Apocryphal Family Tree: The Rough Draft

Meet the Family

Chapter 2: Meet The Family
We pull up to the Manor and we all just take it in. When we get to the door, we didn't need to knock. The door opened and behind the door is an older, fatter, lighter-skinned version of Mom. Mama Washington looks like my vague memories of her but sixteen years older.
Mama Washington is wearing a dirty apron and smiles. I don't think it's uncommon for a newbie to walk up to the house for help. We are walking up the front walk and we're about halfway there when Mama Washington's face changes. She looks like she's trying to put the pieces something together. Mama Washington screams and then she breaks out into a run. If you've never seen an 80 year old with arthritis run, it's very motivating to make you run so they don't have to.
Her arms were out and all three of us fit in her hug. We're all ugly crying. Our wails and sobs alert others to come to the front door because one aunty put it, "why the hell is Mama making all that noise‽"
It was an emotional pig pile because the more people came out, the more noise they made, the more people came out. It seemed like it lasted a short forever but was probably more like five to seven minutes. Which is an incredibly long time to be at the center of an ever-increasing embrace circle. There were uncles and aunts and cousins and random people who called the homestead home that had heard about us and were just as happy to have us back home.
Mama Washington said, "We're having a homecoming feast tonight," and everyone started making preparations like this was a normal occurrences. Maybe it is. The only home anything celebrations I know about are homegoing.
No one asked us if we wanted to stay for dinner, it was just assumed we didn't have nowhere better to be. We in fact did not. And I had noted that in this family, sometimes things I feel I should be asked about I may not be, so I'll need to keep an eye on my boundaries.
This was extremely weird, since no one acted like there was a rift in the family that needed to be healed and yet they hadn't seen us since Bay was in diapers because of said rift. The only mentions were the vaguest of vagues: "Oh Winnie knew it" and "Wait 'til Winnie sees you now" and "Make sure to greet your Aunty Winnie. She's missed to the most."
Between our arrival and the dinner feast, we had about two minutes alone. We used t to check in about feelings and confer about Winnie. My siblings used it to check in about feelings, I used it to confer about Winnie. The comments about Winnie were always directed at me, so I was terminally curious about his woman I couldn't remember. Both siblings said they were overwhelmed every which way, but that overall overjoyed. They shrugged about Winnie.
During our rounds, we ran into some of the same age cousins. Nor is my mother's sister's first daughter. Taji is my mother's brother third kid. Freddie is my mom's first cousin's second daughter. A lot of family lives here, so there's a less dramatic cutoff in ages because almost always someone on the compound is pregnant. There's about a dozen more in my specific group of cousins I hung out with on the regular before we moved. But we're all adults now, most have moved out to go to college or "strike it out in the big city" as just about every Boomer and Great Genner said. What big city, you ask? Any city. They blame my mother for putting ideas in their heads. No one did this, moved far from the homestead, until she did. But then they hush up about it. I don't know what I'm missing. Something though, that much is obvious.
The first person to mention Winnie to me is Nor, who is definitely feeling some kind of way about the reunionification of the Carver clan with the Washingtons. When we moved Mom took Dad's name and changed my siblings and my last names to Carver. This made Dad so happy because now we were a whole family and everyone could tell by looking at us or seeing our names on a piece of paper. To Mom this was camouflage. Women in her family didn't change their name and their children took their surname. The rest of America might be a patriarchy but the Washington family is a matriarchy.
Nor's jealousy is what my siblings picked up on. They mentioned it during our chat. I bit my tongue because thanks loves I could see that, who is the mystery relative I can't seem to remember at all?
Dinner was a feast. Sweet potatoes, Mac and cheese, collards, shrimp and grits, tomato pudding, low country boil, frogmoore stew, roasted chicken, and goat curry. Also green salad and a whole bunch of vegetables that are terrible but full of nutrients, so they should be composted and spread back on the Earth to grow better vegetables.
There were so many people at the dinner, but the mysterious Winnie was not amount them. No one mentioned her during the first hour or so of dinner. It was once again Nor who brought Winnie up and almost immediately Nor was hushed by half the table. A lot of pointed looks as well.
After dessert was served (tomato pudding, chocolate cake, and sweet potato pie), Nor announced that either we'd all talk about the elephant in the room or she'd summon Winnie tonight and Winnie would be able to give me all the information herself. It was only right that Winnie know after all.
"Eleanor is hers after all."
The entire dining room went quiet. Mama Washington told all of the family members that aren't biologically part of the Washington clan that they could go or stay. This wasn't their fight if thy didn't want it to be. To everyone's credit, no one left. That whole the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water if the womb isn't just a saying but a way of life here. The family you choose is your family, without doubts or reservations.
Mama Washington rises from the table and gave Nor all the shade.
"We know your mad that you aren't the special one of your generation. You aren't the one that sees the dead," she says looking at Nor, who is now flushed and unable to meet anyone's eyes.
I'm looking around wildly, trying to catch anyone's face. No one will look at me but they all apparently know my secret. It's not a secret here. No one thinks I'm crazy, which I guess is good, but also everyone knows more about my death sense.
"Winnie already knows that Lenny is here. I truth Winnie has known the entire time where Lenny is," and the room collectively gasps. I'd bet some don't actually know what they are gasping for. I don't know what they are gasping for.
"I didn't betray my daughter's confidence. Calm your tits." Mama W says, her face relaxed but stern. "But our family is deeply connected and Winnie has always known, without me saying anything especially since I didn't truly know where Ellen ended up, though I always suspected she and Frank would run to Frank's family in Massachusetts." Mama W looked at use, "And based on your accents I'd guess that's what they did all those decades ago."
"I never had a way to contact Ellen, but she asked all of us not to look for her. To let our connection to her die, which isn't something you can ask for but not something that you can have control over. Even without her here I've been connected to her. All these years I've missed all of you, worried about all of you, dreamed about all of you. I'm just as connected to our ancestors as I am connected with all of you, even her despite what she had hoped to do by severing the relationship."
"Taking you away was never going to change your fate but Winnie did agree to my request that you come back here on your own. You make this choice. I knew you would because I remember you as a toddler, always so inquisitive. And now that you have, and Winnie will likely want to talk to you about the role the person with death sense plays every generation."
I've never tried to strengthen this power. I've never asked my mom questions. I've done internet searches. I've read through a lot of mythology, which I use but know that it is regarded as history in the culture it comes from and generally try to keep all those ideas a float in my mind. Off track, whoops.
I am filled with questions: how many people in this family have this power. Is it always an Eleanor? How does it happen? Is there a rhyme or reason? Can I strengthen this like a muscle or train it like a sense? What else can I do to engage this innate power I've always had?
Winnie explains our familial structure: that every generation one of the kids on the homestead would gain death sense. That kid would grow up to be Winnie's apprentice. That kid would die, inevitably, within a year. No one knew how. Winnie never mentioned it and no one asked, it was rude to ask a deity to explain anything and that could anger them and even though Winnie is not a deity and supposedly related to us, everyone tested her like a deity. There's even an annual feast for Winnie's birthday.
Mom knew about this and knew having children meant rolling those dice. She rolled three dice and did end up having a daughter. One came up crit fail or nat 20, really depending on how you feel about your children being the chosen one for a generation. This time The odds weren't in her favor. This time, Ellen Washington had a first daughter who she named traditionally in the Washington way who was a toddler at the time that the last apprentice died. Those were the rules that they worked out. They assumed that it was Winnie that was somehow granting the death sense, but no one ever asked. It seemed like the temperate air of January was thicker than the August noon from all the unasked questions. I had a feeling that Nor was the only other person in the room that had the will and desire to ask those questions and I made note of that thought. She might be jealous of me now, but what if we could get her that thing she wanted- to be Winnie's apprentice. I think that she'll always harbor the feelings of inadequacy about not having a death sense but I can tell more than that she wants to be Winnie's apprentice. She frequently cuts into what Mama W is saying to correct a story or right a wrong fact. Mama W for her part is definitely getting annoyed, but whatever Nor is who she is at this point and only gentle steering will get her to change course.
That's pretty much all they'd gathered in family since 1875. Which is really such a short time frame away. I'll get more into the family tree later, a lot more into later. (Think: the rest of the book and a dive so deep you'll need SCUBA certification.)
At the end of the meeting where Bay, Sep, and I were all hit with so much information, I heard a door that was distinctly not the front door open and floor board somewhere in the house creaked.
The room went silent when this happened. Almost simultaneously Nor and Mama W said, "Winnie's come." Their tones were enthusiastically reverent and resigned, in that order.