Inez
Past
Recommendation: Listen to “When We Were Young” by Adele
Fuck.
I could hear the front door slam as my son flung his backpack into the kitchen chair. Shortly after, the sounds of the cabinets being opened and closed started. I stared at the small nylon bag that held all my medicine and quickly shoved everything back inside it before closing it.
“Ma, you home? When you going to cook? I’m starving. I’m about to walk to the corner store and get a hero,” he complained, as he usually did when there was never any food in the house.
When I decided to move in with Rylan, I knew there would be some learning curves.
We had made a child together but had never lived together.
He didn’t know how to be a parent because he was always in and out of Melle’s life.
If it wasn’t for my cousins helping whenever he needed diapers, clothes, or anything, I don’t know what I would have done.
My mother and aunt jumped right in when it came to helping me raise him.
I was allowed to finish school while having a child.
They made sure that I had as much help as I needed without ever throwing it back into my face.
When it came to hanging with my friends, they allowed me to have a life, because I was still a teenager.
Rylan came in and out like he had always done.
For birthday parties, he would show up with a gift and come to play the good father, and I allowed him.
I wanted my son to have his father around, and I tried really hard not to become the bitter baby mother.
I learned early on that nagging and bitching kept him away, so I did my best to avoid that.
Even when new women stepped forward with his kids, I remained his peace when I should have become his war.
I smiled when I should have screamed. Displayed grace when I should have given Ken the greenlight to put his gun down Rylan’s throat.
I put the bag under the sink and came out the bathroom, right at the same time he was coming up the hallway.
My boy wasn’t a little boy anymore and he was transforming into a young man right in front of my eyes.
He talked like Goo and Ken, moved like them and even looked up to them.
While we both knew the life that Goo and Ken were into, we knew they made those moves for our family.
In a way, me and Mel both looked up to them.
Melle never wanted for anything because they made sure that we always had.
“You good?” he questioned, as I stood in the doorway of the bathroom, needing this fix desperately.
I had slept all day, and this was the only time I forced myself up to feel good before Rylan came through the door. This was all he had left because he claimed money was low, and he owed somebody money.
Rylan always lied about owing somebody money.
My mother always told me that the most dangerous man was a good liar.
There was never money for anything in this house.
I hated having to ask my cousins or mom for money because I knew how they felt about the situation.
I didn’t want to hear their mouths complaining about me making a dumb decision to be with Rylan when I could have come home.
This was our home.
I needed them to realize that I was grown and a mother.
This was what was best for me and Ramelle.
He needed to see his mother living on her own, not under her own mama’s roof.
My mother kept crossing the lines of grandmother to trying to be his mother.
Yeah, I knew she helped raise him, but I was his mother.
What I said went, and she should have never gone above my head because she thought she had more authority than me.
Whenever I had to fix my mouth to ask for money, I always had to talk myself up to it.
I knew it would come with a lecture, and it almost always started with Rylan.
Whenever money was low and things needed to be paid, Rylan would leave.
He wouldn’t leave for a day. He would leave for weeks, leaving me to deal with the landlord.
Mostly because he knew I would find a way to handle the bills without him. I refused to have my baby out on the streets, and I wasn’t going back to my mama’s house.
“Yes. I’m tired and the first thing you come hollering about is food,” I snapped, pushing past him to go back into my bedroom.
He followed behind me, and I didn’t miss the look on his face when he entered the room. “Why don’t we never have any in here then?”
Ramelle was very much like his older cousins. He idolized them, and they taught him everything he knew. My little boy wasn’t shy or meek in his personality. If he was feeling a way, you were going to hear about it.
It was a gift and a curse, because even as his mother I wasn’t spared. “Aren’t you going over to your Granny’s house?”
“Tomorrow… she wants me to help her clean her ceiling fans and those little glasses in the China cabinet.”
“Di tings dem weh she treasure di most,” I said, mocking my mother’s voice and accent whenever she spoke about those damn glasses in that cabinet.
“Come over there with me… we can stay for the weekend. Gran gets lonely without us.”
“She has her sister,” I snapped, and pulled the covers back over me, because I was feeling cold.
The boy ruined what I was about to do, and now I had to lay here and pray Rylan didn’t bring his ass home early, so I could kill the rest of it without sharing with him.
“Ma, you always in this room sleep and sick… and we know what sick means.”
“What does sick mean, Melle? Since you so grown and know every damn thing, tell me what does sick mean?”
He waved me off and sucked his teeth. “Not even important. All you wanna do is lay in here and wait for him.”
“Him? He’s your father and you need to start showing him more respect, Melle. Do you know how disrespectful you are to him?”
“Man, we better off without him. All he does is leave when the money is gone. Notice how he leaves before the rent is due and comes back once he knows it’s paid.”
“We hold each other down.”
“What? Ma, you sound foolish.”
I pulled my hand from under the blanket and pointed it at him. “Watch your mouth, Melle. Don’t let getting some facial hair get you batted.”
He was disappointed in me, and I could always see it in his face. I wanted to be better and even tried.. Every time I found the strength to stay off, and was doing slightly better, Rylan came in and got me back right again. Pulling me back under with him and I wasn’t strong enough to resist him.
Life used to be so much brighter. I remember going out and doing things with my friends and actually having a relationship with my son. We would have fun and do things together.
Now, I was confined to this apartment. Only going between the bathroom and bedroom, never actually leaving this place.
I felt like I was being sucked into a hole, and every time I tried to climb out, I was being pulled right back in. It was like a never-ending cycle that I wanted to be out of, and couldn’t escape.
“Can I go to school from Gran’s house?”
“I thought you said you were going tomorrow?” I yawned.
He shrugged. “Kind of want to be over there right now.”
The one thing I promised myself was that I would never deny Ramelle time with his family. If he wanted to see his great-aunt, or his grandmother, I would never get in the way of that. He was old enough to make it over there without me, so I allowed him.
“Okay. You have basketball practice tonight?”
“Uh huh. I’ll see if Ken is around to drive me.”
I peeked from underneath the blanket and stared at my baby.
He was no longer a baby anymore and he was becoming a young man.
A responsible one who got good grades, loved basketball, and just wanted more out of this life that I had provided for him.
Guilt consumed me whenever I thought about the life that I should have given him.
When I was handed gold on a platter from my cousin, I accepted shit on toilet paper from Rylan. This wasn’t the life that we were supposed to live, and I allowed a man to force this life down my throat.
Just like he told me that he wanted to make me feel good, and now I felt bad until he came around making me feel ‘good’ again.
“Be safe, Melle. love you.”
“I will. Love you, too!” he quickly left the room, knowing his mother was a disappointment. I had to get myself together for my boy.
He deserved that.