23 | Samaj #2
“Look at my baby.” Her voice cracked as she laid eyes on me. I crossed the room in two steps and hugged her. She held onto me like she was afraid I’d disappear if she let go. We stayed there for a while.
“I’m so proud of you,” I whispered. She looked at me with tears in her eyes, but I knew these were happy tears.
“Thanks, baby.” She turned to my dad. “Thanks for coming.”
As far as I knew, the two of them were on much better terms. They were still separated, but never went through with the divorce. He still loved and supported her, and I respected him so much for that.
One thing my dad had always demonstrated for my brother, and I was his commitment to his vows and the way he spoke about my mom and honored her even in her lowest moments, showed me how love was not enough to sustain a marriage. It required sacrifice and selflessness.
We sat down, and for a moment no one spoke. My dad let the silence do its work; his hands folded calmly on the table like he’d already surrendered this moment to God.
“I owe you the truth,” my mom finally said, her eyes locked on mine. “Not excuses. Not half-answers. The truth.”
My chest tightened, but I nodded. “I need that.”
She took a deep breath, the kind you take before stepping off a ledge.
“I’ve been running from my pain for a long time,” she said.
“Long before Shiloh passed… long before you even noticed anything was wrong. Alcohol didn’t start the problem it just helped me hide it.
When I was younger my mom struggled with addiction, and we got put out on the streets after she lost her job and couldn’t pay our rent.
We would sleep at shelters for a while but then one day after school she didn’t pick me up.
I found out a few days later that she had passed away.
They said it was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The school called DCF and the authorities, and I was placed in foster care.
I was fifteen at the time. The foster home I was in was horrible.
Constant fighting. A house full of kids with little food. Random people in and out of the house.”
I clenched my jaw, as I listened.
“I would go to the community library whenever I wasn’t in school just to have a quiet and safe place to be.
I would stay there until they closed and one day your dad came in there with his book bag and a bunch of schoolwork trying to complete a school project and I helped him and we became really good friends.
I would meet him at the library almost every day whenever he didn’t have to go to work.
He would buy me things and try to take me out.
” I looked at my dad, and I could tell he was going down memory lane.
“After maybe eight months later, he wanted to be more than friends, but I turned him down. I didn’t tell him at the time why, but honestly, I felt like he was too good for me.
He didn’t seem to mind, and we continued being friends for a couple of years, but when it came time for him to graduate he had a scholarship to a college out of the state and knowing he was leaving made me realize how much I loved him, more than as a friend so I told him to ask me out again. ”
“And I did.” My dad chimed in. They shared a moment at the memory, and I could see the hint of a smile on both their faces before my mom continued.
“He wanted to take me with him. I was scared to leave, but I was even more scared to stay so I packed up a few things and took the little bit of money I had from working part time at the grocery store. Before I could leave that night one of the neighborhood kids who used to come over and hang out at the house with my foster siblings took advantage of me and–” her voice cracked.
“It’s okay mom you don’t have to finish.”
There was no way I was going to sit here and allow her to relive such a traumatic moment. She was only seventeen years old and had already been dealt a bad hand in life and just when she was about to leave one of the worst things that a person could ever go through happened to her.
She took a deep breath before continuing. “Thanks baby. Having you boys has been the best thing that ever happened to me. And I don’t mean just you and Shiloh but your father too.” I looked at my dad, and I could tell what she just said touched him.
“I didn’t tell him what happened to me,” she said quietly.
“I was scared that he'd look at me as damaged goods. That he wouldn’t love me, but the truth was I was projecting that on to him because that’s what I felt about myself.
So, he never knew there was a possibility… that he might not be your father.”
My stomach tightened as she kept going.
“I didn’t even know I was pregnant with you until I was five months along. I barely gained any weight and had no symptoms. You had always been a peaceful baby even before you were born.” A small, sad smile touched her lips.