Chapter 49 Asia
Approaching my mother's front door felt like a walk of shame.
All these secrets I had been holding from those closest to me made me feel terrible.
It was like one bad decision led to another and now that everything had blown up, here I was trying to pick up the pieces.
I was never doing this childish shit again.
From now on, I would be an adult about whatever situations came up in my life.
If I had been open and honest from the beginning, most of the mental anguish I had been enduring wouldn't have happened.
I knocked on the door and Mom answered with a smile. "Hey!" she said and let me in. I wondered how long that smile would last once I dropped all the bombs I had been holding on her. We settled in her living room, then she approached me with a lighthearted expression. "So what's up?"
I didn't know where to start. So I decided to start from the beginning.
"Mom, I have a lot to tell you, and I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner." I took a deep breath, noticing how her expression shifted from casual to concerned. "Nyree and I... we're already married."
Her eyebrows shot up. "What?"
"We eloped a few weeks ago. We were planning to do the big ceremony later, for everyone else, but... we just couldn't wait. We wanted to be married."
Mom leaned back in her seat, processing this first revelation. "Okay... that's unexpected, but—"
"There's more," I cut in, needing to get it all out before I lost my nerve. "It's been rough since then because... Nyree found out he has a child."
"A child?" Mom's voice rose an octave.
I nodded. "A four-year-old son with a woman from his past. She never told him until recently, and they just confirmed today with a DNA test that he's the father."
Mom's mouth formed a perfect O. She seemed momentarily speechless.
"And..." I twisted my fingers together nervously. "I'm pregnant too."
The silence that followed was deafening. I kept my eyes on my hands, afraid to see disappointment or judgment on my mother's face. When I looked up, she was watching me with an unreadable expression.
"So," she said slowly, "you eloped, found out your new husband has a secret child, and now you're pregnant."
I nodded miserably. "That about sums it up."
To my surprise, Mom didn't explode or lecture me. Instead, she tilted her head and said, "It sounds like you are asking for guidance. I can see it all over you that everything that happened has you conflicted."
I blinked, taken aback by her perceptiveness. But then again, this was my mother—she'd always been able to read me like a book, even when I thought I was hiding my feelings well.
"Yeah," I admitted. "I am conflicted. Everything happened so fast, and now it's like we're in this whirlwind. Bella says we can work through it, and I want to believe that, but... it's a lot."
Mom leaned forward, her eyes soft with understanding. "Well, do you love him?"
The question was simple, but it cut straight to the heart of everything. I didn't need to think about it. "Yes. I do."
"Does he love you?"
I nodded. "He does."
Mom smiled. "Then y'all can work it out together. You might have jumped the gun and moved too fast, but now that you're here, you have to pick up the pieces and work together to figure it out. Every marriage has problems—this just happens to be yours."
For some reason, Mom's words hit different than Bella's encouragement and my own thoughts. It was like they solidified for me that I could work through this—that Nyree and I could have a healthy marriage despite what was going on.
"Thank you for understanding," I said, feeling like a weight had been lifted from my chest. "And I hope you're not upset with me about marrying Nyree without telling you."
Mom was silent for a second, then she said, "I can't say I'm not disappointed because of course I would have wanted to be there to share that special moment with you, but to be honest, I've been a little preoccupied myself these past few weeks."
That caught my attention. My mother? Preoccupied? She'd always been so focused and stable, the rock in my life.
"How so?" I asked, intrigued.
Mom's face reddened, and she looked almost... embarrassed? "Listen, I'm not proud of what I'm about to tell you, but we're both grown, right?"
My pupils danced back and forth, trying to figure out what my mother was about to say. "Uh... yeah?" I agreed more as a question than a statement.
Mom sighed, then dropped the bomb. "So remember how your father married that woman and did all that raving about how she's so much better than me?"
I still wasn't following. "Yes...?"
Mom's expression changed. "Well I ran into his wife after we got back from our trip, and we exchanged words. She was bragging in my face about how she got him and making all these catty remarks about how I couldn't keep a man."
I listened as my mother continued, unprepared for where this story was heading.
"So Asia... unbeknownst to you and her, your father has been flirting with me ever since we broke up. I ignored him because I know he's a dog. But after she made those comments, she pissed me off. And I..." Her voice trailed off.
Realization dawned on me, and I gasped. "Ma!"
My mother's face reddened with embarrassment. "I did. I gave in to him just one time. I did it out of spite and to prove to him or her, or maybe just myself, that I am worthy. That a man still would want me."
She looked down after she said those words, and I was about to comfort her, but then she dropped another bomb.
"So of course his wife found out and we had a fistfight."
"What?" I was alarmed. My mother? In a fistfight? The same woman who taught me to always take the high road and handle conflict with dignity?
Ma held a hand up. "It was a minor scuffle, but I haven't spoken to either of them since. I blocked both of them on my social media so I won't see them anymore. But then..." Her voice trailed off again.
"But then what?" I pressed, wondering what the hell could have happened next.
My mother blushed. "Then my first love reached out to me, the guy I had been dating before your father, and we've been talking ever since."
"Sheesh!" I blinked, trying to take in everything my mother had just told me. This was a side of her I'd never seen before—vulnerable, impulsive, human in a way I hadn't realized.
"Asia, I hope you don't think less of me from my actions," she said, looking concerned about my judgment. "What I did was wrong regardless of what your father or his wife said or did. But life caught me at a weak moment..."
I nodded, suddenly feeling a strange connection with my mother. Here I was, worried about her judging me for my impulsive marriage, while she was carrying around her own weight of choices made in the heat of the moment.
"I understand," I assured her. "And I'm glad you and this new guy seem to be hitting it off. Tell me about him!"
Mom's face lit up like I hadn't seen in years, maybe ever.
She started chatting about her reconnection with her first love—how they'd found each other on social media, how they'd been meeting for coffee, how he remembered tiny details about her preferences from over forty years ago.
As she talked, she seemed younger somehow, more vibrant.
"He was always the one who got away," she admitted. "After your father and I split, I thought about reaching out to him a few times, but I always talked myself out of it. It felt like going backward, you know? But now..."
"Now it feels like moving forward," I finished for her.
She nodded, smiling. "Exactly. Life's funny that way, isn't it? Sometimes the path forward takes you through the past."
We sat together for a while longer, talking about her new relationship and my pregnancy. There was something freeing about this new dynamic between us—mother and daughter, yes, but also just two women navigating the complicated waters of love and life.
As I prepared to leave, Mom pulled me into a tight hug.
"You're going to be fine, Asia," she whispered. "You and Nyree both. It won't be easy, but nothing worth having ever is."
I hugged her back, feeling empowered. If my proper, always-put-together mother could fumble and fall and get back up again, then maybe I could too. If she could find happiness after all the drama with my father, then maybe Nyree and I could build something beautiful despite our complicated start.
"Thanks, Mom," I said. "For everything."
As I drove home to Nyree, I felt a newfound determination. Yes, we had challenges ahead—his son, our baby, building a life together that accommodated all these unexpected pieces. But we had love, and we had each other. And somehow, after talking to my mother, that felt like enough to start with.
When I pulled into our driveway, I sat for a moment, one hand resting on my belly. "We're going to be okay," I whispered to the unborn child that was growing inside me. "All of us."
And for the first time in weeks, I truly believed it.