17. Reighvyn
I sat on the sofa with my hands clasped between my knees. I was unable to look her in her eyes, because I couldn’t take the confusion resting there, as if she didn’t recall how we had gotten here. As if she failed to remember the pain she’d caused.
“Reigh, baby. Say something.”
“What do you want me to say, Mama?”
She had just finished trying to explain the last few years and the challenges she had faced being in and out of the hospital and why this time would be different.
I had gone to see her in the earlier years when she was in the hospital.
After she disappeared the last time upon her release, I hadn’t been able to get in touch with her for more than a year.
No one knew if she was dead or alive, as she had cut off contact with everyone.
When she was finally found, it was by an old neighbor.
She had been living in a tent in a homeless camp.
Luckily, the neighbor knew who she was and what her problem was.
He contacted her caseworker, who immediately came out to see about her.
Knowing that she had been living on the streets when she didn’t have to and that she had shunned us, hurt like hell. I hated to see Paloma and Wryn suffering too. Although my big brother tried to pretend it didn’t bother him, I knew differently.
I had stumbled upon him one evening in his den, crying into a bottle of bourbon. He hadn’t seen me, and I stayed just out of the way as he cried out, “Mama, why? Why didn’t you love me enough to fight for us? Why did you let us down?”
That encounter happened right after his second divorce. I knew that his failed relationships were a result of his lack of relationship with our mama.
“I don’t know. I guess I just hoped we could have a meaningful reunion. Wryn won’t come to see me, but Paloma’s visited several times.”
“Mama, I know it’s not your fault, but these up-and-down episodes have plagued us all our lives.
The present and loving mama will quickly be replaced with the suspicious, withdrawn mama until she disappears.
We don’t know how long you’ll stay, if you’ll stay, and when you’ll disappear again.
It takes a toll on a person after a while, leaves their soul empty and abandoned.
But I’m sure that Wryn will come around in his own time. ”
She nodded, and her gaze drifted out the window.
I wondered what she saw, if anything at all.
She may have been lost in her head for the length of time the silence went on.
The wheat-colored curtains blew lightly on the breeze.
The window was raised midway, and the voices of children playing on the sidewalk below could be heard.
“I’m sorry.” She finally spoke and pulled me back into the moment.
“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said all that,” I apologized.
She sighed and turned her gaze back to me. “It’s true though. You were my baby. Whenever I was lucid, you brought me the most happiness. I always saw the hope and faith in your eyes. It never went away back then. It hurts to see that it’s gone now.”
I huffed a sound that was a cross between derision and laughter. “It didn’t happen overnight. I just . . . needed to guard my heart after a while, that’s all.” I felt bad, but what could be done?
“Well, like I said before, I’ve been on my meds and continually remaining in therapy.”
“For how long though, Ma?”
“I’ve been out of the hospital for almost two months, and I’m still doing good.”
I reached out and touched her warm, soft brown hand. I didn’t want to take hope away from her or be the reason she stopped taking her medication. “I believe you will keep doing good. Everything will be okay,” I lied.
She smiled, and her eyes moistened with tears as she quickly shook her head. “Don’t do that.”
I shrugged. “What do you want me to say?”
“I know this hasn’t been an easy road for you three.
It hasn’t been for me either. Getting pregnant with Wryn at fifteen took a toll on me, and then turning around and getting pregnant with Lo at seventeen didn’t help matters.
I hadn’t been diagnosed yet. The diagnosis came when I was pregnant with you a couple of years later. ”
“Being raised by your grandmother didn’t provide you with the support you needed, huh?”
“No, it didn’t. She was already sick when Lo came along, which was when things first started getting difficult for me. She passed away a few months after you were born.”
“I don’t know why God chooses some of us to embark on the journeys that we do, but this one’s yours, and I’ma be here with you on it.
I can’t lie; just as it won’t be easy for you some days, it won’t be for me either.
I’ll try not to pressure you too much, but try and give me that same grace. Okay?”
“You forgive me for not being there and us not being a real family?”
“We were a real family, Ma. We were the family that God formed us to be. I mean, we might not have been like other families, but we mattered to each other. I never blamed you for us being uprooted and living an unstable life, and I didn’t blame you for all the things that happened to us along the way.
I only blamed you for refusing to take your meds,” I confessed.
I also blamed my dad for being a deadbeat dad, whoever in the hell he was.
She nodded and smiled. I loved my mother more than anything, but her depression and emotional unavailability took its toll on me. I could handle both of those better than I could her disappearing acts.
“What happened to that pretty girl you were dating? You know I saw you on the news. You were going to some charity event. They said you seldom come out in public, and everyone was excited to catch you out with that woman. What’s her name?” she asked, snapping her fingers.
“Daniella.”
The event that she referenced was a charity event for underprivileged children in the city.
I had been Daniella’s plus one that night, though I hadn’t wanted to attend.
She had torn into me until I agreed to go.
She launched accusations of me not loving her enough, thinking she wasn’t pretty enough, to cheating with the hostess or someone on the committee who put the event together.
“Yeah. She’s a pretty girl. She’s a supermodel, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You should’ve brought her with you. I would like to meet her.”
“She’s not my girlfriend anymore, Mama.”
“Oh. Why not?” She looked as if it were a personal affront to her.
“It just didn’t work out.”
“But why?”
I sighed. “Mama, she just wasn’t a good fit for me. She was beautiful to the public, and she pushed a narrative of caring about community, the underprivileged, the abused, and all that bull crap, but her heart wasn’t there.”
Mama reached out and grabbed my hands and squeezed them. “Caring about people like you? People whose parents abandoned them?”
I nodded. “I was just another charity case for her to flaunt as part of her steppingstone in her modeling career. She was just starting out when I met her. Daniella acted like she couldn’t live without me.
We’re five years later, she’s a world-famous supermodel, and she no longer needs me.
I’ve been going through some things with my career, and she felt it was tarnishing her reputation. ”
Mama pressed her lips together and mumbled, “I see.”
I pulled my hands from hers, rubbed my eyes, and sighed as I sat back on the couch.
I knew that I had been seeking in Daniella what I couldn’t get from Mama all those years.
From the moment we met, she reminded me of my mama.
Her beautiful caramel skin, large, dark glowing eyes, long lashes, high cheekbones, and full, pouty lips.
She could have been my mother’s daughter.
Mama’s eyes softened, and she smiled as she touched my tattoos. “These are beautiful. When did you get them?”
“Through the years.”
“Why?”
That hurt my heart. She didn’t recall what had been done to me? She couldn’t remember the ugly scars and bruises on my skin that the other kids teased me about and caused them to label me as ugly?
I swallowed the hurt and the bitterness that rose up. Instead, I gave my mother a smile. “I don’t know, Mama. I just like them, and they mark the journey leading to my career is all.”
“Oh. Well, they look nice,” she replied with a tilted smile.
I could see the distant look in her eyes, and I wondered where her mind had wandered to. She slapped her hands on her thighs and smiled at me. “It’s almost time for my program to come on. You wanna watch it with me?”
“I’d better be heading out. I just made a quick stop here before I head to the airport.”
“You’re getting ready for another fight?” she asked happily.
“Yeah, but I needed to see you first, Mama,” I replied, fighting back the emotion in my voice.
I hugged and kissed her, and she walked me to the door. The last thing that I wanted was for my mother to see the broken parts of me.
This visit was selfish. The purpose of the visit was not completely about sealing the brokenness between my mother and me. This visit was going to harden my heart, cause me to lift my protective walls, and it was the fuel I needed to go into training camp and then to the fight and dominate.