Something She Can Feel by Grace Octavia Read Free Book Online Page A

resting my head there, he still seemed larger and more solid than anything in my world. Jethro Sr had his flaws, but being a good father to me and my brothers wasn’t one of them. Yeah, he could be pushy and controlling, but he was there and when he gathered me and my bleeding knee, cut elbow, or hurt feelings up into his arms, I believed anything he said and knew the pain would go away with just one of Daddy’s magical kisses. He was what people were speaking of when they said “he’s a good father.” Daddy loved his family, his church, and God. Over the years, I’d seen many men try to be him. Some were successful—they’d gone out and started their own churches in Huntsville and Mobile. And many more failed. Looking at my two brothers, I knew that neither outcome was easy.
    Jack Newsome went through church news and greeted the visitors and church sons as we took our seats. Daddy and Mama sat in the first seats with the visiting sons and Newsome’s seat beside them. In the next row, I sat beside Evan, Jr and his wife, May, Nana Jessie, and the heads of the largest ministries. Last in the row was the empty seat. It belonged to my younger brother, Justin. While he’d moved to Atlanta to go to an art school, which (according to paperwork my mother kept away from my father) he’d deenrolled from after one semester, my father insisted that we leave a seat open for him in case he returned. Justin was always kind of an outsider—both in our family and in Tuscaloosa. He was sensitive, didn’t really like to wrestle and compete the same way Jr did. He preferred to sit in the house and gossip with me, play with dolls and help me pick out their outfits. By the time he was in high school, he had a kind of sway to his step that led to the rumors swirling around him to grow from “he’s soft” to “he’s gay.” It bothered him a lot. He always swore it wasn’t true and even pointed to girls he liked, but inside I felt otherwise and thought he just didn’t know it yet. Our upbringing hadn’t left him space to know it. When he said he was moving to Atlanta, I secretly prayed Justin would find himself—gay or not gay. I dared not tell anyone, but it really didn’t matter to me. I just wanted him to be happy.
    Billie always said that from her seat, my family looked like the happiest black people she’d ever seen. People talked about us. They watched as Jr tapped my father on the back and they shared a laugh. Loved it when my mother’s face lit up every Sunday when she walked in the doors and saw me. And they thought Evan and I looked like we’d have perfect “pretty” babies. But it was what they weren’t talking about in our presence that made us not so perfect. At the top of that list was Justin’s absence and my father’s indiscretions.
    â€œI’m humbled, church,” my father said after finally making his way to the altar with my mother by his side. “Every year, on this day, at this time, I’m humbled. . . because I’m reminded that I’m a daddy.... Not just a father or dad—my sons call me ‘Dad,’ you know? But a ‘Daddy.’ And there ain’t but one person in this whole, big world that calls me that,” he continued. “My baby girl. Now, I expect only the other ‘daddys’ in the room to understand what I’m talking about. It’s a beautiful thing, you hear? When you have the love of a daughter. Nothing else in the world compares to how she looks at you. To how she holds on to you. To how it feels when she calls out to you, and you know that everyone knows that if nobody can’t stop her from crying, her daddy can.”
    â€œPastor ain’t never lied!” a man cried from the front, standing up with his daughter in his arms. I looked a few rows ahead of him to see Newsome’s mother, Sister Iris Newsome, being escorted to her