When Love Calls, You Better Answer: A Novel - Hardcover

Chapter 1

Go Back To Get Forward
When a painful story is told out loud, it sets somebody free. Sometimes it's the storyteller, most times though, it's the listener. They say that if we honor the ancestors with our lives, then will they honor us with their stories.
—AUNT BABE

My name is Shoulda Been Wright. I married a Wright, but my daddy said that I should have been a boy, so he named me Shoulda Been. I'm dead. Been that way for some time now, but dead ain't never mean done--it just puts you closer to truth, closer to life.

The story I'm telling is not about me, but then again it is. My niece, Bernita, is the flip side of my coin. I had a lot of men because I was afraid that nobody would ever really love me. She had a lot 'cause she was afraid to really love. Bernita is the reason I'm here, 'cause what don't get done in this life is passed down to the next generation. If you ain't had no children of your own, then it's passed down to your family's children.

Bernita is my sister Buster's child. Now, don't get to thinking that I'm from a crazy family 'cause we got a bunch of funny names. What you name a child is important, but how you treat them is bigger. Having a different-sounding name ain't what makes you bad. Just think about people like Condoleezza, Oprah, and Colin. Them names ain't no different. We just don't have a problem saying difficult names if they attached to money and power. But now you take them young Shaniquas and Tyreeses--hey, I wonder if the plural of Tyreese is Tyerye--anyway, those kids get pulled into thinking that they are less than a Bob or Mary, and then they start to acting like they are. That's what they call a self-fulfilling prophecy. Whew, now that's a big one. Hearing me talk, you probably thinking I'm a ball of contradictions. But if you're really listening, then you know that wisdom don't just come from college classrooms.

Even though I didn't like school I always liked reading and learning, and I can still bust a verb with the best of them. It's good to be book smart, but it's even better to combine that with spirit and life. Anyway, my sister Buster had one child, and one child only. She had that child just to prove to my sister Ronnie that she could.

Bernita was born fussing. She cried day and night. The only thing that seemed to quiet her down was that baby buggy. Whenever I would walk with her, she got to cooing and smiling, like she was pure joy and light. I guess every child is. But I was just a kid myself, and when my sister Buster was working and come to think of it, even when she wasn't, I was the one who watched Bernita. I didn't like Bernita from day one. Mind you, I didn't hate her; I just didn't like her.

Before you get to thinking that I felt like that 'cause Bernita stole my place as the baby in the family, think on this--when you living in a house that's headed up by hate, ain't nobody the apple of anybody's eye. We were all too busy trying to judge my daddy's moods. My daddy--would say "rest his soul," but I know for a fact that his soul ain't resting--was mean as they came. He could be peaceful one minute and then he'd up and smack you for no cause at all. Maybe he had a reason, but we never knew what it was.

I was the last of eight girls. We lived in Sylvania, Georgia, in a house that was too big to be small and too small to be big. It was somewhere in the middle. That was the only thing that was average about us. Everything else was high drama. It wasn't the everyday soap opera kind. No sir, no ma'am. We had that Sunset Boulevard drama. Wasn't nothing normal. Sometimes he would come home cussing and fussing. Other times, he would drag in all slow, get a plate of food, and go to his room. I preferred the cussing. If he was dragging, it just meant that the storm was coming later. And storms that come in the night always seem bigger and blacker than if they come in the day.

By the time Bernita was born my daddy had settled down some. But that's like saying Hitler was nicer in his later years. Anyway, it was my job to try to keep Bernita quiet so she wouldn't set my daddy off. Since almost anything could set him off, I knew the best thing to do when he was there was to leave. I would take Bernita to the park in that buggy of hers where everybody would say how cute she was. Of course, that made me like her even less. But it was in the park that I found out that Bernita was good for something. Sometimes, grown men would come up and say how pretty she was. Sometimes, they would ask if she was mine. The first time someone asked, I told the man he must be crazy. I call him a man 'cause he looked past twenty, but not old enough to really be grown.

"I'm just a kid myself, mister," I said.

He looked at me real hard and got to grinning like he knew something I didn't. "Well," he said, still smiling with teeth that were too big for his own mouth, "sometimes, young girls like doing it."

Now back then, I didn't really know what "it" was. I'd heard my sisters talking about this "it," and I think I heard my mama and daddy doing "it." My sisters made this thing sound like you had to be a part of a secret organization that only older girls could get into before you could know what it was. There was something in the way they talked about "it" that made me think of something special, like mashed sweet potatoes on a Tuesday night. (We only had them on Sundays and Thanksgiving.) Some foods are all in the taste, but some are in how they feel too. Mashed sweets are like that. I would close my eyes and let that top layer of crispy buttery crust snap in my mouth, so the soft sweetness would melt through. Getting something like that on a regular Tuesday sure would have been nice.

The man in the park with the big teeth was smiling harder 'cause when he said that about young girls liking to do "it," I was thinking 'bout them mashed sweets, but he thought that I was thinking bout "it."  I had one hand on Bernita's buggy and the other one on my hip when I heard him say, "You cute too."

He was the first man to show me any attention, and as it turned out, the first one I did "it" with. I was thirteen and Bernita wasn't no more than a year old. It sure changed me, and I know now that it changed her too. 'Cause when he took me to the park bathroom, Bernita was right there with me. She may have just been a baby, but believe me when I tell you, babies see what's going on.

Now if you asked most folks, they would say that man raped me. Considering the difference in our age and the wisdom he was supposed to have, I guess he did. But I'm gonna tell the truth, 'cause that's all I can tell you. I liked what he did. Not the physical part, 'cause that hurt me real hard. I liked that this man was being nice to me, and saying sweet things.

If a girl don't hear the kindness she needs to hear from the right man, she will look to hear it from any man.

The time I was with him wasn't that long. But he kept telling me that I was pretty and that he was going to do things for me, 'cause I deserved them. But after that, I never saw him again. I went to the park time and again hoping to find him, but he didn't come back. After a while I figured he must have found somebody that he liked better than me.

I never even knew his name.

Well, I said that I was gonna tell you about my niece Bernita, and I am. But you can't understand her life 'til you understand mine and see where hers came from. Bernita's mama, Buster, didn't like her daughter all that much neither. My sister was too much like her name, a regular buster. One day she started going to see a woman everybody said was funny. There wasn't nothing 'bout her that made me laugh though. That woman was tough like my daddy, but she was real sweet on Bernita. Which made her nothing like my daddy when I think of it, 'cause he wasn't sweet on nobody. Whenever my daddy was in one of his ways, Buster would go over to Miss Eudora's house.

"I'm outta here," she would say, walking just like my daddy. "I don't need to hear none of this mess. I work hard too. Babe, you take care of Bernie and make sure that she gets something to eat."

I wanted to tell her to feed her own child. But then I would remember the nameless man with the big grin and pretty words. I figured that it was Bernita that brought him to me the first time and maybe she could do it again.

Well, like I said, that man never did come back, but I met others. They all said the same stuff. But with them, I made sure I got a name first. I knew that most times it wasn't their real name, but at least I had a word to go with my thoughts. Later on I would imagine that I was Mrs. Jim Wilson, or Mrs. Clarence White. None of them men would've ever married me. I know that now, but I was just trying to have something to believe in.

In my mind, they were all the first man with the big grin. By the time I realized that they didn't care nothing about me, and that they were just getting what they wanted, I had nicknames, and a reputation to match. I was "Miss Hot Pants" or "Miss Too Hot to Trot." The girls were more creative than the boys and meaner too. They called me "Peanut Butter," because they said I spread easy.

Now, you may be wondering where my mother and sisters were when all of this was going on. You probably thinking that somebody in my house should have known something. Well, someone did, but by then, she was just five years old.
Chapter 2

Generational Pain
Ain't no hurt like an old hurt.
—BEATRICE BERRY
Folks say that childbirth is natural. I say it's a miracle. Ain't nothing natural or normal about what happens to women when they give birth. Now, I bet you wondering how I know about it since I ain't had no children of my own. That's something I need to tell you 'bout. You see, over here on the other side, we can see so...