The Carter Women Gospel
alyssa
My mother was coming over. She had been at Simone and Raschad's for a week visiting and helping with the kids. She’d called and said she wanted to see my new place before she had to head back to Jersey.
She arrived in the afternoon with her purse and a Tupperware container.
“I made you some greens,” she said before she'd crossed the threshold. “I figured you don't have time to cook with everything you got going on.”
“Hi, Ma. Come in.”
I took the Tupperware and gave her a hug.
She walked through the foyer and into the living room, then to the kitchen.
She opened the refrigerator. Closed it. Opened a few cabinets.
Closed them. Walked onto the balcony, then back inside, peeked into the bathrooms, then down the hallway and looked into Micah's room, then into mine, and finally into the third room, which was, in fact, a home office.
She came back to the living room and sat on the couch. “Three bedrooms,” she said, mostly to herself.
“I needed an office.”
“Mm. You couldn't do that at the kitchen table? Save a few coins?”
“I could.”
“Mm. I thought you were trying to save.”
“I am saving.”
“Mm. So tell me how you've been,” she said.
“I’ve been okay. Busy job hunting. Waiting on the North Carolina bar results. Getting Micah set up.”
“How long have you been here, two months?”
“About.”
“And you haven't found something yet?”
“It's a tough market. And I had to wait for my license to come through, so the places I’ve interviewed with so far would have to wait for me to actually be able to start.”
“Mm. Are you holding up?”
“I’m happy here so far. I’m good. It's just been a lot of change. Overwhelming at times.”
“Listen. I raised five children by myself. Five. I worked two and three jobs. Didn’t have anybody to help me.
I rolled my sleeves up. I sucked it up. I pushed through.
That's what you do. That's what we have always done.
You have one child. You have an education a lot of women don't get. You have Raschad and Simone not far from here to help with Micah. You are not by yourself, Alyssa. You are not even close to by yourself. So whatever is overwhelming, you gotta suck it up and handle it. The way I handled it. The way your grandmother handled it. The way every Carter woman has persevered and handled it.”
“I understand.”
“I'm telling you this because I love you.”
“I know.”
“Roll your sleeves up.”
“My sleeves are rolled up.”
“Good.” She nodded and drank her water.
The door buzzed. Julian was bringing Micah back from practice. I'd hoped that the timing wouldn't overlap with my mother’s visit. Practice usually ran later. Julian had probably ended it early because the thunderstorms were rolling in.
“You expecting somebody?” she asked.
“That's Micah with Julian.”
“Julian? Simone’s brother?”
“Yes.”
“Mm.”
I answered the door and Micah came barreling through first. Cleats in one hand, duffle bag in the other. “Mom, Coach Julian said I — Grandma!”
He dropped his things and ran straight to her. She was already standing, opening her arms, smiling the smile that took up her whole face. The smile that Raschad still got, but that my sisters and I stopped getting somewhere around when we’d hit sixth grade.
“My baby. Look at you all sweaty. Come here.”
“I had football practice.”
“I see that.” She hugged him, and he tucked his face into her shoulder for a second.
Julian stayed in the foyer, holding Micah's water bottle, looking at my mother, who was looking at him over the top of Micah's head.
“Mrs. Carter.” Julian nodded.
“Julian.”
“It's good to see you again.”
“It's good to see you too,” she said warmly.
He turned to me. “We finished early today. Storm coming through.”
“Thank you for bringing him.”
“Never a problem.”
“You coming in, Julian?” my mother asked.
He looked at me for half a second, catching whatever was on my face, then turning back to her smooth as anything. “I'll let y'all have your visit. I know you came a long way to see her.”
He looked at me again. “I’ll call you later.”
“Okay.”
He nodded at my mother.
“Bye, Julian. Get home safe.”
He left.
“Micah. Go put your stuff away. Take a shower. Grandma'll be here for a little while.”
“Okay, Mom.”
He scampered off, and she sat back down.
“Alyssa. That is a fine man,” she said, giving me a look.
“He's a friend.”
“Mm.”
“He's Simone's brother. We're family-by-marriage. Plus he coaches Micah's team.”
“Mm.”
“Neither of us is… we're not interested in that.”
“I’m not asking you to defend yourself. I'm just saying he is a fine man.”
I went quiet.
“I'm going to give you some advice, and I want you to take it the way it's meant.”
“Okay.” I groaned inside.
“That man is a catch.”
“Ma, please.”
“He runs his own business. He has money. He’s never been married! No children of his own. And from what Raschad tells me and what I just saw at that door, he's the kind of man who shows up. That kind of man has options. Do you hear me?”
I shrugged.
“Now. Him helping you with Micah. Whatever ride-home arrangement y'all have. Him being there. That is nice. I am not going to pretend it isn't nice. You enjoy it. But you listen to me… Don't get used to it.”
There it was. The Carter women gospel. Want nothing too much. Need nobody too deeply. Keep your own keys in your hand.
“Ma, I don’t ne—”
“Let me finish. You enjoy it. You don't lean on it.
Don't build your life around it. You let it be what it is right now, and don’t assume it's going to be there tomorrow. Because men are fickle. Black men, white men, poor men, rich men, fine ones, and the ugly ones too. Every kind. Fickle as hell. And the moment you start counting on them, expecting them to keep showing up? That’s the moment they don't. All the sudden they remember they got somewhere else to be.”
I sighed and shook my head.
“You think I don't know what I'm talking about? Look at your father. Look at Malik. You should know better than I do at this point, hell.”
“Julian is not Malik, or my father.”
“I’m not saying that. I am telling you Julian is a man.
And listen to me, Alyssa. Black women? We don't get the fairytale.
You hear me? We don't get it. The white girls get told their whole life some millionaire is coming to save them.
Some prince is climbing a tower. Some Mr. Big is buying the block for them.
We don't get told that, baby. We don't get put on the pedestal.
We don't get rescued. So when a man like Julian walks into your kitchen looking like the answer to a prayer you didn't pray, don’t you go getting fairytale-eyed about it. Do you remember what I always told you girls?”
“Nobody’s coming to save you. You have to save yourself.” I resented that the words still fit so neatly inside me.
“That is right. I have raised five children on that. I have survived sixty-plus years on that. You’ve already been through enough. I don’t want you forgetting it because a man brought your son home from football practice.”
I didn’t say anything.
“You do not bet your life on a man showing up. You bet your life on what you are doing for yourself. Be a woman who’s doing fine on her own and letting him add to it.
Not a woman leaning on him to make her okay.
A man like that can feel the difference.
He’ll respect the first one. He’ll lose interest in the second. You hear me?”
“I hear you, but I’ve already told you we are just friends. You act like I said I’m marrying the man or something. My God.”
She looked at me and finished her water. “I have to get back to Raschad’s to watch the babies. He’s taking Simone out for dinner. Walk me down.”
I walked her to the car Raschad gave her to use whenever she was in town. She kissed the side of my face, got in, and rolled down the window.
“I love you, Alyssa.”
“Love you too.”
She drove off, and I stood in the lot until I couldn’t see her anymore.
Then I went back upstairs to the condo I was still trying to believe I deserved, her greens waiting to be eaten, and her gospel playing in my head, wondering which one would keep me fed.