No Place Like Home by Barbara Samuel Page A

years younger than me, was getting married in August. Word was that she had somehow remained a virgin and actually had earned the right to wear her two-thousand-dollar white wedding dress. “What are they doing?”
    Michael made that helpless face. “Fittings or something?”
    “Ah.” I understood and neither of them had to. I also understood that Jasmine had picked Shane to baby-sit in order to give him a caring lecture about going to jail, and also to illustrate that even when a kid went to jail he still had value. Something else I owed her for.
    And because Malachi was sitting there sipping coffee and I kept noticing the thick, raised veins in his forearms, I was also grateful when the group of them showed up. Jasmine and Jane, both as clean-scrubbed as a Noxzema ad; and Shane, carrying Karen, Jasmine’s youngest;
and
my mother and grandmother; and Jasmine’s other child, a monster boy of eight named Daniel who was born to do manly things like mow down other boys on a football field and swoon over army tanks at the state fair. “Yo, Danny-boy,” I said. “Give me five.”
    “Hey, Auntie,” he said, being cool. He noted the guys in the kitchen and swaggered over, hands in his pockets, to pop my palm smartly.
    He had stitches across his nose. “What’d you do this time?” I asked. He already had scars from a dog bite, a fall from a trampoline, a long skid across a sidewalk from riding a skateboard face first, and a particularly impressive thick snake of a scar running up his thigh that he received jumping over a fence. Caught a nail that ripped through his jeans, his flesh, and six muscles. He never dropped a tear until they gave him drugs for the pain. The Sabatinos and Falconis bragged about Daniel, I can tell you.
    “Oh, I fell off my bike.”
    Jasmine elaborated. “He smashed into a truck and broke the windshield with his nose.”
    Malachi gave a quick, bright hoot of laughter. “Whoa,” he said, sticking out his hand for a high five, too, and Danny, who’d been deeply hoping for such validation, tossed his buzz-cut head and slapped him five.
    The women all swiveled their heads around at the robust sound of that man laugh in the kitchen. Jasmine straightened prettily, just slightly thrusting out her impressive chest. My mother’s black eyes narrowed, while Nana Lucy impaled him, The Stranger Who Would Bring No Good, with her gaze. It was nothing personal—strangers were always trouble, in her opinion.
    Only Jane acted like a normal person. Tall and leanly muscled, Jane is as healthy as anyone I’ve ever met. Her dark blond hair bounced in its ponytail as she stuck out her hand. “Hi,” she said to Malachi. “I’m Jane. You must be Michael’s brother, Malachi. Shane told us you got in this morning.”
    He was already standing, exhibiting the good southern manners I’d always found so charming in Michael, and guided Nana Lucy to his seat. It earned him a solid half point with her. Only ninety-nine and a half to go. “That’s right,” he said, and took Jane’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”
    Jasmine gave him her best, toothiest smile, tossing back her mane of shiny hair. “Jasmine,” she said in her perfect voice, her hand fluttering at her neck.
    He smiled and nodded. “This child can’t be your boy,” he said with the right note of awe.
    Her eyes widened. “Oh, he’s mine. If I live through it.”
    Mama hung back, looking from him to me with her arms crossed over her chest. “Malachi,” I said, “this is my mother, Rose, and my grandmother Lucy.”
    Nana Lucy had been picking over the black grapes in a bowl on the table until she found one that met her standards. Holding it between her long, gnarled fingers, she scowled. “Malachi?” She said it with a particularly nasal whine,
MAH-la-ki
. “What kind of name is that?”
    I saw Michael and Malachi exchange an amused glance, and it struck me that they were
brothers
, with that long, unspoken knowledge of each other. “We always