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daddy! No! Don’t hang up! Listen, I know you’re busy, daddy….Okay. Okay. I’ll call you back.”<br />
She stared in disbelief at the phone before placing it back into the charge base. That’s not like<br />
daddy, she thought. Any stranger could come to him and he would give him the last dime in his pocket.<br />
Why wouldn’t he even speak to Mikell? Toni folded her arms and gazed through the window of her<br />
kitchen towards the muscadine grape vines had father had helped her plant. She shook her head. JT<br />
confirmed that Mikell hadn’t done anything and really hadn’t said much of anything to daddy. Daddy<br />
just went off on him, according to Uncle JT. Perhaps it was the stress. Toni reviewed in her mind the<br />
stress she saw in her father while they visited her mother’s grave. Them wanting to change the<br />
Heritage Day parade route to go through King Street didn’t help things, she reasoned. But why take it<br />
out on Mikell? A stranger. That’s not how things are done in South Carolina. Sure, things might be<br />
changing and, in some ways, we are becoming just as cold as Northern folks, but colored people in<br />
this part of South Carolina just don’t treat people that way.<br />
Toni eyed the bright green foliage of the early June snapping peas, tomatoes and peppers in the<br />
small garden that bordered the thick brush at the back of her house. She made a mental note to ask<br />
some of the boys at the shop to clear the brush for her so that she could expand her garden. Some<br />
cucumbers, limas, cantaloupes, string beans and sweet potatoes would be nice.<br />
She picked up her car keys and cocked her head, listening intently.<br />
“Jordan! Are you ready baby? Jordan!” She peered into her living room. Empty. So was the small<br />
bedroom, its cream walls decorated with action sports posters of Allen Iverson, LeBron James and<br />
Donovan McNabb. Worry creased Toni’s brows. “Jordan! Where are you, baby? We have to get ready<br />
to go to Columbia. Don’t you want to see Grandmom Tweeney? Jordan!”<br />
The conversation with her father had upset her so much that she hadn’t kept an eye on her son.<br />
“Jordan!” Her voice quavered. She scurried to her bedroom, and then to the guest room. She peered<br />
again through the kitchen window, scanning her backyard. Jordan had his own small garden: a patch<br />
of finger sweet potatoes and corn but he wasn’t there pulling weeds as he usually did.<br />
Toni ran through the living room and flung open the carved oak door. Her eyes scanned the front<br />
yard, peering behind the hedges of purple lilac and boxwood wintergreen that lined the front of the<br />
house. A movement in the back seat of her blue Plymouth Grand Prix caught her eye. A squirrel?<br />
Maybe. No one closed their windows in this part of South Carolina. She edged towards her car.<br />
That’s when she saw him.<br />
The smooth faced little boy sat in the plush blue velour seat of the four-door car, rocking gently,<br />
his small brown hands folded in his lap. A small suitcase rested on the seat beside him. Toni pressed<br />
her fingers to her lips as she approached the car.<br />
“Jordan! Sweetie! I was worried about you. Are you ready to go to Grandmom Tweeney’s<br />
house?”<br />
The little boy reached behind him, grabbed the seatbelt strap, pulled it across his shoulders and<br />
waist and clasped it shut. He re-fixed his gaze on the back of the front seat and began rocking again,<br />
his hands clasped in his lap.
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