First Light

The weight of the last straw landed like a brick squarely between my mother’s shoulder blades.  It seemed she had discovered by brother hiding in a corner of the pantry, pawing through her pocketbook with grimy hands, her change purse securely clenched in his teeth.  I heard the slap all the way in the sunporch and he began howling like a cat in heat as she snatched him by his shirt collar and dragged him across the kitchen floor.

Little bastard!  she shrieked, Thief!  I’ll teach you to steal!

My grandmother, who had come tearing down the stairs, now stood stoically while her own daughter took a mallet and slammed it down on my brother’s hand – once, twice, three times in all – very nearly twisting his arm off and breaking four fingers.  This elicited a fresh wave of hysteria and I wouldn’t have been surprised if a fourth blow had been directed to his jaw – in all honesty, I was hoping – but Nana intervened, relieving my mother of the mallet just as she raised it again and shoving her aside.  My brother crumpled, sobbing and cursing both of them, scuttling like an injured crab toward the doorway but Nana was faster.  She caught him by his good hand and hauled him roughly to the sink, then holding him fast, reached for the bar of soap.  He spit, he struggled, he kicked and lashed out but in the end he still had four broken fingers and a mouth thoroughly washed out with soap.

I hate you!  he screeched, I’ll kill you both!  I’ll set the house on fire!

I ‘spect you would, Nana said grimly, But it ain’t gon’ be tonight, my lad, ain’t gon’ be tonight.

She barked at me to fetch her adhesive tape and popsickle sticks, then at my dazed mother to get up off the damn floor and pull herself together. 

Be still, boy, she snapped at my brother, one more cuss word and I’ll cut your tongue out!

There was, finally, something in her tone that got through to him and he stopped struggling and was mostly quiet while they makeshift splinted and tape his fingers.  Nana took her little bottle of 222’s from the high shelf in the pantry and had him swallow two of the codeine laced pills, then they laid him out on one of the sunporch couches.  She and my mother took to their identical window chairs and settled in.  One or the other would be up all night watching him.

There’ll be no more mischief tonight, Nana warned him, Mark my words, boy.  I ain’t above shippin’ you home to your daddy come first light.  Your stealin’ and cussin’ and fire settin’ days are done.

My mother began to whimper and my grandmother shot her an unmistakably angry glance.

Mind me, Jeanette, she said quietly but with an undertone of menace that I rarely heard, I’m done with this.  We ain’t gon’ talk about it, not one more word ‘ceptin this.  Either you straighten him and your own self out and I mean quick, or I’ll send you both packin’ in one helluva hurry.  

My mother, lower lip quivering, nodded and kept staring out the window.  I wondered what, if anything, she was seeing.

I mean what I say, Jan, Nana said a trifle more gently, I ain’t gon’ have no more of it.

Dawn came and with it, a sort of resolution.   My brother admitted to trying to steal money for cigarettes and made a mumbled apology.  My mother said she regretted losing her temper and breaking his fingers.  It was clear to me that my grandmother didn’t believe either one of them but in the interests of peace, she sighed and decided to let it be.

Actions speak louder than words, she reminded them, Best you  both remember that.

One of the things – good and bad – I learned from my grandmother is there are some wrongs that can’t be righted and some bridges are best left unrepaired.  Decades of time and distance haven’t changed my feelings about my family even though I may understand them a little better.  I rarely think about the fact that somewhere in the world I have two brothers – as far as I know anyway – and reconciliation has never crossed my mind.  Nana also taught me the value of a low profile and how to keep it.

First light sometimes brings a new day but sometimes you just have to pick up where you left off.