The Floatin Baby

A doll was forgotten in a bedroom

when the old owners of the house moved out

and G-ma and Gramps moved their family in.

There’s an old photograph in an album

of boy Uncle Roy laughing, holding it

in a jumble of moving-in boxes.

It spent thirty years on the shelf in the hall closet,

a reminder of the history of the house.

It was graduated up to the attic

the day G-ma made the last house payment.

There’s a framed photo of that day,

G-ma surrounded by handsome men sons.

My cousins and I sit in the parlor

paging through albums. Photos on the walls

capture special events, celebrations.

The grownup voices drift across the hall:

Dad and the uncles sharing memories,

two aunts calling from the kitchen.

The cousins whisper about The Floatin Baby.

My dad says he was always scared of that doll ...

Yeah, and my dad says he thought it carried the rage

the before-us owners felt when they sold the house

to Gramps and G-ma ... You’d open the closet door,

even in August, and feel the rage chill ...

Ten minutes alone in the attic, the cousins say,

and The Floatin Baby floats up from behind

the boxes and spiderwebs. They’ve all seen her:

a plump, pink babydoll with wide blue eyes,

puckering up and holding out her arms.

Just ten minutes alone up there. You scared?

Just ten minutes alone, the cousins coax.

Come on. It’s our family tradition ...

The attic’s up two flights of stairs

lined with sad-looking wallpaper.

Where we live, houses don’t have inside steps.

Or basements, or second floors, or attics.

I walk in front, hand on the bannister.

We pass Malcolm, Dr. King, and Barack

and Michelle Obama, weddings, babies.

We pass a scroll called “The Serenity Prayer.”

Young Dad holds his thumbs up before I was born,

and it feels like he’s looking straight at me.

Omari leads us up the attic stairs

into a cold, dark-raftered open space

where plastic clothes bags hang from a garment rack

and trunks and boxes gape open here and there.

The other cousins huddle together.

I ask myself: Am I a fraidy-cat?

I pick up a few old hardcover books

and some brittle-paged, browning paperbacks

and put them back. Look one by one

through a pile of kid art signed in crayon.

The cousins have stopped whispering. I am

alone. I hear feet rumbling down the stairs.

I find a bundle of stamped envelopes

addressed in cursive to G-ma as “Miss.”

I’m standing there concentrating on untying the knots,

when ...

             light falls on something in the shadows!

The Floatin Baby!...

                                          And you know what?

                                                                         She looks

just like my friend Evan’s baby sister.

I pick her up and put her in a box,

on top of some books and old report cards.

I find a fake fur jacket in the garment bag

and tuck her under it, so she looks warm.

If she was carrying rage, it’s time to stop.

Evan’s baby sister can say my name.

I hear them calling Dinner’s served!

I run downstairs, wash my hands, take my place.

The cousins grin at me, and raise their thumbs.

G-ma tells Uncle John to say the grace.

She tells Uncle Roy to carve the bird.

She says Y’all remember to save room for my pie!