"Harlem was the first place I lived here." Qebhet tipped her chin back, looking thoughtful, and her gaze drifted along the rooflines of the familiar old brownstones and tenement buildings as they walked. "I remember when I moved in, it was a week before Christmas, 1922. It was... well, it was actually just the one room. I was lodging with a widow and her daughter. Everyone took in lodgers then, the rents kept going up and the buildings kept getting more crowded..." Crowded and choked, a hotbox in summer and freezing in winter, a breeding ground for sickness the year over.
"Everybody was struggling in some way. They didn't have to be kind. But Mrs Fuller invited me to come to church with her and Rose that Sunday, and they introduced me to the women there. And then the next day Nettie Thompson who lived across the hall invited all three of us to Christmas dinner, and Nettie's sister-in-law Margaret pushed me to join the women's choir..." She smiled at the memory. "That's the part they leave out today when they talk about how Harlem was. The music and nightclubs and fashion, those things were nice, but it was the people that made it special. It was community.
"Anyway... that Christmas, my father laid the foundations of our funeral home here. In a way, it's been my home ever since, even when I've lived elsewhere."