Skin and bones, p.1
skin & bones, page 1
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2024 by Renée Watson
Cover design by Julianna Lee
Cover painting by Oluwole Omofemi
Cover copyright © 2024 Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104
littlebrown.com
First Edition: May 2024
Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.
Print book interior design by Taylor Navis
ISBN 9780316570909
LCCN 2023949277
E3-20240329-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
the weight i carry
morbid
mississippi avenue
bridge city
play another slow jam
baby girl
age 8
age 12
age 13
age 16
age 39
whine & wine
69
black faith
starshine & clay
books
beatrice morrow cannady
date night
malcolm
happily ever after
baptism
sunday supper
vanport
ms. brown
williams avenue
searching, searching
marcus lopez
oregon, 1865
shopping while fat
sunday sermon
vintage
the bride, the groom
shock
cake
sunday
monday
tuesday
wednesday
thursday
friday
saturday
the breakup
meant to be
grief
strength
questions
magic & potions
july
august
black, black
messages
bryan
transitions
memories
macro microaggressions
belonging
jacob vanderpool
oregon, 1857
allen ervin flowers
as long as it takes
aunt aretha
grandma
hair
training wheels
slow
fat girl, dance
“how whiteness killed the body positive movement” by kelsey miller
debriefing
positivity
positive
body positivity
consistency
the parts of love
unsent mail
celibacy
dreams
vulnerability
reply
homegoing
homecoming
march 6, 1919
unthank park
release
sunrise
retreat
the agreement
compatible
reverse
inclusivity
not that fat
viral, visceral
constance
kendra
freshman year, high school
origin story
betrayal
sunday sermon
forgiving
back-to-school shopping
comfort food
turning ten
love, disguised
personal stylist
october
halloween
new beginnings
daily blend
angel
playdate
oregon, 1867
self-portrait
aaliyah
black girls
brown tourmaline
skin tones
another time
unexpected
chosen family
father, dad
old-time religion
saved by grace
sunday sermon
middle class
coparenting
celebrating
emergency
overdose
waiting
update
critical
the village
questions
more questions
advocate
twelve hours
meditation
twenty-four hours
still waiting
heartbeat
hauntings
thirty-six hours
holding on
forty-eight hours
blame
what honey says
silence
mercy
mandatory
therapy, mandatory
inheritance
knowing
monday
tuesday
wednesday
thursday
friday
therapy
a cleansing
between night and morning
hypocrite?
hope, still
healing
lessons my mother taught me
how we heal
beauty’s only skin deep
what i tell aaliyah
brown skin
elephants in the room
essence
joy to the world
january 1
spotlight
taking up space
bpp
[black] history
to ban
bones
my funny valentine
partnering
newcomers
neighbor(hoods)
the new black
oregon, 1953
urban renewal, negro removal
portland, 1990
dreaming
familiarity
boundaries
getting dressed
portland: black
joy, black
black
black spaces
remembering
my-te-fine
breaking news
hot off the press
wine & wine
to reconcile
risk
rebuild
change
first dates
good times
peach cobbler
mile high club
landing
vip
keynote
purpose
black, powerful
daddy, daughter
harvest
rare
port
age 41
sunday sermon
Acknowledgments
Discover More
About the Author
Also by Renée Watson
In Loving Memory of Char Hutson
1971–2024
Explore book giveaways, sneak peeks, deals, and more.
Tap here to learn more.
Our lives are more than the days in them, our lives are our line and we go on.
—Lucille Clifton
the weight i carry
I don’t want to die fat.
There would no doubt be whispers at the repast:
It’s too bad she didn’t take better care of herself.
They will speculate, assume.
Diabetes?
Heart attack?
If I die fat, I hope I die in a car accident or go missing and turn up bloated and bloodied in a river. No one will mention my weight then. I will die without conversation about the obesity epidemic and my family and friends can grieve without the added guilt from flashbacks of every time they wanted to say something about the pounds I was putting on and on but didn’t.
Because here’s the thing, I am not thick or big-boned or voluptuous.
I am fat.
Obese.
Morbidly obese.
That’s what the nurse just typed into my chart. She is a wafer of a woman. The kind of woman who looks like she’ll fall over should a big wind blow. This is the woman typing in the word morbid to describe this body.
Everything about me is big and Black. Big and majestic like the ocean. Every bit of me hard to contain. My belly spills over and so do my tears and so does my joy and every family recipe and every heartache and every weekend spent at Seaside Beach. It’s all here with me. Heavy. It’s all here sitting on this table, a layer of the thinnest tissue paper under me, holding all this Blackness, holding all this bigness. I feel the tissue paper rip under me. Wonder why they don’t make it more sturdy.
I pull the too-small gown together as best I can. It is tight around my flabby arms and doesn’t cover my breast or my stretch-marked stomach. I might as well be sitting here naked. You would think doctor’s offices would have large robes for their patients. Don’t patients come in all sizes?
The nurse doesn’t realize that I can see what she’s typed. She enters the words so matter-of-fact, and in the space for more notes, she types: Morbidly obese but seems happy. Dressed well, good hygiene.
I stare at the word but. Morbidly obese but…
She types again but I look away.
Can I take the urine sample now? I really have to go. I’ve been holding it.
We’ll get to that. Give me just a moment. First I need to take your blood pressure and temperature. She wheels the mobile stand toward me and takes my temperature, then attempts to get the blood pressure cuff on my arm. Hmm, she says. Let me try this way instead. She switches positions, tries to get one side of the thick nylon material to connect to the other side. The Velcro won’t connect. You need a bigger one, she says. I’ll be right back. The nurse walks out of the room and returns with a larger cuff.
I want to ask her why both sizes aren’t just available in each room. Wouldn’t that be more efficient for the nurses and less embarrassing for the patients? But I don’t say anything. She checks my pressure. My arm tightens to the point it feels like it’s going to explode and then when she lets the air out, my arm relaxes. Wow. Pretty great numbers, she says. Like she is surprised, like she expected there to be an issue. Okay, I’m going to get the doctor. Give her just a moment.
While I wait, I fidget with the platinum miracle on my left hand. Two more weeks and I’ll be Mrs. Lena Wilson, wife of Malcolm Wilson. God, please let this bladder infection pass quickly. I’ve got a honeymoon to Hawaii to be ready for. I twist the ring, trace the diamond with the tip of my finger. That skinny nurse didn’t have a ring on. I hate that I just had this thought. I do not want to wear this engagement ring like an Olympic medal hard fought for, hard won. But it does feel like an accomplishment. I did work for this, for us. After everything I went through with Bryan, the on-again, off-again, so much heartbreak, heart-healing. Finally, I am here. Malcolm is my prize and I am his.
I look down at my dangling feet, thinking about the words the nurse used to describe me.
Morbidly obese but seems happy. Dressed well, good hygiene.
Glad I got that pedicure yesterday. My toes are painted a bright cantaloupe color, my heels smooth and silky.
I always leave the house casket-ready.
I got that from Mom, who everyone calls Honey. Whenever I’d leave the house, she’d ask, You got on clean clothes? and I knew she was not talking about my shirt or jeans or socks. She was asking about my bra and panties.
If you get in a car accident, you don’t want to be unladylike when the paramedics come.
Always a lesson from Honey and Grandma about taking care of myself, but never for myself. The house needed to be clean—not because that was a good discipline to learn for my own cleanliness, but just in case guests stopped by unexpectedly. Grandma always commented on my weight, occasionally mentioning my health, but mostly encouraging me to lose weight in order to become (even more) attractive, said I needed to lose this baby fat so a man would want me. And here I am, baby fat and then some—fourteen days from forty—and (finally) getting married. If Grandma was here, she’d be overjoyed, she’d be relieved that I found Malcolm, a man who loves me, loves all these pounds, loves my seven-year-old daughter, Aaliyah.
Don’t marry the man you can’t live without. Marry the man you can live with. Honey and Grandma said it all the time, that marriage is not about love only. Love is a choice, Honey always tells me. She never liked me with Bryan. This choice—me choosing Malcolm—she approves.
Just when I decide to find a cup and go to the bathroom, the doctor knocks, comes in. And what brings you in today, Lena? she asks, not looking at me. She scrolls through my file, reading while I talk.
I think I have a bladder infection. I get them often—since I was a child—so I kind of know the symptoms.
And your symptoms are?
Peeing every five minutes. And it hurts every time. Like it does when people have bladder infections.
Okay. I’d like to check your blood sugar too. Have you ever been tested for diabetes?
No, I haven’t. But today… today I’m here for… I think I have a bladder infection. And, I, I came ready to do the urine sample, so if we can get that going, that would be… I uh, I have to go.
Yes, we will get to that. But I need to check a few other things first. A woman your size—we should, it could be something else. She says she needs to review my family history.
Diabetes. High blood pressure. Stroke. Hypertension. Heart disease.
It all runs in my family.
Great-grands and grands. Uncles and aunties, cousins—firsts, seconds, thirds. The passing down of big-boned genes, the passing down of cooking and feeding the ones you love to celebrate, mourn, rage. Food as medicine.
But also, there’s been the passing down of family sing-alongs, gathering around Grandma’s raggedy (but better than nothing) piano. What’s been passed down is preachers and teachers, generations and generations of artists, a singer here, a poet there.
I want to tell her what’s not on that chart. She wants medical history. Physical ailments. But I think she should know it all.
The almost dead, the died-too-soons, the divorces and sage loves, the births, rebirths, stillbirths, the car accidents, graduations, holiday dinners, the first days of school, last days of childhood, every birthday, every happy hour, Fourth of July picnics at Blue Lake Park, baptisms, breakdowns, excruciating laughter, Electric Slides at up-all-night house parties.
What’s been passed down is Aunt Aretha’s recipe for lemon pound cake that must be made for every arrival and departure of breath.
She asked for my family history. I could tell her, but I know better.
A knock at the door, and then a new person enters. She is not a thin wafer, she is not morbid. The woman draws blood. A quick sting from a needle. I look away, not wanting to see myself leaving myself. She is finished with pricking and sticking me and now we wait.
Am I going to give a urine sample? I think I have a bladder infection.
What are your symptoms?
I repeat myself: Peeing every five minutes. And it hurts every time. Like it does when people have bladder infections.
The nonwafer, nonmorbid woman leaves, comes back with a plastic cup. Finally, the urine sample.
Then waiting and waiting, another knock and the words bladder infection… antibiotics…
And the blood sugar? I ask.
Normal… but you need to be careful carrying all that weight. I recommend trying to lose at least five to ten percent of your body weight. And then we can reassess and put you on a weight loss plan.
My doctor wants to put me on a weight loss plan even though my test results are normal.
Before she leaves the room, she offers an affirmation. You know, she starts, you are a beautiful woman. I hope you know that. Your skin, your hair. Just gorgeous.
I smile, kind of, I think. Yes, this is a smile, a thank-you. I open my mouth to say something. To correct her? Scold her? To ask why she felt the need to tell me that she thinks I am pretty.
But my words do not come. Only her words are here. They are hanging in the stale, sanitized room. When I leave, they come with me. Words are like that. They follow, linger, stay a while. Here I am, carrying what is not mine.
Heavy.
morbid
Meaning disturbing, weird, unpleasant, abnormal, unhealthy. Might as well call my body gruesome, hideous, abhorrent, offensive, dreadful, unwholesome, ghastly. Might as well call me unnatural, shocking.
Call my body macabre and look away. Judge me, fear me. Tell me to be afraid of what I am, tell me to fear what has become of my body. Tell me it’s a disease but treat me like it’s a choice.
Comment on my appearance.
But tell yourself it’s about my health.
mississippi avenue
Driving home from the doctor’s appointment, I roll all the windows down so Portland’s summer breeze can kiss and hold me the whole way home. Being on Mississippi Avenue makes me nostalgic. There is no remnant of what used to be, but I remember.
This was the street Honey used to tell us to be careful walking on, block after block of boarded-up promises—bungalow houses hidden behind unruly grass as wild as Aunt Aretha’s fro back in the day. Every few blocks a group of men standing at their post like birds huddled on a power line. Their yo momma jokes funnier than any stand-up comedian’s set. They always gave a head nod, always asked how Honey was doing. Feared by folks who didn’t know better, loved by every elder who needed help carrying her Safeway bags inside, every elder who needed an arm to lean on while climbing the stairs of her old porch when the banister just wasn’t enough.
