My Best Man by Andy Schell (unputdownable books .txt) 📗

your father’s wishes, follow the codicil in the will. You understand, don’t you?”

I hold tight, afraid to let go, but don’t understand. Why won’t my mother just negate the whole thing and set me free? She has a sense of duty to my father, but what about her sense of duty to me? He’s dead, I’m alive. I can’t help but think she’s using my father’s instructions as a last resort for her own attempt to straighten -me out and send me off into the sunset with a wife. It makes me angry that my mother would do this. But now she may possibly have cancer. And I love every little nip and tuck of her. I want her to feel better, to heal, to live. I almost tell her about Amity. how nay feelings for her are more genuine than they’ve been for anyone Outside of the family. That, believe it or not, I very well may feel

love for a girl. But caution tells me to say nothing, for it would too big an opening for my mother, and she would thrust me a stage that had no exit. “Yes, Mother,” I whisper back. “I stand.” ‘

“I feathered the engine, and we were slowly inching down, barely above the treetops, and the Mekong River was out in of us a little ways,” Donald says with dramatic warning.

“Come on,” my mother says, trying to pull me back out to living room.

I resist. “Wait. Have you told Winston?”

“Oh, heavens, no. He doesn’t understand these things the w you do. I’ll only tell him if it’s malignant. Promise you mention it to him.”

I can hardly bear to speak to him. “Of course,” I tell her.

“Good. Now come on,” she says, dragging me toward the room. “Donald’s about to land the plane!”

“Anyways,” Donald says, as if we’ve never left, “we brought her in and set her down, and just as we rolled out and turned the runway, we lost the other engine. If it had happened two earlier in the air, we’d have crashed and burned.”

My mother looks at me like, “See?” She is fully smitten this general from Georgia, who impresses her with his and heroism. And I see that she’s happy and taken care of. in a way she never was before.

Grammie answers the door herself. She’s almost eighty old now, and years of riding horses and other athletic have taken their toll. She walks with a lame gait, supported cane, and her hands are riddled with arthritis, but she’s still trustworthy and regal matriarch of the Ford family, and her and carriage, though painful, still reflect it.

“Hey, Grammie.”

She smiles. Laughs. “Harry.” We embrace, and she fills senses with the scent of childhood, the same citrus-and-spice

ture from the cologne bottles she has ordered from California since I was a child. “Come in. Marzetta is making sandwiches.” Grammie explains that she has inherited Marzetta almost full-time since Donald has reduced her hours, and she loves Marzetta so much she hired someone else to do most of the work, so Marzetta is free to enjoy life. “What’s it like being a poor airline attendant?” Grammie asks.

“Oh, well,” I laugh, while following her into the kitchen, “it’s great. You only have to pay half the rent, because you’re forced to have a roommate. You never have to worry about your car being stolen, because nobody wants it. And you never have to worry about shopping for clothes just throw on a uniform. Hey!” I say, seeing Marzetta. “How’s my real mother?”

“She’s proud,” Marzetta beams. “I hear you’re an airline steward, son. That’s the job I always wanted. I used to dream about flying the troops to Europe during the Second World War. “Course, they didn’t let colored girls like me be stewardesses back then. So it was just a nice dream.”

I’ll tell you what,” I say. “I like flying with black girls most of all. They don’t take any guff from anyone. The passengers behave better when a sister is on board. Us white women get no respect.” “Oooh!” she laughs.

“Come on. Let’s sit,” Grammie commands. She sees the two sandwich plates Marzetta puts before us and asks, “Where’s yours?”

Marzetta shakes her head. “I’m off to the drugstore. I’m needing some foot cream.” She waves goodbye, grabs the keys to the car Grammie bought her, and heads out the door.

My grandmother nods. “Drive on.” She takes a bite of her sandwich. “So who is this girl your mother wants to meet?” “Amity?”

Grammie is silent for a moment, then smiles. “You know, the

word amity is often used when describing peaceful relations between two nations. Have you two made a pact? Like two nations?” “Meaning?”

My grandmother quickly gives up on the chicken sandwich and makes for the chocolate-covered graham cookies. “Do you plan to marry her for your inheritance?”

I frown while biting into my sandwich. “No.”

“Does she know you’re gay?” she asks, picking up a piece chocolate that has broken off her cookie and fallen on her plate.

It’s amazing to me that my grandmother is perfectly c saying the word gay, but my mother can’t utter it. “Sure,

We have no secrets, Amity and I.”

“Good. We have too many secrets in this family already.” “Like what?” I ask.

She lifts her finger to her mouth and presses the little piece chocolate to her lips, then licks it away. “If I told, they be secrets,” she answers, winking. “Harry,” she continues,

her head, thinking, “how come you’ve never asked me for money “I don’t know,” I tell her. “Your money is your money.” “But I have an abundance of it.”

“That’s true. OK, Gram, since you brought it up, how you’ve never offered me any?”

“Because I’ve had no greater pleasure than watching you some of this family’s rustiest old chains. I like what you’ve Harry. For now, I’m afraid money might rock your boat, even tip it over.”

“I can swim,” I tell her confidently. “Don’t worry. I’ll mine. ‘

“Be careful, my boy. Just make sure you get it