Powder Necklace by Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond

Author:Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Published: 2010-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

30

Ei! Is the place for her alone?” Auntie Amerley covered her mouth with her fist when Mum turned into Auntie Flora’s driveway and parked next to a midnight-blue BMW. “And she has a Beemer. Ei!”

“This isn’t where Auntie Flora used to live,” I said, remembering her old flat near Camden Market, which had been quite posh as well. This house was the real deal—a detached English brick house guarded by a pair of pruned shrubs.

“She moved,” Mum said as she gave Auntie Amerley a look, then checked the rearview mirror to see if I was listening before she told Auntie Amerley something in Ga. I didn’t understand Ga, so all I could piece together from Mum’s answer were the random English words—“man,” “married”—and “shika,” which sounded like the Twi and Fanti word for “money.”

Auntie Flora answered her door in a silk swirl of color, swathed in an emerald-green buubuu, jeweled ruby slippers, and gold bangles stacked along the length of her slender arms. Her long hair floated around her shoulders, parted at the middle, just like I remembered her.

“Is that Lila?” She looked past Auntie Amerley and Mum and folded me into a skinny hug. “How long has it been?” She held me at arm’s length to have a look at me, then took my hand and stepped aside for Mum and Auntie Amerley to enter.

“Five years.”

“Let’s not ever let that much time pass between us again,” she said to Mum’s back.

“Yes,” I agreed, curiosity now getting the better of me as I stood in Auntie Flora’s home. What had happened that Mum was talking to Auntie Flora again? I wondered how my father figured into their reconciliation, if at all.

“Felicia, you didn’t tell me how beautiful Lila had become,” Auntie Flora said, cupping my face. Her hand smelled like roses. “She’s a woman.”

“Not yet,” Mum said, walking past the foyer to settle on one of the stuffed, cream-colored couches in Auntie Flora’s living room.

Auntie Flora flashed me a wink and a smile. “Come. Come. Let me give you the grand tour.”

She walked me through the living room. Everything was cream and cranberry, from the walls to the pillars of candles that stood around the room frozen in mid-drip, to the fat throw pillows scattered in cozy little corners, to the rugs that swallowed the heels of my boots. I could practically see my reflection in the black wood floors at the edges of the rugs.

She pulled me through an archway to a black and white washroom. A massive photo of Auntie Flora naked was printed onto the shower curtain. “Yes, it’s me,” she answered my wide eyes. “They can put a picture on anything these days.”

There were other black and white photographs of Auntie Flora when she was younger and Auntie Flora with friends dotting the walls. There were pictures of me too. I picked up one from ages ago of me, Auntie Flora, and her then boyfriend Uncle Roger at Thorpe Park.

“Remember that day?” she asked me. I nodded as she led me to her bedroom.

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