“Don’t you have any pictures of Clio around here, Mother?” she asked.
The old woman bit into another sugar wafer. “That girl never set still long enough to make a picture,” she said, spraying crumbs.
“Good Lord, Mother,” Imogene said, brows knitting together. “Do you have to talk so hateful all the time? Myra’s going to think we’re awful.” She turned to me and smiled. “I know I’ve got some at my house. Would you like to come home with me and take a look? I might could tell you some stories, too.”
“I don’t know,” I said, thinking of John for the first time since I got out of the taxi. “I told the cabdriver to be back at the pool hall by three.”
“I don’t live far,” Imogene said. “I can have you back before then.”
In the car she told me things about my mother that I’d never heard before. The time she let me taste ice cream on her finger and how I suckled with such a funny look on my face. The time she brought me in from the car bundled up and when she opened the blanket inside the warm house everyone saw that she had carried me across the yard upside down. But something bothered me about the way Imogene kept her eyes straight ahead as she spoke, the way she laughed nervously. I grew afraid that it was all lies, or at least only part of the story. We pulled up to her house, a nicely landscaped brick duplex. She lived in one side and kept tenants in the other. Getting out of the car, I realized how close we were to the Odom house. I ducked my head as we crossed the yard. Inside, the windows were hung with trailing plants and curios lined a white mantel. The room was clean but packed with antique furniture. There were mirrors and picture frames propped against one wall and old books stacked against another. “Don’t mind my mess,” Imogene said. “I’m opening myself a little shop next door, when the remodeling is done.” I glanced toward the window, hearing the hammering outside. She followed my eyes and said, “That’s my friend fixing the roof. I’ve been buying things along as I see them. I’ve loved old things since I was a little girl. It’s scary to try something new like this, but I always wanted my own store.” She seemed harried and scattered, talking perhaps to hide her embarrassment. We both knew she was keeping something from me. “You can have a seat, honey,” she said. “I’ll get my albums.”
I went to the brocade loveseat, lace doilies draped on its arms. I felt outside myself, in this unfamiliar place with this strange woman who was my aunt. When she came back, we spent a long time looking at the pictures. One of my mother holding me, not smiling. One of her surrounded by other people, a cigarette between her fingers. She smoked. I never knew. These are the things people forget to tell you. When all the pages were turned, we sat in silence. I supposed it was time to go but I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t stop thinking of Imogene’s nervous stories in the car, the troubling sense of being lied to. She waited expectantly, probably for me to say that I should be going, so I said it. “I ought to be getting back.” But I didn’t get up. My body resisted and when she was getting her purse I couldn’t keep quiet any longer. I blurted, “What were they really like?”
She turned to me, startled. “Hmm?”
“All I hear are the good stories. I want to hear all of the stories. Good and bad.”
Imogene put down her purse and keys. She came to sit beside me again. She put her hand on my knee. “Oh, honey,” she said.
“I want to know,” I said.
She grew quiet, looking down, biting her lip.
She looked back up. “But what good would it do? What does it matter now?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Please tell me.”
“You’re sure.”
“Yes.”
“All right. I’ll do the best I can.”
She began at the beginning. “I’ve always been different than them,” she said. “I hated growing up in that filthy house. You couldn’t go barefoot unless you wanted black feet. He tracked it in on his boots. We call him Uncle but he’s not. I figure he’s my grandfather. Grandmother moved in with her sister Lucille, who was married to Uncle. About a year later, Mother was born. I don’t know if Uncle raped Grandmother or if she slept with him. Are you sure you want to hear all this?” I nodded and she went on. “Uncle never was any good. I believe that’s part of why Kenny turned out how he did. It was in the blood. Now Grandmother and Lucille are gone and Uncle’s still kicking.
“We moved in with Grandmother and Lucille and Uncle after Kenny was born. Mother was a bastard, and Kenny and I grew up fatherless, too. But I do remember my father. The three of us lived for a while in a room over a storefront. He had a strong, nasty smell and whiskers. Straggly hair and no teeth, tattoos all over his arms. One of them was a dagger. I don’t know what happened to him. He wasn’t Kenny’s father.
“I was eight when Kenny was born. I doted on my brother, toting him around everywhere and letting him pitch tantrums. But he had the finest blond hair and the sweetest blue eyes, just like yours. He was the cutest little boy, until he got spoiled and hateful. He wouldn’t do his schoolwork and Mother didn’t care. I was the only one that ever tried to encourage him, but what was the use? She let him drop out in the eighth grade. He laid around for the rest of his life after that, except to go out drinking on the weekends. He’d take a job here and there, but he ended up quitting every one of them.
“Kenny’s father, your grandfather, was shot in a bar, I believe. Mother settled down after that. She was still mean as a snake on the inside, though. Sometimes I wonder why I still go over there. I wonder why I still love her. But it’s the same reason you love your mother, and will still love her after I say what I’m going to say. Uncle owned the pool hall where Kenny and Clio met. I had married my husband Gerald and moved out, so I wasn’t around much at that time. But I did get to know Clio, at least somewhat. She had hair like yours, even longer. She was a fairly nice-looking girl, but not like you. I’ll be honest. There was something odd about her eyes, like the lights were on and nobody home. She couldn’t stand to hang around the house. She got a job and left you with Kenny. I know you’re wondering if she loved you. I think so. She bought you frilly dresses. Put bows in your hair, which you had a lot of, even as a baby. She played with you like a doll. She wasn’t a bad girl. Just restless, and liked to drink. Kenny, I don’t know. It bothered him when you cried. He wanted to sleep late and you woke him up early. He and Mother didn’t watch you very well while Clio was at work. Some days I’d go over there and find you lying in the crib crying with a dirty diaper. You always had diaper rash where they didn’t change you enough, and I’d take you home with me.”
She paused then and looked down at her hands in her lap. I held my breath because I knew she was about to tell me whatever she had been withholding. I opened my mouth to stop her, to say that she was right, I didn’t want to know. But it was too late.
“She dropped you one time,” Imogene said, the words rushing together. “She and Kenny both were drunk. I believe she was on something, too. Some kind of pills. She said you just slipped through her fingers. You hit your head on the floor and Clio thought you were dead. She was out of her head when she called me. I could barely understand her. She wanted me to help her bury you. Said Kenny couldn’t do it, he was passed out, and Mother and Uncle both worked late at the pool hall on Friday nights so they weren’t home. I rushed over there scared to death what I would find. She was standing in the yard pacing back and forth with you, making this awful moaning noise. I jumped out of the car and snatched you out of her arms. I saw right away that you were just sleeping. I believe she would have buried you alive if I hadn’t gotten there fast. I begged Clio to let me drive you to the emergency room, but she was scared they might take you away from her. She could have been right. They might have. But I believe she did love you the best she knew how.” Imogene pulled a crumpled tissue from behind her watch band and dabbed at her eyes. She didn’t look at me. When she began again, her voice was unsteady.