Chapter 11 #3
Tia’s eyes watered instantly, the way they always did when someone actually asked about her. She sniffed and wiped her tears away quickly. “I’m just…too tired to talk, Meadow.”
Meadow sat up, holding the phone closer. “Talk to me.”
Tia put one hand on her chest. “It’s been…almost two years. Two years of trying, two years of negative tests, two years of smiling at baby showers, two years of pretending I’m not breaking a little, every time someone asks when it’s my turn.”
Although Tia and Blain had just recently tied the knot, Tia had been trying to carry his baby long before that, always knowing he was going to be her husband.
Meadow’s face fell. “Baby…”
Tia looked down at her lap. “I want a child so bad. I want to be a mother. I want to see my husband hold our baby. Every month I get so excited, and every month it gets ripped out from under me.”
Meadow felt tears, stinging her eyes. “Com’ere.”
“It’s a phone, Meadow.”
“I don’t care. Com’ere anyway.”
Tia moved closer to the screen until their foreheads almost touched through pixels.
“I’m sorry,” Meadow whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I know, but I hate seeing you hurting.”
Tia let a tear slip. “And I hate watching everybody else get the thing I want most. I’m happy for them, but…it hurts.”
Meadow wiped her cheeks. “You gon’ get your baby. I don’t know when, but you gon’ get everything you want. You got too much love in you for God to overlook his most amazing child.”
Tia whimpered shakily, “You mean that?”
“With my whole heart.”
They sat in silence for a while just letting their souls comfort each other through the phone screen. They were locked in like that. Neither time nor distance could keep their hearts from loving the other.
Tia blinked. “You okay with your Mama today?”
“No,” Meadow admitted. “But I’m managing.”
“How’s Ray?”
“Good. Watching everything. Pretending he’s fine.”
“You need a break?”
“I think we both do,” Meadow huffed.
Tia tilted her head. “You don’t think Zaire could be…a soft place for a minute?”
Meadow bit her lip. “He already feels like one. That’s the scary part.”
“Why?”
“Because soft places turn into real places,” Meadow whispered. “And I don’t really have that luxury, you know…can’t get lost in that.”
Tia didn’t argue. “Then don’t lose yourself. But don’t lock yourself up away from joy either. You deserve something good.”
Meadow let the words settle.
After a moment, she asked quietly, “You want me to drive down this weekend? I can come sit with you.”
Tia smiled through her tears. “No, you need to breathe where you are. Stay there. Let that man stare at you.”
“Girl…”
“I’m serious,” Tia said, wiping her face. “You been carrying a house, a parent, a program, land, and your entire life on your back. Let somebody be gentle with you for a change.”
Meadow swallowed. “I’m trying.”
“I know…and I’m proud of you.”
They sat in that stillness. Two Black women, two best friends, two tired hearts…holding space for each other like they always had.
Meadow exhaled. “I wish I could hug you.”
Tia smiled. “Hug yourself and pretend it’s me.”
Meadow did. She wrapped her arms around her own chest and squeezed with closed eyes.
Tia mirrored her on her screen.
They stayed like that for a moment.
Just breathing…just loving…just surviving together.
“Okay,” Tia encouraged. “Tell me again how fine that man is.”
Meadow snorted, wiping her face. “Girl…”
“No, go on,” Tia insisted. “I need it for my spirit.”
Meadow grinned. “He’s tall, he’s tatted, he sounds like hood trouble, dresses like a hood dream, and he smells…” she inhaled deeply. “Hella good,” she snickered at how she used his word.
“Ahhh yes,” Tia sighed. “That’s the medicine I needed.”
They both laughed through their tears.
Their friendship wasn’t perfect.
It was necessary…it was home, and it held them together even on the days they couldn’t hold themselves.
Meadow pushed open the door to her parents’ room with her hip. “Alright Mama, story time.”
Magnolia was already tucked into bed, her small frame swallowed by blankets that used to feel too big for her. Tonight, she looked peaceful. Her eyes were half-open, blinking slowly like she’d been waiting.
Ray sat in the chair beside the bed, boots off, legs stretched out, exhaustion hanging off him in long folds. He smiled when Meadow entered. A tired smile, but it reached his eyes. “Whatchu pick tonight?” Ray asked.
Meadow tapped the side of her head. “The special one I make up just for Mama about the Black queen.”
“Oh, I think I’ve heard a little of this one,” Ray said, his head nodding, needing to hear it as much as Magnolia.
“Okay Mama,” Meadow whispered. “We left off with Marai going into the tall woods to find her way home…remember?”
Magnolia didn’t answer, but her eyes shifted toward Meadow, waiting.
“Alright…so Marai kept walkin’,” Meadow narrated. “She wasn’t a little girl anymore. She was growin’ up, turning into a woman before she even realized she barely had time to be a kid.”
Magnolia blinked, listening intently.
“Life got loud around her,” Meadow went on. “Her Mama got sick. Her Daddy got tired. Folks in town needed help, folks on their land kept askin’ for things she didn’t have to give and Marai…she just didn’t want anybody to fall apart on her watch.”
Ray closed his eyes, Magnolia’s hand twitched, and Meadow swallowed before continuing.
“So she put herself on the back burner…and every time she tried to pick herself back up, something else would happen. A new worry…a new bill…a new ache…a new reason to stay strong when she didn’t feel like she had any strength left.”
Magnolia blinked slower now, listening with her whole face.
“But Marai?” Meadow continued. “She didn’t complain…she loved her people. Loved her home…loved the woods and the wind and the quiet. So she kept moving, kept trying, kept doing everything she could.”
Ray wiped his nose with the heel of his hand, pretending it was allergies.
Magnolia’s breathing hitched. “Marai…good girl.”
“Yeah,” Meadow somberly said. “But she was tired, Mama.”
Silence sat between the three of them.
“She didn’t tell nobody,” Meadow continued softly. “She didn’t want to burden her Daddy…didn’t want to scare her Mama…didn’t want to worry her friends…didn’t want to disappoint herself.”
Magnolia blinked, tears pooling like she understood who this story was really about.
Ray’s temples jumped. “She sounds familiar.”
Meadow smiled sadly. “Maybe.”
She moved closer, touched Magnolia’s blanket, and kept going. “One day, when Marai couldn’t carry things anymore, she walked out to the edge of the woods and sat there. And for the first time, she let herself cry…not loud or dramatic, just tears she’d been holding for in years.”
Magnolia’s lip trembled. “Poor baby…”
“But,” Meadow interrupted, her voice rising just a little, “that’s when something changed.”
“What changed?” Ray asked quietly, even though he already knew he wasn’t actually asking for himself.
“Somebody walked out of the woods.”
Ray’s brows lifted, his head angled.
Magnolia looked toward Meadow again, nudging her with her eyes to keep going.
“It wasn’t a prince,” Meadow swooned with thoughts of Zaire. “It wasn’t a savior. Just a man who saw her…really saw her…saw how tired she was…saw how much she’d been carrying…saw how hard she loved her people.”
“Oh! A man!” Magnolia exhaled with excitement, her frail hands clapping together once.
“And he didn’t fix her,” Meadow whispered. “He didn’t even try to. He just sat down beside her, asked her what hurt, asked her what she needed, and helped her breathe when her knees felt weak.”
Ray watched Meadow, his eyes glistening. “That part sounds familiar too.”
Meadow ignored him and kept the story moving. “Marai didn’t trust it at first…didn’t trust herself with something that felt that… easy, that warm…that different.”
Magnolia blinked, lips parting slightly like she was on the edge of her seat.
“But the woods didn’t swallow her that day,” Meadow said. “For the first time…she didn’t walk alone.”
Magnolia whispered, “That’s good.”
Meadow nodded, tears building. “Yeah, Mama…it is.”
Magnolia’s hand moved, searching weakly. Meadow caught it.
“And that’s the end of the chapter,” Meadow whispered. “That’s where we stop tonight.”
Ray exhaled slowly.
Magnolia nodded, eyes drifting shut, but not before she murmured, “Marai… strong girl.”
Meadow leaned forward and kissed her mother’s forehead. “Learned it from her Mama.”
Magnolia’s lips curved faintly, the closest thing she’d had to a smile all day.
Ray wiped his eyes again, clearing his throat. “You tell that story like you livin’ it.”
Meadow looked at him, tears finally falling. “Maybe I am.”
He reached over and squeezed her hand. “You gon’ get your happy ending too, baby. Marai don’t walk through woods for nothin’.”
Magnolia’s eyelids fluttered, then opened fully, clear in a way Meadow hadn’t seen in months.
“…That you, Meadow Rain?”
Meadow froze.
Ray’s body jerked like someone hit him in the chest.
“Baby…?”
Magnolia blinked again, her eyes sharpening.
“Come closer,” she whispered.
Meadow leaned in so fast she almost knocked over the water cup on the nightstand. “Mama…I’m right here.”
Magnolia lifted her hand and cupped Meadow’s cheek, her thumb grazing Meadow’s skin the same exact way she used to when Meadow was little and sneaking into her bed after having nightmares.
“My baby,” Magnolia smiled faintly, like it took a lot out of her to do, “that’s my baby.”
Meadow’s entire body shook. “Mama…” she choked.
Magnolia smiled, a real smile, full and bright and warm, the kind Meadow hadn’t seen in so long she thought she imagined it.
“You’re so grown now,” Magnolia whispered. “I used to hold you right here on this bed. You had little ponytails and you always smelled like that coconut oil I rubbed in your scalp.”
Ray covered his mouth with both hands.
“I remember,” Magnolia continued, her tears falling but her voice steady. “You used to tell me you was gon’ buy me a big house one day, said you’d take care of me the way I took care of you.”
Meadow sobbed into her mother’s palm. “Mama…”
Magnolia wiped her thumb under Meadow’s eye. “You keeping your promise.”
Ray had to sit back down before his legs gave out.
Magnolia traced Meadow’s jaw like she was committing it to memory. “You look tired, baby. But you’re so beautiful…so strong, just like I always prayed you’d be.”
Meadow shook as she cried. “I miss you, Mama.”
“I’m right here,” Magnolia said, confused because she didn’t realize she was normally only a shell of herself.
Meadow rested her forehead against her mother’s hand, holding on like it would make the moment last longer.
Magnolia’s breath trembled. “My girl,” she smiled. “My whole heart. Don’t you ever forget that…don’t you ever let the world make you feel alone.”
Meadow lifted her head just enough to look at her. “I won’t.”
And just like that, Magnolia’s eyes changed and confusion washed over her. “Hello,” she said all childlike.
“Hello.” Meadow kissed her hand deciding to stay a little longer and soak in her mother’s warmth.