Life aint fair. Now you hear that from all these people throughout your life but for me, I lived, breathed…was that statement. I was born during a tornado warning. Now if that isn’t unlucky, I don’t know what is. I couldn’t even be born on a bird filled drinking lemonade leaves gently falling from the trees kinda day. But I digress.
My name is Kiss Lavinia Tomwell but most people call me Kissy. I was born in an old raggedy barn in Nightingale, Georgia during one of the worst series of storms in the Southeast. While the air was swirling and growling with fury, my mother matched the gusts outside with cries of her own. The first person I ended up seeing was an old white lady who happened to see my pregnant mother walking in the storm and pulled her inside before the worst of it. She saw me and took one look at my dark brown skin and wide eyes and said I looked like a Hershey’s Kiss. I guess my mom thought it would be cute to name me that. I don’t blame her though, she was only fifteen at the time. And so now I’m here… Kiss.
My mother still lived with her father and stepmother in a little blue house on the corner of Wicker Avenue and Harrison Circle. The next morning when the storm had died down, my mother brought me back to that house. My grandfather and Grandnanny were not that shocked to see me in her arms. After her getting pregnant in the first place, I believe they always got themselves ready for odd events.
The first fifteen years of my life were spent in that baby blue house with the porch. My grandfather was a nice man but he was distant. He made sure that my momma knew I was a mistake and in the process that became real clear to me too. He always bought me little pieces of apple candy and licorice or would pat my head when I ran past him to go out and play, but I would always cringe at the way he looked at my mother, like a traitor. I still loved him though like my own father. He was only thirty five when I was born, still king of the world. Every day he would get up and dress in a nice blue or brown suit with matching high gloss Stacy Adams smelling like Ivory soap. His six five slender frame commanded attention but his playful wink and chuckle always made a winning impression. In the little town we lived in, I could name on one hand the people who didn’t like Lester T. Tomwell. He had dimples in each cheek, almond colored skin, and big dark brown eyes. He made sure to get to know each one of the customers who came into his liquor store and never forgot to say hello to a familiar face. He was the It of Nightingale alright.
Now my grandnanny, I call her that because she said she wasn’t ever anyone’s mama and she will never be referred to that way, was Mrs. Lillie Tomwell. She was the member of my life I could have done without. One thing I have to give her was the fact that she was beautiful. She was a real gold color that changed to red in the summer and yellow in the dead of winter. She had the legs of a dancer and hips of a nurturer. Her hair was jet black thick and long and she always let it swing. She was granddaddy’s prize and she always reminded him of that. If he didn’t come home with something for her, you always knew a fight was coming.
And she never liked my momma. You see my momma was competition to her –every bit as pretty and even lighter. They were only separated by a decade so she felt picking on Momma was fair game. Since granddaddy and momma hardly spoke, she would constantly find ways to torment and tease her husband’s teenager. She would only pick on me in dark places though. She knew granddaddy didn’t like her messing with me but she did it anyway. She found ways.
My momma was the saving grace of the house. The only one who I didn’t have to be polite to, just could sit down and talk about anything. She always made me feel that way. She’d sit me down on the bed and whisper real soft.
“I see you poppyseed. Momma sees you. What do you want her to see?”
She asked me that question every night and every night I would shrug and shake my head. She would smile and tuck me into bed.
We were more friends than anything else. I thought of Momma as her name not as her title. We would talk and laugh together for hours. She was still very much a kid. Sometimes I felt like I needed to protect her. She felt like she needed to protect me. We needed to protect each other.
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