Gather Together in My Name - Maya Angelou [10]
My aunt answered my telephone call.
“Ritie, where are you?”
“We're at the station.”
“What we?”
Like all the family she had heard about my pregnancy, but she hadn't seen the result.
“My son and I.”
A tiny hesitation, then: “Get a taxi and come out here. I'll pay the cab fare.” Her voice didn't ooze happiness at hearing from me, but then, the Baxters were not known to show any emotions. Except violent ones.
Wilshire Boulevard was wide and glossy. Large buildings sat back on tiny little lawns in a privacy that projected money and quiet voices and white folks.
The house on Federal Avenue had a no-nonsense air about it. It was a model of middle-class decorum. A single-story solidly made building with three bedrooms, good meant-to-last furniture, and samplers on the wall which exhorted someone to “Bless This Home” and warned that “Pride Goeth Before a Fall.”
The clan had met, obviously called by my aunt, to check out my new addition to the family and give me the benefit of their conglomerate wisdom. My Uncle Tommy sat, wide-spraddled as usual, and grumbled. “Hey, Ritie. Got a baby, I see.”
Guy was in my arms and talking, pointing, laughing, so the meaning in his statement was not in the words. He was simply greeting me and saying that although I had a child without benefit of marriage, he for one was not going to ignore either me or the baby.
My family spoke its own mysterious language. The wives and husbands of my blood relatives handed my son around as if they were thinking of adding him to their collection. They removed his bootees and pulled his toes.
“Got good feet.”
“Uh huh. High arches.”
One aunt ran her hand around his head and was satisfied. “His head is round.”
“Got a round head, huh?”
“Sure does.”
“That's good.”
“Uh huh.”
This feature was more than a symbol of beauty. It was an indication of the strength of the bloodline. Every Baxter had a round head.
“Look a lot like Bibbi, doesn't he?” “Bibbi” was the family name for my mother. Guy was handed around the circle again.
“Sure does.”
“Yes. I see Bibbi right here.”
“Well … but he's mighty fair, isn't he?”
“Sure is.”
They all spoke without emotion, except for my Aunt Leah. Her baby voice rose and fell like music played on a slender reed.
“Reetie, you're a woman now. A mother and all that. You'll have two to think of from now on. You'll have to get a job—”
“I've been working as a cook.” She shouldn't think I had come to be taken care of.
“—and learn to save your money.”
Tommy's wife, Sarah, wrapped my son carefully in his blanket and handed him to me. Aunt Leah stood, a signal that the inspection was over. “What time is your train? Charlie can drive you to the station.”
My brain reeled. Had I given the impression that I was going on? Did they say something I missed? “In a few hours. I should be getting back.”
We were all shaking hands. Their relief was palpable. I was, after all, a Baxter and playing the game. Being independent. Expecting nothing and if asked, not giving a cripple crab a crutch.
Tom asked, “Need some money, Reet?”
“No thanks. I've got money.” All I needed was to get away from that airless house.
My uncles and aunts were childless, except for my late Uncle Tuttie, and they were not equipped to understand that an eighteen-year-old mother is also an eighteen-year-old girl. They were a close-knit group of fighters who had no patience with weakness and only contempt for losers.
I was hurt because they didn't take me and my child to their bosom, and because I was a product of Hollywood upbringing and my own romanticism. On the silver screen they would have vied for me. The winner would have set me up in a cute little cottage with frangipani and roses growing in the front yard. I would always wear pretty aprons and my son would play in the Little