49. Hi, Mama.
hi, mama.
julian
I sat in the car for twenty minutes before I got out.
When I finally did, I took the flowers off the back seat — white lilies, the ones she’d kept on the windowsill over the kitchen sink my whole childhood — and Alyssa came around the car and slid her hand into mine without a word, and we walked across the grass together.
My steps got heavier the closer we got.
Denise “Niecy” Wade. Beloved wife and mother.
Her headstone looked smaller up close than I remembered. I stopped in front of it and just stood there, Alyssa at my side, her hand in mine, not letting go.
Finally, I crouched down and set the lilies at the base of the stone. “Hi, Mama.” My voice came out choked.
“I’m sorry I haven’t come up here.” I kept my eyes on the flowers. “I’m sure you know I’ve been… waiting by the car.” I shook my head. “Not today though.”
I reached out and ran my fingers over the top of her headstone, over the letters of her name, tracing them the way you’d touch a face.
“I miss you.” My voice cracked on the second word and I stopped. Took a breath and tried again. “I miss you so much I couldn’t come look at your name on a rock, because then that meant this is real. It’s true. You’re gone, Mama.”
The burn came up behind my eyes fast, and I clenched against it. I’d never let myself really cry about this. I’d just… not cried. For eighteen years I’d just not.
It was forcing its way up anyway. I pressed my lips together and swallowed.
That didn’t help. My eyes spilled over and I wiped at them fast with the back of my hand, clearing my throat hard like that would take the tears back.
I kept my face turned down toward the stone so I could pretend, for one more second, that I had it together.
I didn’t have it.
I felt the bench behind my knees before I knew I’d backed up to it, and I sat down hard, putting my hand over my mouth, and let years come up out of me in the worst kind of crying.
The quiet kind a man does fighting it the whole way, shoulders tight, trying to hold my own face together with one hand.
Alyssa was sitting next to me before I could be ashamed of it.
She didn’t say anything. Just pulled my head down to her shoulder and held me there, one hand at the back of my neck.
She didn’t shush me or tell me it was okay.
She just kept her hand on my neck and let me have it, the way I’d never let myself have it since the day we found Mama on the floor.
It didn’t last long. Maybe that’s what happens when you’ve spent that much of your life damming it. It came, and it broke, and then it passed. I sat up, dragged my hand down my face again, and breathed until my heartbeat settled.
“Okay,” I said, mostly to myself. “Okay.”
I stood up and went back to the stone. Wrung out, but steadier.
“This is Alyssa, Mama.” I reached back without looking and she put her hand in mine and let me draw her in beside me.
“I love her.” It was the easiest thing I’d said since I got out of the car.
“I think you’d have liked her. She’s smart, she doesn’t let me get away with anything, and she loves those grandbabies of yours. ”
Alyssa was quiet a moment. Then she looked at the stone, and something sweet and a little mischievous came into her face.
“Hi, Mrs. Wade.” She wiped under her eyes. “I have to tell you, your son is the most stubborn man I have ever met in my life.”
I huffed, surprised, and let out half a laugh.
“Yep. He’s a natural leader, so he’s earned a pass on some things.” She shook her head at the stone like the two of them were across a kitchen table talking about me. “I imagine you’ve dealt with some of this.”
I laughed again, wet and startled, standing at my mother’s grave, because for a moment it was exactly that. Two women who loved the same man in different ways, talking about him over his head. The thing I’d never get to have, and somehow she’d reached in and given me a taste of it anyway.
“Thank you for him,” Alyssa said, the joke gone gentle. “He’s beyond amazing, and I’m sure that’s because of you. I promise to take good care of him. Rest.”
I had to look away. When I could turn back, I put my hand back on the stone.
“I think about you every day, Mama. I hope I’ve made you proud.
I hope you’re resting, and there’s no pain where you are.
” The wind moved through the grass right then, lifting the lilies, brushing past us, and I closed my eyes and let it be her.
“I hope you know none of it got wasted. Everything you put in us is still standing. You’re not forgotten, Mama. Not for one day.”
I let my hand rest there a moment longer.
“I can’t promise every month. But I’m not waiting years again. And I won’t sit in the car next time either.”
I reached out and Alyssa laced her fingers through mine. We walked back across the grass together, and I didn’t look back at the grave. Not because I was running from it this time, but because for the first time in eighteen years I knew I’d be back.