Nola at the Splash Pad

Nola sat down on the next bench. She was smoking a long cigarette, maybe a Benson & Hedges like I used to smoke.

She looked over at me. “How old are you?” I stood up to get closer. She asked her question again, “How old are you?”

“Pretty,” I joked except she didn’t get it, asking her question a third time. I told her my age. She told me hers. I told her she was just a kid. She rolled her eyes and took a long drag. It looked dreamy, that drag, even though she seemed steamed about something. Not my age or me, but something else.

She pointed over at the slide. “That’s my great grandchild.” He was sliding down face first, landing inches away from my granddaughter who was playing dead at the bottom of the slide. Another girl walked over and put her hand on my granddaughter’s chest to ‘feel a heartbeat,’ declared her still living and they all laughed and ran to the top of the slide.

“My granddaughter lived with me a long time and then she had this boy and she just took off. And so now I’m raising this boy. I don’t want to raise any more kids.”

She scanned the couple dozen kids playing in the water and the nearby playground looking for one that might be attached to me. There weren’t any other white people there – not adults, nor kids. All Black except one little Hispanic girl and her Anglo grandmother.

“That’s my granddaughter,” pointing to the girl playing dead again. I thought about it a minute and then I said, “Her mom died a few months ago. So now she lives with us.”

Nola looked startled. “Your daughter died?” And I could see her calculus – was having a daughter die worse than having a granddaughter run off and leaving her son for you to raise?

“I have to go,” Nola said, looking around for her great grandson. She dashed off even though the boy kept playing with his new Hispanic friend. She didn’t say goodbye and I didn’t see where she went.

I just sat back down on the bench and listened to all the kids laughing.