The Family Reunion

by Camilla Hawkins


I squinted, the sunlight bright behind him: the rays straight and white with his silhouette in the middle. I thought about the things he didn't like to talk about--his stint in the army, the death of his father, the violence he saw as a child. I watched him as he joked around with his brother, Uncle Mike. Daddy's hands weren't as big as they used to be and no longer angry. They hesitated to touch me these days. They were big, black, dry between the fingers, bulging and wrinkled at the knuckles--almost like leather, as if he were already dead and ready to wear. The palms were pink at the edges and brown toward the center, the creases darker than the back of his hands. His hands moved from his mouth to his chest, his disappearing hips, arms across his middle. He held them out in front as if pleading but, no, he was asking his brother if he remembered. He was round in the torso, now. In three months he would be fifty. His beard was long and graying, he touched it often. It wasn't there when I was a kid. Smooth-faced he'd kiss me and smell like hair product and stale breath. After sixteen years with the beard, I didn't know what it would feel like to kiss him, now.

My sister came up beside him and put an arm around his shoulders like she often would. She loved him, bought him gifts, said things like, "You're the greatest Dad." She had even been excited about the family reunion. Somehow she had felt close with Daddy's family. Especially Uncle Robby. Dead before fifty with three young kids and a new grandson whose face was the spitting image of Robby's. Did anyone admit that he ran away from his family and drank himself under in three months? No one talked about it. I was, in the eyes of others, close with Uncle Danny. He flat out hung himself. When Daddy told me, he didn't cry.

"Don't be like him," he said to me and gave me all of the writing they found in his apartment underneath his three-week rotted corpse. I smelled those papers for months. Cigarettes and stale air, but no death, no dripping bodily fluids invisible and dried on. I lost them all, the writing, within a year. Misplaced or thrown out.

But I didn't pretend to know that side of the family. Daddy's family was all memories in shadow--a young, black face here and there, and they all looked like him. I had a white mother. I was on the outside with no intentions of getting in. I didn't care to know the Hendersons.

My younger brother stood close, too. Hands in his pockets, quiet, darker skin than mine with the face of his father. He was sixteen now, and concerned about girls and his hair. He was eight years old when I left home and he had been angry about it. We had begun to speak again, but mostly, I still watched. I tried to hug him when I thought it was appropriate, but he would only stand, maybe put a lazy arm around me.

Daddy put his arms around their shoulders and pulled them close. My sister got her rent paid, my brother had a room full of instruments, Daddy even listened to their teenage problems. I put my head down when someone I didn't recognize walked toward me.

"So, Mike," I heard Daddy say. "What are you now? A granddad?"

The woman I didn't recognize put her hand on my shoulder and mistook me for my sister. They always thought I was the younger.

"Nah," Uncle Mike said. "Believe it or not, a great-granddad."

"Yep, twenty-six, now," I said to the woman. She assumed I remembered her. She sat down next to me, her thighs pushing onto mine, making me sweat even more.

"Wait, so, MJ's kid's got a kid?" Daddy pulled my brother and sister in closer.

"Yeah and I'm only fifty-three. Incredible."

The woman wouldn't stop touching me. My hair so unlike hers, pinching my arms with her fat fingers.

"Let's get some meat on you. Help me throw this chicken on the grill."

"I think my sister wanted to do that."

"Well, she's too busy being Daddy's girl over there."

I took the chicken from the table before the woman could. I tore the aluminum off the top and dumped the lot onto the grill. The woman wobbled over to me; a blurred blob coming my way. All white from head to toe, contrasting painfully with her black skin. Maybe if she had taken the sunglasses off, I could've recognized her. I was staring at Daddy's back as he hugged my siblings close to his side.

"Girl, you gotta put the charcoal in there first," the woman said, "Light the damn thing?"

I left the grill and poked my sister in the ribs. As expected, she punched me hard in the shoulder and told me that she hated being poked.

"You gotta start this grill before this woman over here eats me," I said rubbing my shoulder.

"You're so mean. That's Aunt Margolis."

My sister took over the grill. She was proud of her cooking and always had been. I was the one in the family who never got excited over food. I was the one who sometimes forgot to eat. Always picked on for being thin. What my family didn't seem to know is just how fat they all were.

I saw someone I recognized. My cousin Denise. We were the same age. She had a two year old boy and a five year old girl. They were beautiful and well-behaved. Denise was still shy. We greeted each other and then sat on the same bench, eating from the same bag of chips. As I looked at her exposed chest, the low-cut dress revealing the areolas of her nipples, I thought of her near-death scare. In the four foot pool of my childhood home, she splashed in feigned drowning until we lost five inches of water.

Daddy stood next to my sister pretending to know more about grilling than she did. He elbowed her in play and she pretended to be upset. They were flirting and I was the outcast, watching from the cafeteria table that no one else sat at. The sun burned the top of my head, my dark hair bleached by its light. I wished I had worn something other than the short skirt and revealing tank top. Daddy used to ground me for wearing things like that. The outfit was supposed to be empowering, but he said nothing, didn't even look as far as I could tell. I wanted to go back to the hotel and put my jeans on. The heat was no matter.

Denise, awkward in the silence, stood and gathered her kids.

More cars pulled into the lot. More people I didn't recognize. More people I didn't care to talk to. I flew to get to the reunion. My flight had been cancelled. I had to wait almost twelve hours for the next one to leave. I was routed to Boston before being rerouted to Buffalo, almost late for both flights. I thought of the plane crashing the entire flight. My parents didn't want to pick me up from the airport so I ordered a hotel van. I sat in the front seat. At least the driver was attractive and listened to good music. I wanted to go home as soon as I arrived. But the reunion was important to Daddy and my mother had planned it. And I was a good daughter.

The sun pinched my face and I worried about wrinkles and sunburn while I hugged the people I remembered and shook hands with the newly introduced.

"Oh, I remember how I held you when you were just a baby!"

"You're in Harlem, now?"

"You look just like your Daddy."

"So, you're, what? Twenty, now?"

"No, twenty-six."

"Oh my God! I thought you were--"

"--my sister. Yeah, I get that a lot."

"Oh, your father was so proud of your hair when you were born!"

"So tall and skinny!"

"I wish I could grow my hair like that!"

"If you stop putting chemicals in it...Yeah, I'm half-white..."

"So, you're the one at Buffalo University. Occupational Therapy, right?"

"No. New York City. Writing."

"Oh my God! I thought you were--"

"--my sister. Yeah, I get that a lot."

And then my Aunt Rosie pulled into the lot. She was the life of the party, all the funerals, weddings, birthdays. After all the funerals--Grandma, Uncle Robbie, Uncle Danny, the young cousin with a brain tumor--Aunt Rosie told us that the doctors had finally diagnosed her. Bipolar disorder. And diabetes. I thought that perhaps it was the crack while my cousin Derek was in utero. He was born addicted and taken from her. Grandma raised him. He was mute and in diapers until he was seven. Severely autistic. But Daddy told me Aunt Rosie had been that way since they were kids. She was known to see the Holy Spirit on occasion and have fits in the hallways of their childhood home.

Aunt Rosie walked into the park with her son, Derek. She was thinner and looking healthy. Derek was talking, only rocking slightly to that rhythm only he could ever hear.

Aunt Rosie was loud. She hugged everybody. She squeezed me hard. She hugged my mother, the white woman who stole her baby brother.

"I made some pasta salad, y'all. I can't eat none of that other stuff. Look at me, now. The doctor really got on my case this time."

"You look wonderful," my mother said.

Then the cameras were taken out. I tried to hide, but someone always pulled me by the arm and into the picture.

"Wait," my mother would say, "just to make sure, let's get a second one. Say cheese!"

Then the food was ready.

I filled my plate with chicken wings, pasta salad, chips, pickles. I took a second plate for a hotdog and hamburger. I sat at the picnic table and stuffed my face. None of it tasted especially fabulous but everyone congratulated the cook anyway.

"Girl," they'd say to my sister, "this is so good. Where'd you learn to cook like this?"

I pushed my sunglasses up the bridge of my sweaty nose and dug in, but I could only eat the chicken before I was full. I nibbled on the hotdog, tried to look like I was really into what I was doing.

That's when I felt the hand on my shoulder. A man's hand and I thought it was Daddy's. I didn't look up. But a woman's voice spoke. Aunt Rosie.

"Girls, your brother's here! I invited your brother!"

She sounded so excited. I was still looking at my plate. I assumed that she was talking to someone else. A man with a black t-shirt and cap on came in close to give me a hug. I stood and hugged him and caught my mother's eye. She was trying to smile through pressed lips. I felt the man's thinness through his oversized shirt. He smelled like liquor. Another person that I didn't know. Another person's brother, father, son. He hugged my sister, too. He walked into the park, to the tree where most people were gathered for shade. I put another piece of hotdog into my mouth and almost had to spit it out. Brother? No, Aunt Rosie hadn't been talking to someone else.

Daddy was talking quietly to Aunt Rosie.

"Come on, honey," my mother said to him. She didn't want a scene. Daddy and Aunt Rosie separated. I looked to the man who I had just hugged. Flash memories of a teenage boy swimming at night in the pool. I was seven and had developed a crush on him. He was so dark and tall. Daddy spent almost the entire week by his side. When he left I asked who the boy was. I wondered who I had spent time being so shy in front of. Were we adopting? It was only me and my sister. My brother would be born years later.

I watched the man in the black t-shirt walk away. He had a friend with him and a bottle in his hand. He was drunk. He was my older brother. I calculated in my head. He must have been thirty-four. I put my plate on the bench and walked into the grass. I stopped far from the tree. Was it Jarred or Gerard? He stood apart from the family with his friend. There were bushes behind him and behind the bushes were the restrooms. Gerard. I was pretty sure his name was Gerard.

My family was middle class. We lived in an average sized house, two floors, fenced in backyard and above-ground pool. We had cats and a dog, fish, hamsters, frogs. Although they changed often, there were always two cars in the driveway. Rose bushes and burning bushes that flamed red in the fall lined the front of the house. Green shutters on the windows. Inside the house, the early years were good. Catholic school, church on Sundays, Christmas and birthdays.

I was seven when Gerard came to visit. He appeared out of thin air and stayed in the playroom. I always wanted to play with him, but my mother kept me away.

"Honey," she'd say, "he's a lot older than you."

I'd sneak into the playroom when I knew he was in there. I asked him if he wanted to play and when he said yes, I blushed. The door was cracked open with my eager face peeking through.

"Monopoly?" I asked.

"Sure," he said. He had a quiet voice.

"Okay. I'll be back in a few secs."

Secs. It was supposed to be short for seconds, but I could have died. Sex. It was all I heard and projected it onto him. He thinks I want to have sex with him, I thought over and over again. Even through the years it echoed embarrassingly in my head.

I hid in my bedroom under the pretense of changing out of my bathing suit. But I never came out to play. I couldn't get the red out of my cheeks.

I was jealous when Daddy brought him out for a night swim and my mother made me go to bed. I remember Gerard in the kitchen looking back at me as Daddy led him out through the back door. It was the only complete memory I had of his face. Dark brown and smooth, honey colored eyes and pink lips, so young compared to me now.

And then he was gone. Seven days and I thought I'd never see him again.

My mother had sat me down after he left.

"That's your brother," she said. I remember looking up at her. Her long blond hair hanging close to my face.

I didn't understand. Not one bit. If he was my brother, how come he didn't live with us?

I had done my best to reconcile with Daddy. I was twelve when my memory stopped keeping track of time. I remember things only from photographs. Reconstructed, happy endings. My mother the saint. Daddy the king. And I kept things like that through my mother's depression and his anger. If I didn't invite any of my friends over, it could be the truth. From the outside, the house was painted, the pool was clean and the cars in the driveway ran. On the inside, the people slept or bickered and the lights were rarely turned on. Happiness could still be the truth with our incredible talent of denial, secrecy, and the thousands of smiling photographs.

I had thought of Gerard through those years. I fantasized having an older brother and wondered what became of him. He was still fourteen and shy. He was still in the pool through the shades of my bedroom window.

A different summer, a different place. He wasn't fourteen anymore and it surprised me. Aunt Rosie brought him some food, but he didn't accept it. From this distance, it was all silent as she pointed to the bottle that he was holding. She tried to grab it from him and he brought it behind his back. His friend was smirking.

A tap on my shoulder startled me.

"Hey you," the boy said.

"Hey," I said not knowing who it was.

"It's me, Ray."

For a moment I stopped breathing. Surprised that this cousin wasn't in jail. Surprised that there was a kid, a toddler boy, by his side. I hoped that it wasn't his child. They had let him out of juvie for Grandma's funeral ten years ago. Before that it was him chasing me down a dead-end street with a shot gun. It was the spring before I met Gerard. Running, breathing heavy, I whispered my Hail Mary's and Our Father's in rosary fashion. I had assumed that the rusty thing was loaded.

He brought me in for a hug. Apology for trying to kill me? And here we were--me still alive and him a free man. It turned out that the kid was his son.

Before we knew it, everyone was looking for Ray, taking turns holding his kid. I knew where he was, but didn't tell. If they would've walked close enough, they would've smelled the skunky smoke billowing from the restrooms.

I sat on the grass. The green was deceiving. Hard and sharp, the blades scratched my legs until I got a rash on the back of my thighs. I brought my knees up under my chin.

My mother was sitting in the shade of the tree in a lawn chair. She was laughing, trying to keep up with that urban dialect. She became whiter than ever as she struggled to understand the small things like y'all and nigga. Daddy stood in a circle of people, my brother and sister at his sides. He was laughing and talking loudly, praising my siblings' accomplishments, patting the tops of their heads. And right behind him was Gerard. The only one on the outside of the circle, unsmiling, watching Daddy with the bottle held limply by his side. I tried to see similarities in their faces, but I was too far away. I turned my back and waited for the circle to break.

My sister came to me.

"You having fun?" she asked.

"Don't you know who that is?"

"Who?"

"Gerard," I whispered.

"Yeah, I know."

I remembered that she had been three and probably didn't remember him.

"I can't believe how Daddy's acting."

"Why do you always say things against Daddy? He didn't know he'd be here."

She walked away to be with Uncle Robbie's daughter and grandchildren. She took the six month old from our cousin's arms and played mommy.

My brother was still standing with Daddy. The circle unbroken and Gerard still on the outside.

I knew there were things that Daddy didn't like to talk about. There was the death of his father when he was nine--a stroke from the metal plate in his head, experimental military medicine. There was one picture of Grandpa, the spitting image of Daddy. There were two pictures of Daddy, both taken when he was twelve. He looked the same to me, like his childhood had gotten cut short, grown before his time. I asked where the other photos were.

"There was a fire," he said. "Everything was lost except for a few pictures in frames."

I didn't ask why there was a fire.

"Your Uncle Danny," he said, "he once burned our mother's house down just to steal a television. That's why he lived with us for that time. He had just gotten out of jail with nowhere to go."

I remembered living with Uncle Danny. I was nine and it was the last time I saw him. He was skeletal and erratic. Back then, no one knew that he had HIV. 1994. He told us he had a bad cold, and he refused to take the medicine. He would've died soon even if he hadn't killed himself.

Snooping through my parents' dresser tops as I often did as a kid, I found military tags in my mother's jewelry box. There were two on one chain, shiny gray metal, typed script punched across their surface. Daddy's name.

"Was Daddy in the army?" I asked my mother.

"How do you know that?"

"I found the tags."

"He was in the army, but he doesn't like to talk about it. So, don't ask him about it."

I had done the calculations in my head. Daddy went to college, graduated when he was twenty-three, then law school until he was twenty-six.

"When did he go into the army?"

"Straight out of high school. He was only in the army for a year."

"How'd he get out so soon?"

"He was discharged. Honorably. And you really shouldn't snoop through my things."

There was the scar on his face, too. It was almost a crescent moon on his right cheekbone, an inch below his eye, carved crudely, lighter than the rest of his skin.

"Where'd you get the scar, Daddy?"

"Got hit by a car."

"You got hit by a car?"

I was excited. I never knew anyone who had got hit by a car.

"Yep. I got hit by a car. So, never play in the streets and always look both ways before you cross. Or you'll get hit by a car."

I went to my mother some time later.

"Did you know that Daddy got hit by a car when he was little?"

"When did he tell you that?"

"I asked him how he got that scar on his face. He told me he got hit by a car. Isn't that crazy?"

"Yeah, I guess it's pretty crazy."

I moved in closer to the circle. Gerard had moved, now stood against the bushes again. He swayed, laughed at something his friend said. I sat on a blanket, next to my cousin Strawberry. She was a sweet girl who wanted to be a boy. They had let her out of juvie recently.

"Don't Gerard look just like his daddy?" she asked.

It took me a moment to figure out who his daddy was. Right, I thought, that's right.

"Uh-huh," I said.

"Yeah, he look just like your daddy. Look at his eyes."

And I did. They were still that honey-brown color, sinister as they peeked out from under the shadow of his hat. Maybe his lips, a little. Maybe his nose. Not his eyes. Not at all. I wondered who his mother was.

"What's his last name?"

Strawberry furrowed her brow at me.

"Henderson? His last name is Henderson."

I got up and went back to the picnic table. Daddy followed. He put his hand on my shoulder.

"What?" I asked.

"How's my number one doing?"

His number one. Yes, in birth I am the first girl born. In front of friends and family I was always number one. Without Gerard, I was number one.

"I'm just fine."

He took his hand away but still stood by my side. He rubbed his hands together, put the tips of his fingers to his lips. He crossed his arms and uncrossed them. He looked at me, opened his mouth, shut it and looked away.

"Daddy," I said.

"Hm?"

"You have to talk to him."

"Do you think I should talk to him?"

"You have to. Look at him. He's your son."

He turned his entire body to face mine. He put one arm across his middle, his hand to his lips.

"He's not. I mean, there were no tests but he's...we don't think he's mine."

Looking past Daddy's head, Gerard was a blurry dot, hovering and swaying right next to Daddy's ear.

"But he thinks he is. The entire family thinks he is. He's been staring at you this entire time. He's got your last name. You have to talk to him."

"You think so?"

"I'm telling you that you have to."

"Okay, I will."

I stood in shock. Was this our reconciliation after all the violence and rebellion of my adolescence? It was always him, his hands on my puppet strings, his voice the commandment of God in my head. He walked away from me and toward Gerard.

They spoke in the parking lot against Daddy's SUV. They stood close. I wondered if Daddy could smell the alcohol on his son's breath. I wanted to hear what they were saying, but I stood at a distance. I turned from them, startled at the tears in my eyes, not sure what or who they were for. I saw my younger brother. He stood alone under the tree, standing on the outside of a circle of old, sitting women. He had his hands in his pockets, poker face. I went to him.

"Hey, you okay?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Do you know who Daddy's talking to?"

"Yeah. I didn't even know about him. No one even told me."

"They should've told you. Maybe I should've told you."

"I have an older brother."

"Yeah, I guess you do."

"I heard he's got, like, seven kids."

I wasn't surprised.

"Well, I guess Daddy's a grandpa."

"This is so weird."

"It is. Sorry you had to find out this way."

"It's all good."

We stood for a moment. We never had much to say to each other.

"You know he's really drunk," my brother said.

"Yeah, I know."

It wasn't until people started to leave when Gerard inched closer and closer to me. Finally, we all had a circle of our own--my sister, two brothers, and me. Gerard tried hard to be sober, leaning slightly to one side.

"You know," he said slurring his words, "you was just a little girl last I saw you."

"I know," I said.

"I'm thirty-three now. I got me seven kids. And you," he said turning to my sister, "I don't remember you much, but I know you was there. You still my blood. And you," he said turning to my brother, "I never even had the chance to meet you. And you a grown man. You're my little sis, and you're my little sis, and you my brother."

I was the first to hug him. There wasn't any spark like in the movies. Just a dull ache in my chest. My sister hugged him next. My brother shook his hand, looking at the ground as he did.

"You know we's blood. No matter that I'm going in in two weeks, I still got your back. I'm, I'm going in for about a year and a half. But let me give you my baby momma's number. I ain't got a phone. I use hers."

I took my phone from my pocket and took his number.

"But you gotta call within the next two weeks."

"Okay, we will," I said.

We hugged again. This time my mother saw us.

"Can I get a picture of all of you?"

Gerard put the bottle of liquor behind the bushes. We stood together, arms around each other. I smiled, the picture was taken. We looked at the digital picture. Gerard wasn't smiling.

"That was a good one," my mother said, "but let me get your father."

She walked a ways away, but with her bad knee and back, stopped. She caught sight of Daddy and yelled his name.

We stood in a line again. Me between Gerard and Daddy.

After the pictures, Daddy suggested we leave. Okay, my mother said. My brother and sister said goodbye to people. I hugged Gerard again and was the first in the car. We pulled out of the lot, me cramped in the back seat with my brother and sister.

"I'll sit in the back so one of you can move up front," my mother suggested.

No, it was okay, we'd stay cramped.

"What did he mean, he's going in?" my brother asked.

"He's scheduled to go to jail in two weeks," I said.

"Oh."

It wasn't until the end of that week, sitting at work, that I took out my phone. I called the number remembering that it wasn't his phone. Seven kids. A baby momma. Did she know he had sisters? I let the phone ring once before I hung up. I sent a text message. This is Gerard's sister. Tell him to call.

He never did call.

"Did you ever get a hold of Gerard?" my sister asked a couple of weeks later.

"No. I called but no one picked up."

"I guess he's in jail, now."

"Yeah, I guess he is."

Gerard slid back to the fourteen year old boy in the pool and no one has talked about him since. I've decided that he does look like Daddy, from a sideways glance. Maybe he's got his hands. Always noticing the liquor bottle, I forgot to look at the hands holding it. Gerard Henderson. Birthday? Sometime in 1977, '78. Daddy had been sixteen years old, then. The beginning of a family reunion, a mistake, things we don't talk about.

Camilla Hawkins is a senior at The City College of New York. She is originally from Syracuse, New York and now lives in Harlem. This is her first published fiction.