowls, waiting for an opportunity to dump the buttermilk in the ferns.

“Are you all right?” Keira asked.

Grandmother Johnson set her teacup on the table and lowered herself into her chair, wincing. “Arthritis. It flares up when storms are moving in.”

Minni glanced out the window behind their grandmother. The sky was as clear and blue as a perfect piece of beach glass.

“Are you sure it’s not your neighbor?” Keira looked at Minni with a sly smile.

“What kind of nonsense are you talking now, child?”

“Maybe she’s got a voodoo doll over there and she’s poking it in the knee.”

Minni choked back a laugh.

Grandmother Johnson looked at Minni sternly, then turned to Keira. “Hogwash. I wouldn’t put it past her to try—vengeance for my act of justice the other day—but that witch doctor foolishness is just that—
foolishness.”
She waved her hand toward Keira’s bowl. “Now finish up. I want you to sit with Minni and do some more reading.”

Again, already?
Minni thought. Although their lessons were going okay so far, she still felt awkward about tutoring her sister.

“Could we see more pictures of your grandmother, or other relatives of yours?” she asked quickly. Surely Keira wouldn’t mind if she got them out of having to read. Plus, now that Minni knew what their great-great-grandmother had looked like, she was curious to see other pictures of Grandmother Johnson’s extended family.

“They’re your relatives too, you know.”

“Oh, right. Other relatives of
ours.”

Grandmother Johnson looked at Minni intently, sipping her tea. “I suppose…if you’re really interested.” Minni and Keira both nodded. Their grandmother’s lips curled into a small but pleased smile. She pushed back her chair and rose stiffly. “All right then, finish your breakfast and meet me in the living room.” She limped to her bedroom.

Minni poured their buttermilk into the ferns while Keira tiptoed into the kitchen and disposed of the bran cereal.
They arrived in the living room at the same time as Grandmother Johnson and sat on either side of her on the straight-backed couch.

“Has your mother shown you this one?” Grandmother Johnson held up a framed photo of a man sitting in a stuffed armchair. A girl about Minni’s and Keira’s age sat in his lap, leaning back against his chest. Minni recognized the girl’s round brown eyes and full lips, parted in a big grin full of crooked teeth. Her hair looked different braided into two plaits, but it was clear who it was.
Mama
.

Minni took the picture and pondered the man. Twinkling eyes set in a honey-brown face and framed by rectangular black glasses looked straight back at her. The man’s arms circled Mama’s shoulders and his long legs jutted out underneath her sprawling ones, which were covered to the knees by fitted striped pants. They looked as if they were laughing at a joke that only they shared.

“Isn’t that Grandpa Johnson?” Keira reached for the picture and Minni gave it to her. Their grandfather, a government employee, had died before they were born. Mama still received money from interest earned off a big asbestos settlement he had won. A bitter reminder, she said, but a helpful supplement to her modest artist’s income nonetheless. He had always encouraged her artistic abilities, she said, and would be happy to know he was helping make her career possible.

“Your mother worshipped the ground that man walked on. Always told her she could be anything she wanted.” Grandmother Johnson took the frame and laid it on the
coffee table. “I blame
him
for her fanciful pursuit of painting. She has the brains to be a doctor or lawyer. Even a successful business executive.”

Mama in a suit? Carrying a briefcase to a board meeting? Never in a million years.

Grandmother Johnson opened the old album resting in her lap. “Here’s a portrait of the lady I showed you the other day—your great-great-grandmother Minerva Louise Harris. This is the only portrait for which she ever sat. She half believed cameras had the power to snatch your soul from inside you.”

The woman wasn’t actually sitting. She stood straight and tall in a long, dark skirt and tailored jacket over a white blouse with a wide ruffled collar. Her shoulders were as broad as a man’s. A lacy black hat perched at an angle on her head, and she wore black leather gloves. Wire-rimmed glasses framed her eyes. Her face looked paler and even more serious than in the locket picture.

Grandmother Johnson turned the page. In a square black-and-white photo, the same woman stood on the porch of a small, shacklike house in a housedress and apron, holding the hand of a much darker-skinned little girl in braids and a checkered dress. Minni pointed to the girl. “Is that you?”

Grandmother Johnson nodded. “Can you believe I was ever that small?”

It
was
hard to imagine their grandmother—formal and serious and bossy—as a young child. When had she become so obsessed with ladylike behavior and achievement? Had
she ever enjoyed splashing in puddles, or eating an ice cream and letting it melt down her arm, or pretending her bicycle was a horse and she was a rider on the Pony Express? Had she ever put her toes in the ocean? If she hadn’t, Minni felt very bad for her.

“We were extremely poor. In fact, at times, when my uncle brought me to Raleigh to visit Grandma Harris during the week, I’d look at these grand homes as we drove past and wonder if God cared for black people at all. I decided he must certainly love us less, or why would we be so much poorer than the whites?”

“Do you still think that?” Minni asked.

“Of course not. But seeing the disparity between black and white made a deep impression on me. Still, we had each other—we had family.”

As she moved through the album, their grandmother pointed out the people who made up this family. Her mother and father when they were first married. Aunt Flossie, who eventually left with her husband and children to go north. Cousin Meaner, who ran the best soul-food restaurant Durham had ever known—so good, even white folks would venture into the black part of town to get themselves some of Miz Meaner’s spicy ribs and buttermilk corn bread. Uncle Booker, who helped raise Grandmother Johnson, and whose farm’s well produced such clean, fresh water, people traveled all the way from the big city of Raleigh to fill their jugs with the “Adam’s ale.”

“He was bottling water before there was such a thing,” Grandmother Johnson said. “A true entrepreneur.”

“So
that’s
where Keira gets it,” Minni said, smiling across Grandmother Johnson’s large chest at her sister. Keira stared at the photos. She was being very quiet. Much quieter than normal. What was going on in her head? Minni wondered.

“I learned two things from my uncle. One, quality is colorless.”

Minni noted with interest that Uncle Booker was significantly darker than his mother, Minerva Harris. All their relatives, other than their great-great-grandmother, had looked black.

“And two, white people will probably never accept you as an equal, but if you show them how industrious, intelligent and civilized you are, you may at least earn their respect.”

Never
accept you as an equal? Was that true?

Keira’s forehead bunched, but she stayed quiet.

Some of the later pictures showed Grandmother Johnson as a young woman, just out of college. Then there were some of her with Grandpa Johnson and Mama as a baby. The final several pages contained class photos, just like the ones Minni and Keira got every year—the ones in which Minni was always in the back row, as tall as the boys on either side of her.