Silver Sparrow

by Tayari Jones

bigamist.

Even in Baptist churches, ushers keep smelling salts on the ready for the new widow confronted at the wake by the other grieving widow and her stair-step kids.

squatter’s

James was an easygoing man, master of his emotions. “The key to life,” he told me once, “is to avoid the highs and the lows. It’s the peaks and valleys that mess you up.” He liked to behave as though his uninflected disposition was because of some philosophical leaning, but I knew it was because passion of any sort brought out the stammer and turned him into a freak.

“You know what my mama says? ‘Your pride or your man. You can’t have them both.’

My mother says that if a man hits you once, leave. But the truth is this—my father smacked my mother across the jaw when I was six months old. She stumbled out of the room, and he sat in front of my crib and cried. She says that was the first and only time. So it happens. But you can’t go around saying that.

I said, “I didn’t even say I had a boyfriend.” The lie reminded me of what Marcus had said on the night of the barbecue. I am not your boyfriend. The memory made my left arm tingle. It wasn’t right for Marcus to talk to me like that, not in

“You gotta decide whether half a nigger is better than no nigger at all.”

I didn’t feel right. “Didn’t she want to know where I came from?” Raleigh said, “Dana, lower your voice. Miss Bunny is sick. She doesn’t need to hear all this fighting. She’s in a bad way. Just let her go in peace.” “Raleigh,” I said, shrugging off his touch. He pulled back and for a moment I regretted hurting him. “I am not fighting with anyone. I am just trying to find out what all James told Miss Bunny. I want to know what he told her about my mama.” James said, “I t-t-told her about you. You are her kin and I want her to lay eyes on you before she goes.” “But what about my mama?” I said. “She’s important, too.” Raleigh seemed on the verge of tears. “Please stop fighting. Let’s just go inside.” “You didn’t make my mother out to be a whore, did you?” I asked. “No,” Raleigh said. “James wouldn’t say anything like that to Miss Bunny. Tell her, Jimmy. Tell her what you said.” “I told her your mother was dead,” James said. “I told her you were raised by your grandmother.” “Did you at least tell her you loved my mother? That it wasn’t just a quick thing?” James nodded. “I told her that I love you, Dana. She knows if I love you, then your mama must be special.” I shook my head. That wasn’t how it worked. “Dana,” Raleigh said, “don’t waste Miss Bunny’s time. She doesn’t have much left.”

“Chaurisse, you are not getting it. This is the point: If you are a wife, behave like a wife. There is nothing to be gained from acting a fool, calling up the

other woman at her house, cutting her tires, or whatever. My own mother was like that, always fighting in the streets over some nigger.”

My mother switched on the turn signal and sighed. “All I am saying is that if you are a wife, act like a wife and not a two-dollar whore.”