By Tina McElroy Ansa

Well, what d’ya know? Like the old song they used to sing when I was young say, “Annie had a baby!”

And listen to her, talking about private things like relations with men in front of a room full a’ strangers.

Shoot, if Annie Ruth know like I know she ought not ‘a be thinking about ever “fucking again.” Seeing as that’s how she got messed up and broke a leg like this in the first place.

Yeah, “Played so well, Daughter, but slipped and fell.” Hee hee.

But Lord ham mercy, messed up or not, I got to say, that is a pretty child that Annie Ruth just brought into this here world. Prettier than any of my girls were when they was born. Betty, Emily, and Annie Ruth was all right funny-looking little things when they was first born. Umm, but look at her. My first grandchild! Um. Um. Um.

I know I’m her grandmama, and as old Miss Carrie used to say, every mother think her little, black crow is a tall, sleek swan. I never could stand them women who went on and on ‘bout their children and their grandchildren. But I got to say it again. She is a pretty thing.

And she got the nerve to be born with a caul over her face! Just like her grandmama! I knew that child was gonna’ take after her Mudear. I just knew it! That oughta’ tell ‘em something right there. A child born with a caul ain’t no everyday ordinary thing. In fact, it’s extra-ordinary!

Don’t tell me I didn’t mark that child! Don’t tell me I didn’t mark her as my own. I knew it!

Ever since I been dead, there’s been some things I just know that I didn’t have a inkling of before. Even though the old folks always used to say that a child like me born with a caul—we always called it a veil, but it’s the same thing—over her face had powers to see ghosts and spirits and to look into the future and such, I don’t think I never could do any of that. Shoot, if I had, I wouldn’tna’ married old Ernest Lovejoy. Wouldn’tna had no children. Wouldn’tna had this grandchild.

Frankly, I don’t think I look nearly old enough to be
somebody’s grandmother. Even in death I don’t look that old. ‘Course, nowadays, grandmamas are grandmamas at thirty-five or even younger.

I ain’t thirty no more, or forty, or fifty for that matter. But I figured I still looked pretty well. Then, I got a good look at myself in a still fish pond in Betty’s yard the other day – or it could ‘a been the other month, I ain’t got no sense a’ time now – and it like to scared me to death… Well, you know what I mean.

I thought, God, is that what people look like when they dead?!

I wasn’t never what you call a pretty woman, not in no regular everyday ordinary kinda’ way like Betty and Emily and Annie Ruth. But you know, I always thought there was something ‘bout my looks… Even that old dog I was married to seemed to think so at one time. I know I look better than them old hags that used to call themselves my friends at one time. I know I done aged better ’n them. I saw one a’ em, Agnes, the other day. One of her boys I guess was driving her down the street past Betty’s house toward the colored Catholic church, and I swear her face look like fried tripe. I know even dead I look better ‘n her.

Anyhow, when I caught a look at myself in that still water, I couldn’t hardly believe it was me. You see, it looked like me, but then again, it didn’t look like me. It scared me more than a little bit ’cause it made me feel almost like I was losing my mind. I mean, that kinda’ thing is something I’d expect Emily, with her crazy self, to be thinking, “I look like myself, but then again, I don’t look like me.”

But still it was the truth. I didn’t remember my head being so little and pea-shaped. And I could have sworn that I was taller than I looked. I guess mostly it was that God-awful outfit I’ve been wearing for months now. I ask again, why would those girls go ahead and bury me in this ugly navy blue dress? No matter how much I seem to be able to do now that I’m dead, I can’t for the life of me seem to change clothes. I always did look lovely in pastels. And with spring here, I’d give just about anything to have on a nice light pinkish color instead of this dead-looking navy.

By rights, I ought to have been laid out in that pretty peach-colored peignoir that Annie Ruth just ruined for life by giving birth in it and covering it in blood and mucus and, Lord help me, shit. Couldn’t they find that girl no hospital gown?

Not that I’m one to be complaining. I never was a complainer. Me, I’ll take it any way I can get it.

Anyhow, no matter how old I feel or look, I am a grandmother. There she is—the proof laying right up there on her mama’s stomach. Even if she wasn’t laying up there next to Annie Ruth, you could tell she was my grandchild by how different and how much better she looks from all those other ugly, crying babies up there in that hospital.

And she got a head full a’ thick strong colored folks’ hair on her head. It’s all soft and curly now, but you know it’s gon’ turn.

I shouldn’t even say nothing ‘bout her hair. I’m so xick a’ colored folks and hair I don’t know what to do. Even before the baby is cleaned up good, colored folks always gotta ask, “What kinda’ hair the baby got?” Even before they asked if the baby was alright and healthy and had all its fingers and toes.

“Is she got good hair?” the baby’s people always want to know. If don’t nobody in their whole family, on either side, got any straight hair, they still ask, “What kinda hair the baby got?” Foolish folks! They ought to be asking what’s in her head not what’s on it.

But I can tell just by looking at my grandbaby that she got something going on in her head, too! Brightest-looking child in that whole big hospital they call a Medical Center.

But, shoot, then again, look at the daddy’s nappy hair. What else she gon’ have?

Oh, they claim they don’t know who the daddy is. They don’t even talk about it. Even Annie Ruth got the nerve to say she don’t know. Personally, I think she lying. But whether she is lying or not, I know the truth. I know who the real daddy is.

And I tell you something else. My grandchild is the onliest one in that whole hospital who was born with a caul over her face. I bet you that much! We used to call ‘em “veils,” but everybody with any sense all over the world know it’s the same thing as a caul.

I was born with one, but they didn’t never do too much talking about it in my house when I was little. But it ain’t gon’ be that way with my grandchild. Oh, yeah, she gon’ know who she is. And it ain’t gon’ take no change like it did for me when I was a grown woman for it to happen.

I’m working on that thing rat now! Ha!