A soft melody fills the space when he flips the box open while a Black ballerina twirls in place.
“I’m pretty sure her mom gave her that. I remember my two sisters begging our mom for one after she showed them because a music box with a Black ballerina was hard to come by back then.”
“If I could give anyone anything, it would be the gift of music.”
Hearing you loud and clear, Tanya. We’ll make sure someone special gets this gift. Micah hands me the music box to sit on top of my book.
Micah and I knew Tanya the woman well, but uncovering the makings of Tanya the girl is a gift I couldn’t be more thankful for.
John provides as much context as he can for the things we find but encourages us to talk to some of the other family members for more insight.
I plan to do just that.
When we leave the shed, we find Auntie Joyce sitting on the porch smoking another cigarette. Her thin eyebrows furrow with each puff.
She stamps the cigarette out when she sees us, dabbing her knuckle beneath her eye subtly. “Ava’s sleeping in her bed. Ready to head out? I gotta get to the store and buy some celery.” She hands John a baby monitor.
“What you making?” Micah asks.
“Potato salad for the cookout later. John, you bring the kids by when they get home, okay?” He nods his agreement and Micah acts as Auntie Joyce’s handrail down the steps.
“When did she say we were having a cookout?” Micah whispers in my ear when Auntie Joyce walks a little ahead of us.
Maybe it was in her head, because it definitely wasn’t out loud.
Turns out, this is a regular Auntie Joyce occurrence. She calls for a cookout on a random day and the whole family drops everything to come together.
Within hours she has the potato salad chilling in the fridge, and family members start showing up with burgers, hot dogs, wings, baked beans, soda, pies, and other dishes. One cousin literally rolls his grill down the street and parks it in Auntie Joyce’s backyard to fire it up.
Before long the cookout is in full swing. Drinks are flowing, kids are running around the yard, and a game of dominoes is growing heated.
One of the little cousins, Jamie, marches up to Micah and looks up at him with determination in her gaze. “Why you so tall?” she blurts.
He doesn’t bend down to her level, he just looks down at her like the giant he is. “Why you so short?” he responds.
“I’m still growing!” She stomps her foot.
“You sure about that?”
She turns her nose up in disgust. “Yes. I just grew two inches last month.”
“Congratulations.”
She considers him for a moment, planning her next move. “You got a dollar?”
His lip twitches, but he’s able to stop any expression from showing on his face. “I do.”
She pauses, waiting for him to offer it to her on a silver platter. “Can I have it?” she asks when he doesn’t.
He crosses his arms across his chest. “Tell you what. I’ll give you one dollar for every inch you’ve grown in the last year.”
She grabs his hand and tugs. “Mom!” she yells out. “I need to check the board thingy!” She keeps screaming out to her mom as she drags Micah along behind her. He looks at me and shrugs as he allows Jamie to make him into a rag doll.
As I walk toward the folding tables in the yard to grab a plate, a soft voice calls out to me. “You’re Tanya’s girl, right?”
I turn and find a table of older and younger Black women, the one who spoke to me a spitting image of John.
“That’s me, yeah. I’m Dani,” I say as I walk closer to them.
