High Price

be sexually active with her husband, she had a child nearly once a year between 1961 and 1969. It was not just my mother alone but also her mother, sisters, and children who had to live with the consequences.
    In Brenda’s case, this probably worked to her advantage. Perhaps because Big Mama basically saw Brenda as a motherless child, she coddled her. She always tried to make the granddaughter whom she raised feel special and wanted. Consequently, Big Mama supported Brenda’s interest in athletics at school, as well as her academic achievement. Brenda was on the drill team and in the marching band; she loved to strut her stuff. Surrounded by white do-gooders who expected her to go to college—and prodded by Big Mama as well—Brenda soon imagined and reached for the same future for herself.
    Indeed, Brenda became the most academically serious of my sisters. She would later be the only one of the girls to graduate from college, with an associate’s degree in general education from Miami-Dade Junior College. She was the only one of my sisters who didn’t have a child in her teens or out of wedlock. She went on to a long and successful career in reservations at Delta Air Lines. To me, Brenda echoed Big Mama’s pronouncements about the importance of finishing my education and amplified them. My other sisters and my brothers didn’t get this kind of encouragement from adults. Brenda and I also learned lots of practical things from Big Mama, like how to cook and how to take the bus to get around town.
    Our grandmother also tried making us take piano lessons. That never stuck because we didn’t really practice. The only use the piano in the living room got was when Big Mama played hymns herself or played and sang with Brother Curtis. He and Big Mama were treasurers in the church where she played the organ. I’m not sure if they were seeing each other romantically or not, but he would often come around to play music and to discuss church business. The Bahamian side of my family were Seventh-Day Adventists who went to church every Saturday.
    Even though Big Mama disapproved, I tried to avoid church and related activities as much as possible. It was always either boring or frightening: when I believed in God as a child, I saw Him as an angry, unforgiving God who knew I was up to no good and had no tolerance or understanding of my circumstances. He didn’t seem to do much for those who prayed. And when the contrast between people’s behavior in church on weekends and during the rest of the week became obvious to me—and as my childhood kept showing me just how unfair life really was—I pretty much stopped believing or at least stopped thinking much about it. Later, in my teens, I sometimes even used the idea of God to convince friends to shoplift with me, saying that He would understand us taking from those who have more. But Big Mama’s deep and genuine faith sustained her.
    She also looked out for me and stood up for me with my father in a way that no one else did. After I’d moved to Big Mama’s, Carl was supposed to do the weekend-dad thing with regular visits. Every Friday night, I’d sit expectantly by the front window, watching for his green 1972 Gran Torino. I’d eagerly count down the hours until he was due to arrive. But, sometimes, he didn’t come. Or, if he did show up, it would often be late on Saturday rather than Friday evening and he’d be drunk. On at least one occasion, he was so intoxicated when he took me to his place that we had to pull over on the side of the road because he was hallucinating and knew it wasn’t safe to drive. We just sat there until it passed.
    I didn’t mind when he was drunk. I just wanted to see him, even if all I’d get to do was hang out at his house while he slept it off. When he showed up, his drinking didn’t make him abusive or unkind toward me. I never attributed any particular effects to it at all. However, I distinctly remember Big Mama getting on his case more than once, describing how I sat and waited so hopefully when he was late or didn’t show, and telling him it was disgraceful to treat a child like that by setting me up for such disappointment. It was unusual to see an adult take my side. It stuck with me.
    But while Big Mama was smart and strong-willed, she also had some strange ways about her. Like Grandmama, she played favorites. She was intensely loving toward Brenda and me. However, she barely spoke to our other siblings. Indeed, she simply