Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 115833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
“I’m so happy to see you, baby,” she said over my shoulder. She leaned back and held on to my shoulders as she looked me all over. “You look good.”
“Compared to what?” I asked, half-teasing.
“Oh, stop it. You always look good.”
“You do, too, Mama.” For a woman who’d be turning sixty in two months, she was flawless, really.
Her face had hardly a wrinkle in sight, other than the laugh lines around her mouth and the faint crow’s-feet around her light-brown eyes. Her hair had flourished, and what were once simple natural curls a decade ago had been transformed into unruly locs. She reminded me of Lisa Bonet, and I recalled a lot of men in town loving that about her.
“Thank you, honey. Come on, you’re just in time to have lunch with me.”
“Where’s Abe?” I asked, following her into the kitchen.
“He’s at therapy right now but should be done within forty-five minutes or so.” Mama sauntered barefoot through the kitchen to open one of the opaque glass cabinets. “Made us some chicken and chickpea soup.”
“That sounds good.” I went to the drawer where the utensils were while she ladled soup into porcelain bowls. After she grabbed a pitcher of lemonade, we sat at the four-top table and dug in.
“Octavia told me y’all went to Miami,” she said after chewing. “What was that like?”
I met her eager eyes and shrugged. “It was for business, so I didn’t really get to see much.”
“Oh. Well, your sister said y’all went to some fancy party in a penthouse too.”
“It wasn’t that fancy.” I laughed.
I looked up, and Mama was studying my face.
I didn’t know what she was looking for but I wasn’t in the mood to have her read me right now, so I said, “I can ride with you to pick Abe up if you want.”
“He’ll love that, Vina.” She took a sip of lemonade. “So how are you lately? I mean after the last few months . . .”
“You know you can just say it,” I told her.
“I know, but I don’t want to be insensitive.”
“I’m okay, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“That’s good.”
I took a look around the kitchen, before my eyes ventured to the living room. This house had changed so much in the last decade. When Octavia and I were younger, this place was sparse and lacked many of the decorations it had now. But back then all Mama cared about was going out with her friends or staying the night with one of her flings.
It was a surprise knowing all it took for her to get her act together was birthing a son.
When Daddy died, I was the one taking care of Octavia and making her peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and pouring her milk after school. And during the first year of Abe’s life, I had to secure a part-time job just so Mama could have enough money for formula and diapers.
Whenever I wasn’t working, I’d be watching after him and Octavia while our mother slept or worked part time at a retail store. I was forced to mature, and to this day I don’t feel like I had much of a childhood.
Maybe that’s part of the reason why I’m so fucked up inside.
I shifted my gaze to Mama’s, but she was already looking at me. “You look troubled, Vina,” she said. “What’s going on in that brain of yours?”
I debated whether to speak on the issue that’d been bothering me for years now. I didn’t want to come across as bitter for how I felt.
And don’t get me wrong, Abe deserved the world. I loved that kid from the moment I laid eyes on him, but I became angry sometimes when I thought about how simple it was for him and how hard it was for me and Octavia.
I moved my spoon around in my soup, pushing one of the chickpeas toward the edge of the bowl. “Do you think I’d be different if I was raised like Abe was?”
Mama sat up straight, her rosy lips parting. She stared at me a moment before lowering her gaze with a defeated sigh. “Davina . . . I know what this is about.”
“What do you mean?”
“When you were young, I wasn’t there like I should’ve been.”
I swallowed thickly and placed my spoon on a napkin, bumping my bowl away.
“I wasn’t a good parent to you. You relied on me, and I wasn’t there half the time. You . . . you lost your daddy at such a young age, and I could tell it really affected you. And you were always so sweet and kind and understanding about everything I did. Always looking after your sister, making sure she was fed and bathed and—” Mama gasped and pressed her hands to her chest. “I’ve thought long and hard about this moment, you know? How I would bring it up to you—how I would apologize for everything. I’ve been waiting for you to confront me because bringing it up myself never felt right. I was a terrible mother, and I know it. And this is no excuse, but I simply wasn’t ready for the role back then.”