Harlem Redux by Persia Walker

where she was all those years?”
    “Miss Lilian tried to ask her, but Miss Gem just waved her away again. Said she’d tell her all about it later; she just wanted to enjoy being home at first. Said she was dying to look ‘round. Wanted to know if her old room was the same. But she didn’t even wait for Miss Lilian’s answer. Miss Gem went to the foot of the stairs and looked up. She pushed her coat off her shoulders, just let that beautiful coat land in a heap at her feet, then she run on up the stairs, never once looking back. Left me and Miss Lilian standing down here with her luggage on the doorstep, like we was bellhops or sumptin’.
    “Miss Lilian turned to me and told me to clean up the downstairs thorough. She grabbed my arm, led me to the parlor, clucking like a worried hen, and pointed out stuff she wanted put away. It didn’t take long to see what she was up to: clearing out all signs of a man in the house. That’s all it was.
    “I said to Miss Lilian: ‘You can’t keep Mr. Jameson a secret. When you gonna tell her?’
    “Her jaw got tense and that look come on her face—you know the one I mean—sort of pained and worried. ‘Not now,’ she said.
    “‘You got to tell her sometime,’ I said.
    “She shook her head. ‘Maybe Gem won’t stay that long,’ she said. ‘She might leave before he gets back.’ Then, she gimme a hug and told me she’d take the luggage upstairs herself.
    “Miss Lilian put off telling Miss Gem about Mr. Jameson for as long as she could. And that was only about a week. She got away with it that long ‘cause Mr. Jameson was outta town. Miss Lilian was real careful about not letting Miss Gem into her bedroom neither, where she coulda seen signs of him. But by-and-by, Miss Lilian lost hope that Miss Gem was back for a quick visit. I don’t know where she thought Miss Gem might go, seeing as how Miss Gem didn’t know nobody in Harlem no more. She’d been away too long.
    “Now cain’t no woman hide the fact that she got a man living with her. ‘Specially when everybody up an’ down the street know about it. I don’t know who that sister of yours thought she was fooling. But even if nobody hadna said nothing, Miss Gem woulda figured it out all by herself. That woman’s got the nose of a cat. She can smell a man hanging round like an alley cat can smell a rat.
    “Well, Miss Gem had me and Miss Lilian running ‘round, serving her like she was the Queen of Sheba. One night she come back ‘round four o’clock in the morning, hissy as a snake. She’d been hanging out at Hayne’s Oriental and somebody’d asked her what she thought of her sister’s new husband. Naturally, she ain’t knowed nothing but nothing about what they was talking about. So, they laid it on thick. I ain’t never seen nobody as angry as Miss Gem at that time of morning.
    “Well, she woke Miss Lilian. Me, too, for that matter. I was in my room, but I could hear them. I reckon the neighbors heard them too, the way they was carrying on. Miss Gem told Miss Lilian she was a fool.
    “‘Don’t you realize he married you for your money?’ she said.
    “Miss Lilian said she didn’t care.
    ‘“Well, you’d better start,’ Miss Gem said. ‘Everybody’s laughing at you. Everybody knows he ain’t no good.’
    “Miss Lilian asked Miss Gem, since when did she care what everybody says. ‘You never cared before,’ Miss Lilian said. ‘And for once I don’t care neither. Everybody thinks they know he doesn’t love me. I know for certain he does.’
    “Then they sorta got quiet. Dropped their voices like. And I’m glad they did, ‘cause I didn’t wanna get involved no way. I don’t have no trouble staying outta other people’s business. Not that anybody ever asked my opinion. But I’ll tell you sumptin’: Laying in the dark that night, I got a sense of foreboding, the likes of which I ain’t never had b’fore. It sat like a rock, here in my chest.”
    She wedged her fist tight up