My Dear, My Love

i.

It takes a Black woman to tell the truth about another Black woman, whether she likes that woman or not. If the woman in question is loved, the story reaches mythological heights, she could do no wrong, she was brown skinned and beautiful, intelligent, had all her faculties and her teeth, all the men and women of the neighborhood called her by a term of endearment, which is how Medea morphed into Ma’Dear. Those neighbors who were jealous of her prowess insisted on calling her Medea, talked about no matter how long her raven-black hair was, it was nappy so, no, she didn’t have any Native blood, that her eyes were brown not hazel, her feet were too big for her legs, her breasts too large for her body. Spin these negatives on their heads and you had the truth about Ma’Dear, so the truth came out anyway. Yes, it takes a Black woman to tell an outsider the magic that is Ma’Dear. I am that woman. They call me Nurse Liene because I’m a healing force in Ma’Dear’s life. And my name is Coraliene, Liene for short.

Nobody in the neighborhood knew the story about Ma’Dear, nobody knew why her mother didn’t give her a biblical name like Mary, who wept, or Martha, who mourned; nobody knew why her momma named her Medea, after a woman who killed her husband’s chippy and the chippy’s father, and then it was said she killed her own children to hurt their father forever. It was true that Ma’Dear would grow up and breast feed a daughter and a son, both of whom she would love fiercely, and kill with kindness of a sort, kill with passion of a sort, kill with the softness of a song. But anyway . . . the killing her children part would have been a lie, she was not Susan Smith who killed her children to keep a man. Ma’Dear knew other ways to please one.

Ma’Dear was sweet and easy on the eyes. I loved her myself from childhood, truth be told. She was tall, statuesque like those “alabastard” goddesses we saw in the museum when she, my classmates, and I went there in sixth grade. Ma’Dear posed next to one of those statutes, and even though the goddess was white, it was Ma’Dear who glowed even more beautifully in all her mocha-toned skin, her long Native hair flowing down her back, autumn eyes flashing. I have always loved chocolate and wanted to lick Medea, to eat her.

Ma’Dear had hazel eyes that announced autumn; flecks of orange and red glowed in her pupils. Mocha-skinned and autumn-eyed, she was a fall-going-into-winter kind of beauty, earthy and forbidden. Her eyes were a forest where squirrels gathered nuts, deer and fawns glided past the denuded trees kicking up leaves as they ran from uncouth boys who chased them for sport, and waterfalls played concertos as they splashed down over the rocks in the hidden glade where teenaged boys and girls snuck off to kiss and do other magical couplings in the early evening. I could see all that in Medea’s autumn eyes when she looked directly in mine.

Ma’Dear had mocha-colored skin, autumn-eyes and a wide nose that had a tiny lift over her nostrils. Not a protrusion, just a hint of a rise that gave her character and made her look regal. Ma’Dear’s nose displayed great power. Ma’Dear even got hers pierced long before nose piercing became commonplace. She held my hand as the artist shot the earring though her nose and though her eyes didn’t water, she squeezed so hard she drew blood. When she saw my blood, she immediately pulled a pocketknife out of her cloth cross-body bag, made a small slice on her index finger and put it against the blood flow from my palm, sealing our fate together. I belonged to her; she belonged to me. Ma’Dear.

Ma’Dear was mocha-skinned, autumn-eyed, with a prominent nose and full-lips, red as pomegranate juice, even without lipstick. Her lips were swollen with a natural line that accented their girth, swollen red lips that opened and moved ever so slightly when she was daydreaming, speaking dream to truth, perhaps, talking to a dream lover, perhaps, speaking to me, telling me her secret thoughts, perhaps. Her lips had minuscule vertical lines that were barely perceptible. I drew her lips once in a figure drawing class; nobody knew they were her lips but me, or maybe everybody knew. I drew her lips in charcoal, and the right heel of my right hand was smeared black. I traced the lip line I had drawn with my index finger, lightly smudging it with the faint kiss of smudge beneath the first pad. I wanted to kiss Medea’s lips, much as I wanted to lick her, eat her.

Ma’Dear had mocha-skin, autumn-eyes, with a prominent nose, juicy pomegranate lips and long raven-black hair that hung almost to her waist. She washed her hair in rosehips and honeysuckle, then oiled it with light mixtures of palm oil and shea butter, brushed it a hundred strokes every night. I would have sat her between my thighs and brushed it for her: stroke, stroke . . . stroke, stroke . . . ninety-six more times. Her hair glistened in both sun and moonlight, sparkled even under the dull glow of fluorescent lighting while LED bulbs produce a direct, bright light that amplified the warm highlights in her hair: cadmium red, pyrrole scarlet, ultramarine blue, yellow ochre, and raw umber. Stroke . . . stroke, when she spent the night at my house, I’d brush her hair careful to pocket the loose strands that came out in her brush. I had a collection of her hair in a jewelry box hidden in my panty drawer.

Ma’Dear had mocha-skin, autumn-eyes, a prominent nose, juicy pomegranate lips and long raven-black hair that hung almost to her waist. She had high breasts, with nickel-sized nipples. I know because I saw her disrobe as we changed into our bathing suits for swim class. Her breasts bounced as she walked, nipples erect through the spandex of her swimsuit. I looked down on my flat chest, dark little buds and pointed pitch black nipples with little bumps around them, ballerina breasts. My secret desire was to become a famous ballerina, but my family couldn’t afford lessons, so I checked books and music out of the library and practiced on my own. Nobody knew but the librarian who took pity on me when I was late with my returns, and Ma’Dear, who encouraged me to try to get a scholarship to Leslie Townsend’s studio.

Ma’Dear had mocha-skin, autumn-eyes, a prominent nose, juicy pomegranate lips, long raven-black hair that hung almost to her waist, and high breasts, with nickel-sized nipples. She had a V of bushy pubic hair, as raven-black as the hair on her head. It appeared to be soft as goose down. Her pubic hair trailed down to the top of her inner thighs and was visible through her panties. She never shaved it, never shaved the hair in her armpits. My mother always had me shave, admonished me not to walk around smelly, that’s what deodorants and that red water bottle with the hose hanging over the shower rod were for, to be filled with vinegar and water, and shoved up your coochie to clean out the odor caused by sweat from the heat of keeping my legs tightly closed, “which you better.” Ma’Dear told me she loved her animal scent, and although she took showers and an occasional bath, she never used Tussy or the water bottle, even after her period was over. She had the scent of fawns and rabbits and chipmunks and other precious, furry baby animals I wanted to cuddle, like I wanted to cuddle Ma’Dear, inhale her essence, smell the woods and its inhabitants in her.

Ma’Dear had mocha-skin, autumn-eyes, a prominent nose, juicy pomegranate lips, long raven-black hair that hung almost to her waist, and high breasts, with nickel-sized nipples and a V of bushy pubic hair, soft as goose dawn: Ma’Dear whom I loved. She was wide of hip, thick of thigh, long-legged with smooth calves. Ma’Dear was a roller coaster of love, just when I thought my eyes were slowly glancing up one side of her body, they swiftly dropped down the other side so that she wouldn’t know I was looking. I was convinced she knew all along I was looking.

Ma’Dear was a straight-A student who excelled in Spanish and French. She could draw and paint abstracts as precisely as she made calculations in geometry, trigonometry, and calculus I and II. She never made me feel lesser than her as she tutored me after class, even running past our allotted time before she went out on a date. Ma’Dear made learning seem easy with the word math problems she gave me to work out. It was right before prom that Ma’Dear insisted on being called her given name: Medea. She said Ma’Dear was a name for a child or for an elder woman. Medea, Medea, it felt strange tripping off my lips. Medea. Ma’Dear was so much more personal, so endearing. I missed ma dear, my dear, my . . . dear.

Medea carried the weight of her mythical namesake. She was as loving as the Medea, but I hadn’t seen any sign of the vengeful, revenge-driven woman that was the Medea of Greek mythology. Medea was growing into herself, becoming the she that she would become. I tried to keep growing alongside her. But Madea’s animalistic instincts became heightened to the point of her becoming a force of nature; she was a dog whisperer long before the term was coined. She became the human mother of a large black pit bull and a twenty-pound Calico. Both were males. Like Jason. I should have, but I didn’t see Jason coming.

Medea was still tutoring me, though truth be told I just wanted to be close to her. Sometimes she would be late for her date with Jason because of working with me. She didn’t mind. To my disdain, she liked boys. Well, she liked to use boys, liked to play them; they were a game to her. Loose lips sank ships, but the boys forgot this when telling Medea all their wants and needs, wanting her to fulfill both. She led them to believe that she could help them achieve greatness, all they had to do was give her what she wanted.

The silly Black boys could never figure out what she wanted, so they kept giving and giving, trinkets and charms of gold and silver, cashmere and lace, her favorite fabrics, everything except money, she would never take money, she couldn’t be bought. And she would share the trinkets and charms of gold and silver, the delicate cloths of cashmere and lace with me. “They think they have my love,” she told me, “I give them nothing in return but forget-me-nots.”

I was convinced she cared for me.

Medea and I were thick as thieves, close yet we gave each other breathing room. We met three and a half days a week (on Fridays for only two hours) to revel in her escapades, and my trauma caused by the silly Black boys’ name-calling, shouting me out: dyke, bull dagger, black bitch.

“Who dared call you that?” Medea asked me.

I told her because what else could I do? Those names hurt me, made me cry when all I wanted was to be a fierce warrior woman like Medea.

“Skeeter Robinson, Jo-Jo Osborne, Harold Melvin and Tommy Brewster.”

Medea and I went down in the basement of her house where there was a small separate room with no door but big enough to house a twin-size bed, a small oak table on spindly legs, and an altar she had built in the east corner, which was directly under her bedroom with a den between the two floors. The altar was made of wood, and sitting on it was the woman I’d seen Medea making in the ceramics’ studio. She had made the statue with an undercoat of reddish-brown glaze for her face, arms and legs, and a royal blue gown that draped across one shoulder and in-between her legs. In her right hand she held a chalice, and in her left hand a dagger.

To the right side of the altar were clear, unlabeled bottles of dried herbs, and colored bottles, also unlabeled, of liquid potions. To the left of the herbs and potions was a large mortar and pestle she had also made in our ceramics class. Medea took some of the herbs and ground them with the pestle that was a large enough club to hold in your hand and knock an opponent out with, flat-handed. Medea told me to write the boys’ names on strips of paper bag in red ink, she said it had to be in my handwriting. Then she laid the names in the aperture of a seashell on the altar and set the shell in a bowl of water.

“Let them choke on their words, being so absurd, let their tongues be tied, upon my word.”

I didn’t know if I believed in any of this . . . at first. But the next day, all four of them came down with strep throat, and then I believed she had the power, the magic touch. But I noticed that Medea had dark rings around her eyes the longer the silly Black boys couldn’t speak, and she seemed a little weaker, too. And I knew, then, never to get on her bad side, even though I’d never known her to work her spells on a girl.

For her eighteenth birthday, which fell on our graduation day, Medea’s grandfather, nick-named Hellacious, gave her a Cadillac he’d had customized for her, from the glistening gold body and white-walled tires with silver stud rims, to the ruby red interior with the cassette stereo player and heavy bass speakers. She drove that Caddy like she was breaking in a wild stallion, rough-riding it, smooth-riding it, never jamming on the brake. Listening to Barry White croon, Ecstasy.

You could hear Medea coming from a block and a half away, and men walked further away from the curb, afraid she might get the notion to fly over it and run them over. The silly Black boys believed that golden chariot could fly; they knew all about Medea’s grandfather. But those boys were only the ones who knew they were guilty of wrong-doing when it came to their treatment of girls and women.

• • • •

ii.

Medea broke my heart. I didn’t see Jason coming, but he came, hard and heavy. Medea didn’t lose her head completely, she held on to a modicum of her senses. But Jason was ready when she called his name, and though she called another (me, Liene) Jason came.

Even up until Jason, Medea had had a life of drama: boys and grown-ass men sniffing after her, begging to drink her dirty bath water; and including a falling out with her older brother Ezra. He had always been jealous of the relationship between Medea and her father and grandfather, he felt he should have been the favored child. He devised a plan to outshine her in their eyes. When Medea caught hold of the plan, she worked her roots and Ezra began to walk with a painful limp. She got racoon eyes again, dark circles around them. And the two of them had sworn to never speak to each other ever again. I told Medea, “never say never,” to which she replied, “he’s dead to me now, dead and buried in pieces in a pauper’s grave.”

Yes, Medea didn’t call Jason’s name, but he came into her life anyway. The summer following graduation, Medea and I started to drift apart. Jason made her feel like a natural woman. Mysteriously, they fell in love even though they had nothing in common. Not as I saw it. Medea seemed to love him with a love divine, but Jason wanted to get next to her because of her father and grandfather’s connections to the Black mob.

Jason was ambitious. He was older than Medea by five years and wanted to rule the near south side: the speakeasies, women, alcohol, and drugs. Jason knew if he could conquer Medea, get her help in getting close to her father and grandfather, he could have his heart’s desire, which wasn’t Medea. But first there was something he had to do. Seduce her.

So he set out to do just that. I tried to act as a buffer and spend more time with her. We both worked at her father’s record store for the summer. Medea knew her music; she could tell you the name of that tune after only hearing four notes, tell you who sang it and what label it was on. Some of those songs should have warned her: I’ll Have to Let Him Go/Martha and the Vandellas/Gordy label/1962; or Blame it On the Boogie/The Jacksons/Epic label/1978.

Hellacious gave me the job because I was Medea’s friend. I knew that and appreciated it. I worked the cash register because her grandfather trusted me to ring in the correct prices and not have sticky fingers in the till. I was not a thief, after all. I just wanted to steal Medea’s heart back away from Jason.

I did have Medea’s heart after all; she loved me, I knew she did. We’d shared blood that time she got her nose pierced, our periods were synced, we wore the same colors on the same day. But I forgot about biology, the “birds and the bees” (Dean Martin/1965/studio album). Medea and Jason.

Medea never let Jason drive her gold Cadillac. She would let me drive it in a pinch, and then only three times. Once when she drank too much at Danny’s party but not enough to go all the way with him as he’d planned: she’d spent the night with me because her father would have killed her if he knew she had been drinking. Another time when she sprained her ankle and couldn’t handle the horsepower and I drove her to the hospital. And the third and last time was when she needed the car to be seen cruising Lake Shore Drive while she snuck off to see Jason, the start of always doing things for Jason.

She invited Jason down to that little room in her basement on five separate occasions, and it was during the fourth visit that Medea and Jason got pregnant. I knew immediately because I missed my periods, too. When I confronted her about it, she smiled beatifically, admitted the truth, and tried to figure out how to tell her father and grandfather. I told her to go to her Aunt Cecilia’s house and I would break the news to them. We didn’t know her younger brother, Abseth, was listening at the door of her bedroom and overheard everything.

Abseth went to Jason and threatened to tell everything; they got into a fight and Jason shot Abseth to death. Jason claimed it was in self-defense because Abseth was angry over his sister’s pregnancy when he was upset that Medea was producing another heir to the family business. Hellacious paid to have the killing covered up, so as not to delay the wedding plans he was making for Medea and Jason. But he wouldn’t forget what Jason had done.

That such a huge wedding could have been planned and executed in a month was nothing short of miraculous. Medea’s mother hired Mrs. O. Paxton to create the wedding dress, and since money was no object Mrs. O. Paxton hired twelve older girls and four queer males to sew the dress, trimmed with diamonds and pearls. Mrs. O. Paxton’s daughter made my lilac and baby blue satin maid-of-honor dress that she said would reflect off my dark skin, and the ten bridesmaids’ dresses in powder blue.

Hellacious paid Mr. and Mrs. Peterson, owners of the Peterson outdoor pavilion, a pretty penny to postpone the Cooper wedding, that had been booked a year in advance, to hold Medea’s wedding instead. Reverend Cleofus Kellimon had been hired to officiate. Even though the family hadn’t attended church in years, Hellacious had made substantial contributions over the years, assuring his family’s mansions, some of the many that the Father owned, were also in heaven when the time came. The Alexander funeral, like the Cooper wedding, would have to be delayed.

The three hundred invitations had been addressed by the school children with the neatest cursive handwriting. The food and liquor were ordered special delivery by Hellacious’ second-in-command, who had a knack for handling such things, caviar and paté, pistachio-crusted salmon and roast beef au jus, partridge, quail and pheasant, gently roasted vegetables, Windsor and cobb salads, and a six-tier wedding cake of chocolate and strawberry, coconut cakes, red velvet cakes, lemon cakes. And champagne, top shelf liquors, sparkling cider and water for the adults, and tasty frappés for the children.

On their wedding day, Jason stood at the altar with his best man, Rufus, and patiently waited for Medea to come walking down the aisle on her father’s arm. The bride’s maids and I were solemn as we marched in the church first, groom’s men at our sides, except for me, I came down the aisle alone because Rufus was already at the altar, next to Jason. As I approached the altar, the hairs on my arms and at the nape of my neck stood up. It took everything I had not to turn around, run back up the aisle, grab Medea from her father’s arm, book it to the golden Cadillac and drive off into the sunset. Just me and Medea. Me and My . . . Dear.

But Hellacious would have stopped us and killed me.

I listened to Medea promise to love and honor Jason, and he to love and honor her. But neither said anything about obeying one another. That was the best, and the most honest, part of their marriage vows. I had the urge to pee when they saluted each other with a kiss; I tightened my vaginal muscles, anything not to embarrass Medea, and walked back up the aisle on Rufus’ arm with a smile plastered across my face and glistening eyes. As soon as we rounded the corner of the church’s vestibule, where no one could see us, Medea and I both ran to the bathroom, she to vomit and I to pee. Medea washed her mouth out with cold water, and I washed my hands with hot water. We were still in synch. Medea grabbed me for a quick kiss. I almost held on to her a second too long.

The reception was full of merriment and picture taking. Hellacious had hired two professional photographers, just in case, and had had the wedding planner put disposable cameras on every table, with instructions for someone sitting there to take pictures of everyone at the table, take pictures of the bridal party, take pictures of the bride and groom. He wanted this celebration to be the biggest ever, and it spilled out from the pavilion into the street, with R&B blaring from the giant speakers, and Medea had her first dance with Hellacious, then her father, and finally Jason. Then the D.J. made the mistake of playing, “How I Wish It Would Rain,” and how I wished it would rain and wash away this spectacle of a reception, wash away Jason, wash away Hellacious and his influence over the heads of the south side bosses, and then Medea and I could fly away in her golden chariot.

• • • •

iii.

Time passed swiftly after that reception. Six months later—and the whole south side could count—Medea gave birth to a baby boy. They named him Thaddeus, after her father and Hellacious (his real name was Thaddeus II, and the numbers went down from there, making this child Thaddeus the IV). He was a chubby brown baby, with a thick head of curly raven-colored hair and wide-set eyes. Luckily, he was a good baby and slept and ate on a regular schedule, luckily because thirteen months later, Medea gave birth to a baby girl, Tameeka, who fussed quite a bit, demanding from birth to be seen and heard. A Black, feminist baby who would, as soon as she could walk, square off on Thaddeus, who would go running, crying, to Madea. Or running to me, as I was godmother to both children, if I was around, which I seldom was now that I was managing the record store, my dream of becoming a ballerina deferred years ago when I fell and broke my leg in three places, which left me walking with a limp.

Hellacious told me, “Keep up the good work and I may let you buy this store from me.”

“How could I ever afford that, Hellacious?”

“You put some money down and I’d finance the mortgage for you. After all, you are the godmother of my grandchildren, and I know that you wouldn’t ever let anything happen to them. Would you?” he said ominously.

“No, of course not,” I replied.

I was not the one Hellacious had to watch out for. His grandson-in-law had gotten quite the big head since Thaddeus was born. For Jason’s twenty-eighth birthday, five years after their grand wedding reception, Hellacious made Jason third-in-command over his brothels. Jason oversaw the twenty houses scattered around the near south side. He chose the madams to train the women, all twenty-one and over, and thoroughly checked out to prove it, in all phases of pleasuring a man, or a woman for that matter, for a growing population of customers were married women who required the utmost discretion, more so even than the male clients.

Lovemaking in the Black community was a serious affair. And as large as the near south side was, it was closely knit, with eyeballs everywhere. Affairs weren’t covert, they were hidden in plain sight, which was the best way to carry them out. Who would ever believe that Mr. Oliver was playing around on his missus with a skinny blonde, or that Mrs. Clay was playing around on her mister with a voluptuous, dark-skinned beauty, although no one would have blamed her if they had known.

Mr. Clay was a ticket to ride home on, and Mrs. Clay had caught that gravy train right on time, killing two birds with one stone, making her wealthy as well as out of the mouths of the elder community members who were beginning to question her sexuality when she was still a spinster at thirty-six. Just as they counted the months from the wedding reception to Thaddeus’ birth, they watched Samantha Stone go away to college and come back home a bra-burnt, card-carrying Black feminist who turned twenty-five with no beau in sight, just a gaggle of similar girls in her circle, and who turned thirty with a smaller gaggle, then at thirty-five with just one girl, and at thirty-six, she became Mrs. Clay. Her catch-me-out-if-you-can attitude was how I caught on to Jason playing around with Tracey.

Tracey was a high-yellow Black woman with green eyes and auburn hair, the kind of woman who tasted like a Dreamsicle: orange sherbet on the outside and vanilla ice-cream inside. Tracey was everything Madea was not: Tracey had no children, no thin ankles and big calves; she hadn’t kept herself in tip-top shape, sometimes left her duplex with no makeup on and her head a mess to run to the corner store to buy some squares since she was out, as if she had just gotten out of bed which, of course, she had, with Jason, who was the one who had gotten caught not having enough squares.

Madea had kept herself together after the births of Thaddeus and Tameeka; she still had mocha-skin, a half-shade darker, autumn-eyes, a half-shade darker, with a prominent nose, juicy pomegranate lips, redder now, raven-black hair cut chin-length to frame her face, her breasts still high with quarter-sized nipples now and a V of thinning pubic hair, soft as goose dawn. I’d been with Medea for both deliveries—Jason refused to be in the delivery room—and kept my eye on the evolution of her body.

Right about now she was down on the corner from their home off Throop, playing with Tameeka as they stood waiting for Thaddeus’ school bus to drop him off from kindergarten. He was an intelligent, sensitive child who’d learned his letters, numbers, and how to print his name before he started school, which placed him at the top of his class. Little Tameeka was not far behind her big brother and could identify her shapes and colors. No matter what Jason felt for Medea, he absolutely adored his children, would tie the world up in a big, red bow as a present for them, as he did for every holiday: Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, their birthdays—cars and trucks, dolls and doll houses, footballs and baseballs and basketballs, hula hoops and Chinese jump ropes and giant soap bubbles, and clothes, clothes, and more clothes. He hated to see his children dirty, and since they both played rambunctiously they sometimes had to change clothes two or three times a day.

Anyway, I was at the record store, which I was now buying from Hellacious, and Tracey came in, thinking she was looking fly. Her attitude stank. God don’t like ugly, and somebody needed to tell her He wasn’t stuck on cute, either. She was looking through the Stylistics, and I was looking through her, especially around her neck. Something looked awfully familiar, and I walked over to her.

“Finding everything you’re looking for?”

“Yes, I am,” she said, her honey voice trying to catch flies. I wasn’t falling for it.

“That’s a nice necklace you’re wearing.”

She fingered the gold chain with the diamond teardrop on it. “Yes, my boyfriend gave it to me.”

The only three reasons she could be so obtuse are that 1) she’d just moved to Chicago and didn’t know the lay of the land, that this record store that now belonged to me but used to be owned by Hellacious, Medea’s grandfather, or that 2) she didn’t know that I was Madea’s best friend, or that 3) she didn’t know that Jason had given Madea the same necklace but with a larger diamond. I stared Tracey dead in her face, imprinting her image on my mind, and said, “Your boyfriend must be a rich man?”

“He’s a big man, rich, yes.”

“Well, if there’s anything else I can get you . . .”

She whispered conspiratorially, “Do you sell rolling papers?”

“Topps, ok.”

“Yes, they’ll do.”

It seemed that every other word out of her mouth was “yes.” I could just hear her saying “yes,” when Jason told her she was going to be his woman, “yes” when Jason told her to get him something to eat and drink, “yes” when Jason told her to get herself fixed. Nurse Nettie in Dr. Plaintree’s office had told me that Tracey had had her tubes tied and that Jason had footed the bill. Nurse Nettie thought that since I was Medea’s best friend I should know.

It was not too long after that Jason started exhibiting signs of ill health. First, his sugar started spinning out of control. Then he started getting migraines. Then his blood pressure started bouncing around. Then he started losing weight. Thaddeus and Tameeka were unaware of what was happening to their father, even though they wondered why he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, play with them anymore. But Medea’s autumn eyes started to hollow: heavy, dark circles made those orange and red flecks in her pupils lose their luster. Her mocha skin, which had grown half a shade darker after the children’s birth, was now three shades lighter. She was greying prematurely at her temples; her baby hair was silver. I suspected something but didn’t want to believe it was true. So I asked her.

“Medea, are you working some powerful magic?”

Medea didn’t hesitate to answer me. “You’re a good godmother. If anything ever happens to Jason and me, I know you’ll take care of them.”

“Why?”

“Because I love Jason and he’s betraying me.”

“You know?”

She looked at me with her fall-going-into-winter beauty still visible and said, “I’ve known almost from the beginning.”

“Why didn’t you say something to me? Share? Why are you taking it out on yourself, why not just hurt him?”

“I am hurting him. He can’t get down on the floor and play with the children, he doesn’t have the strength to lift them anymore. It pains him to bend over to tuck them in at night. He can’t father them the way he’s used to,” she paused, saving her breath. “And he can’t make love, an added bonus.”

“Why not tell Hellacious? He’ll take everything away from Jason. The brothels, the . . . other businesses?”

“Grandfather knows. I asked him to let me deal with it in my own way. Besides, Jason’s too weak to run the businesses. The other boys are running things now.”

“And Tracey . . .”

“She couldn’t do any more than Jason allowed her to do. Perhaps she doesn’t know about us, about the children I mean.”

“That may have been true in the beginning when she first rolled into town. But the south side is insular; she has to know by now.”

“The south side is big; he could easily keep us apart. Anyway, it would have taken me longer to find out if grandfather hadn’t told me. Even father didn’t have the nerve to tell me; father was always a weak man.”

“It sounds like you’re making excuses for her.”

“I’m not, karma will catch up to her. I don’t want her to be part of my consciousness, not in my spirit or my soul,” she said.

I knew that was the magic talking, dragging Medea down into the hole with Jason. Thaddeus and Tameeka were in their rooms, sleeping. She would never hurt them to repay Jason for his infidelity, but she would hurt him.

Suddenly her voice became raspy. I wondered what was happening to Jason upstairs in their bedroom. Madea’s eyes grew heavier, her breath shallower. “Take care of them,” she said. And then her head dropped to the side.

“I love you, Medea. Always have, always will.”

Medea’s eyes flickered brightly for a moment, then shut.

• • • •

iv.

The day started out damp and chilly; a fine mist flew on the breeze. I made Thaddeus and Tameeka wore their raincoats and boots, no point in them getting sick for what would be a few minutes. I put on my boots and all-weather coat, no point in me getting sick either, not for a few minutes. The limousine Hellacious had sent to the house was parked in the driveway with the engine running. The chauffeur rang the doorbell and stood under the awning on the top step with a large, black umbrella to cover us on the short walk from the front door to the car. He held the door open as the three of us climbed into the back seat. He then got under the wheel, and we headed out to the funeral home.

The smallest room in the hall was empty except for Reverend Cleofus Kellimon and Hellacious, who was sitting in the front row of pews, right in front of the plain casket holding Jason’s body. I let the children scamper into g-g-pa’s lap since grandpa wasn’t present. I gave Hellacious the respect to sit in the pew behind them. No one was there to view the body or sing Amazing Grace. Reverend Cleofus Kellimon said a few words and then the casket was locked.

Thaddeus asked why his daddy was lying in a box. Hellacious said, because your daddy is going on a trip. Tameeka said that she didn’t want to go on the trip with him since daddy had stopped playing with them. Hellacious said, you’ll never have to go on a trip with him ever again.

Then the casket was rolled out to an idling hearse. It was still drizzling, and Hellacious got into the limousine with us and Reverend Cleofus Kellimon. When they arrived at the cemetery, the open grave was starting to get muddy. I knew that I was smart to have us wear our boots. Hellacious sloshed his way to the site, cursing as he went. Keep it short, Reverend, he said. And the Reverend did. We all walked back to the limousine. I turned to look back at the site and watched, briefly, as the casket started to be rolled into the ground. The sun began to shine through the rain.

After we dropped Reverend Cleofus Kellimon at his home, we went back to the house. I unlocked the door and had the children take off their boots, had Hellacious take off his muddy shoes, as I didn’t want him trampling through my freshly scrubbed floors. We all went into the kitchen, and they sat at the table as I took sandwiches and sliced fruit out of the refrigerator. The children were animated, singing The Wheels on the Bus, which made Hellacious smile.

By the time they reached the third verse, the kitchen door swung open slowly. Medea was wrapped in her bathrobe, which was now big enough to swallow her up, she’d lost so much weight. But her mocha-skin was beginning to brown again, and the dark circles around her eyes were starting to fade. She walked over to the children, kissed both on the tops of their heads.

Daddy took a trip in a box, Mommy, said Thaddeus.

I know, said Madea.

We didn’t want to go with, said Tameeka.

No, I wouldn’t want you to go, said Madea.

Ok, little ones, eat your lunch so you can take your naps, said Hellacious. Mommy and Nurse Liene have some talking to do.

Madea sat across from the children as they ate. I sat in the chair next to her and squeezed her hand. She gave me a beautiful smile, the red of pomegranate juice coming back into her lips. She was regaining herself, pulling herself back from the ashes. Hellacious promised to read the children a book before they went to sleep.

“Medea, how are you feeling?”

“I’m getting stronger. Thank you so much for taking care of T and T. They can be quite a handful. Thank you.”

“They’re my godchildren; you don’t have to thank me.”

“Then thank you for taking care of me. I was as helpless as they are.”

“No, you weren’t, you’re stronger than you know. And I’m not just talking about the magic. The Greek Medea killed her children to get back at her cheating husband. You would never have done something like that. Your mother named you, but you went against the type.”

Medea looked at me with love in her eyes. “It was my father who named me. I don’t know what he was thinking about when he decided on that name. It was a curse. But he won’t talk about it, so I may never know. Maybe a deathbed confession, maybe he’ll take it to the grave with him. If you don’t mind, I’ll go back to being called Ma’Dear.”

“My . . . dear. I’ll gladly call you my . . . dear.”

“And I’ll gladly answer you,” she said.

“You feel like getting dressed and going for a little ride?”

“Sure. Give me a hand?”

“Of course, my . . . dear.”

We got her dressed and then out to the driveway. I helped Medea into the passenger seat and made sure she fastened her seat belt. Then I walked around to the driver’s side, unlocked then opened the door, slid my body underneath the steering wheel. This was only the fourth time I’d driven the gold Cadillac, and the last time had been before Thaddeus was conceived. She was still a powerful machine. I turned the key in the ignition, and she fired right up. I put Earth, Wind and Fire into the cassette deck. Soft music played, I don’t remember which song it was, as I put the gear into reverse, backed out of the driveway, and cut the wheel to the left. When the car straightened up, I put her in drive and drove her like I was breaking in a wild stallion, rough-riding it, smooth-riding it, never jamming on the brake. We flew down the street, lifted up and took off. We were in a golden chariot, flying through the sky. Black gurl magic gone wymyn.

Me and My Dear, my love.