1

A crowd had gathered around Mrs. Winter. The commotion at the graveside vibrated with suppressed hilarity. Me, I wasn't able to keep properly solemn. When my shoulders had started shaking with silent laughter, I'd ducked behind the plain pine coffin still on its stand outside the grave.

I bit my lips to keep the giggles in, and peeked around the coffin to watch the goings-on.

Mrs. Winter had given up the attempt to discreetly pull her bloomers back up. Through the milling legs of the mourners, I could see her trying desperately instead to kick off the pale pink nylon that had slithered down from her haunches and snagged around her ankles.

Her kick sent a tiny flash of gold skittering across the cemetery lawn to land near me. I glanced down. I picked up the small tangle of gold-coloured wire and put it in my jacket pocket for later. Right now, I had some high drama to watch.

Pastor Paul, ever helpful, bent to the ground at Mrs. Winter's feet and reached for his parishioner's panties. Lord help me Jesus, he was really going to pick them up! But he drew his fingers back. He looked mortified. Maybe he was thinking how the panties had recently been snugged up to Mrs. Winter's naked flesh. I thought my belly was going to bust, I was trying so hard not to laugh aloud. I bet you Dadda would have laughed with me, if he wasn't in that coffin right now.

Mrs. Winter got the tip of one of her pumps caught in the froth of pink nylon. She cheeped in dismay and fell heavily to the ground. Lawdamercy! I bent right over, shaking with laughter, trying to not pee myself from it.

Pastor Paul and Mrs. Winter's son Leroy were pulling on her arms now, trying to get her off the ground. "Oh, Dadda, oh," I whispered through my giggles. "Wherever you are, I hope you seeing this." I held my belly and wept tears of mirth. Serve the old bat right for insulting me like that. Not a day went by at work that she didn't find some sly way to sink in the knife. She had to do the same thing at my father's funeral, too?

Mrs. Winter was halfway up. She had one arm hooked around Leroy's neck, and Pastor Paul was pushing her from behind. A few of the mourners asked her if she was all right. "Oh, migod," was all she said; "oh, migod." My laughter was edging up on hysteria. Too much; death and mirth all at once. I rested my hands on my knees and took little panting breaths to calm myself. I couldn't hide behind the coffin forever.

At least the tingling in my hand had stopped. A few minutes earlier, standing at the open grave, I'd suddenly felt too warm, and my hand had gotten pins and needles.

I took the scrap of wire out of my pocket. It had been crushed flat. I pulled on the loops of wire until something of its original shape began to emerge. I had a good look at it, and gasped.

I held the pin up against the sunlight. It caught a spark of light, threw blades of sunshine at my eyes. It had gotten warped over the years, forced into service to hold up Mrs. Winter's loose drawers. It used to be a decorative pin for wearing on a blouse, its gold wire looped in the shape of an ornate C, T, and L: Chastity Theresa Lambkin. My girlhood name. Mumma'd given me that pin for my eighth birthday. Years ago, after they'd declared Mumma dead and we'd had the memorial service for her, little Chastity-girl me had noticed it missing. And missing it had stayed; no time to look for it in all the commotion of the hearing, of moving to my aunt and uncle's, and the children at school whispering to each other whenever they saw me.

Where in blazes Mrs. Winter had found my pin?

"Mum? What's going on?"

Ife was standing there, holding young Stanley's hand. Ife's black dress hung off her shoulders, its hem crooked.

Stanley gave me a shy little wave.

Ife had gotten the best bits of me and her father combined: the glow of his perfect dark brown skin; his lips, the way they peaked in the middle when he smiled. My dimples, my well-shaped legs. She was plump, like all the women in our family, but that never stopped a West Indian man yet. Not a real man, anyway. If I could just get her to wear clothes that suited her!

Not my Ife. She covered up her charms with baggy, ankle-length dresses in unhelpful colours, slouched around in rubber flipflops or those horrible wide-toed cork sandals from abroad. Been so long since I'd seen her legs, she might as well not have any.

Nothing could hide that smile, though. She turned it on me now, and even though it was an uncertain smile today, it made my world a little bit brighter.

But I firmly squashed the joy at seeing her sweet face, made mine sour. I tucked the warped pin back into my pocket and turned to my daughter Ifeoma, to whom I wasn't speaking. Well, not really speaking. I mean, I would say 'morning and so, you know, but nothing more until she took back that awful thing she'd called me.

"Mrs. Winter tripped," I told her as I hugged her. "And you know I wish you wouldn't call me 'Mum' like that." Using the hug for cover, I stroked her back. No bra again. That child had no respect for the dead. And no fashion sense either; that dress! My seventies throwback hippie girl child. At least she wasn't wearing sandals and socks today, but proper high heels.

"You're my mother," Ife murmured into our hug. "It's not respectful for me to call you 'Calamity,' like. . . like. . ."

I pulled back and glared at Ifeoma. "Like what? You'd best mind yourself with me. You know I'm vex with you already, after last night."

Ife pressed her lips together. She used to do that as a little girl when she didn't want to eat her greens. ". . .like you're my sister," she said quietly.

Copyright © 2007 by Nalo Hopkinson.