Tina McElroy Ansa
In Baby of the Family, the story’s told through the eyes of a girl-child born with a veil. Little Lena must grapple with a face-on reality that others only glimpse in the corners of their eye. She has a gift that few can understand and even fewer can handle. Though the African traditions would have supported her abilities, that centuries-old knowledge was left on a distant shore. In this land, folks want to bury the pains of slavery and Africanisms in the same grave.
Though Lena has compassion for the ghost of a murdered slave girl, it’s still a terrifying experience when she faces her sad eyes. Sometimes the irrepressible spirits prey on Lena’s innocence and nearly drain her own spirit dry. At home there are the women who pull at the child as though she were a wish-bone: one dampening her spirit in favor of “normalcy” and the other trying to rekindle embers of a burdensome wisdom. It’s enough to knock a grown man on his knees, but she doesn’t fall. What, then, supplies the backbone for the baby of the family?
Paper 14.00
