4. Theresa
Hate.
That word has been recycled, heard and used many times. Through darkness, pain and sorrow, but I never used it towards my own son. Now, I may dislike some things he’s done, how he got to where he was, or the person he’s become, but damn it, I don’t hate him.
I still loved him, but I couldn’t allow myself to be his mother. It’s too complicated.
I was left standing in the void where Courtland had just stood. Remembering the strong man he’d become, battling the hurt of his mother’s words. The way his chest never deflated, that armor shielding him closely as he prepared himself to leave my house after an exchange of threats.
It would’ve been easy to heal the pain, but it’s deeper than any of us could fathom.
My phone rang inside my bag, snapping me out of my thoughts. My head snapped in its direction like fate had finally come knocking. I emptied my bag and grabbed the phone before the last ring.
“He was there with you tonight,” the dark voice said on the other end.
“Stay away from him!” I bellowed.
“Tsk. Tsk,” he mocked. “Buttermilk,” he called me, sending a shock to my system. My stomach soured at the name.
“Don’t.” I swallowed. “Don’t ever call me that.”
“You still think this is your call.”
“He’s my son,” I argued. “Haven’t you done enough?”
A thick, hollow chuckle rumbled in his throat– the kind that pierces your spine and makes it coil.
“I haven’t even begun. It’s my world. Always my world.” He ended the call, leaving me breathless as my knees grew weak and I collapsed to the floor. The tears burned in the corners of my eyes.
My phone sat inches away from me like it was on fire, and I needed to get away from it.
My hands went up, crossed together, and I closed my eyes. Something was heavy on my spirit. I needed forgiveness, not saving. I needed repentance, not redemption.
“Whatever happens, Lord, whatever may come of this, protect and forgive. This burden, this pain and guilt, it’s too much. But I must finish what I started.”
I prayed, feeling the weight in my stomach dissipate but not fully disappear.
The hardest part about secrets is remembering who you were before they existed.
I got up from my knees, grabbed my purse and put my bag back together before locking up the house and going to my room. I checked in on Maleek; he was sound asleep even after all that commotion.
I locked myself inside my room, sat on the side of my bed and pulled out my bible, going to Isaiah 49:15. “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she borne?”
I pulled the picture of a younger Courtland close to my heart.
“Create in me a clean heart, oh, God…” I prayed while the tears covered the portrait. They didn’t cleanse my sin. They harvested the hurt. Stains like this, you can’t pray away. Sometimes that sin is yours to bear.
* * *
“Good morning. The food is ready,” I greeted with my back turned while I moved around the kitchen fixing breakfast.
Even after a night like last, the day always moves on. I couldn’t wallow in self-pity when I was too busy trying to raise and protect another child. Sometimes, that’s the hardest part, living with leaking wounds.
“Morning, Ma,” he replied flatly.
I gathered the plates I’d made and turned around to serve them when the wind was knocked out of me at the sight of his face. I dropped the plates and grabbed his chin.
“What happened?” I asked flatly, knowing he’d either tell me the truth, lie or hide.
“Nothing.”
He hid. His answer final. His eyes filled with void. Much like Courtland when I tried to nurse the wounds he randomly came home with. He even looked like his brother.
I dropped his chin, hard enough for him to understand I didn’t like the answer but soft enough for a mother’s touch. I went to the freezer. grabbed a bag of peas and dropped them onto the table next to him.
“You might wanna put these on that so it doesn’t bruise,” I lectured.
He looked at the bag for a second but did as I told. He nursed it while scooping grits into his mouth.
The silence was hotter than the temperature outside.
Maleek didn’t try to offer reassurance. He owned his bruise while my mind went rampant.
I wanted to cradle and protect him, but there was something about the broadness in his shoulders and the whiskers of his incoming mustache that told me he was turning into his own person.
And sometimes Mama must let him lick his own wounds.
“How were tryouts?” I asked, slicing into my piece of avocado.
He shrugged. “They were alright.”
His eyes never left his plate. His response let me know that he was shutting me out and keeping things to himself.
My youngest boy was now acting like he could handle the world by himself.
I had to let him, only for my sake, because if I continued prying, it wouldn’t help.
I had to let him come to me in his own time.
“What did I tell you about Courtland?”
“You ain’t gotta worry about him.”
“I do if he keeps undermining me.”
“He won’t be around no more.”
Somehow, it felt like that was the end of my sons’ relationship.
After breakfast, Maleek headed out with some friends while I tidied up around the house. I was doing anything to clear my mind. There was this anxious jitter that I only experience around certain times. It’s a feeling that I can barely contain, so I put this energy to use.
I grabbed his bag from the floor to vacuum when I noticed something peeking through the zipper. I set the bag alongside his bed, opening it. My heart thumped loudly, my stomach dropped, and my hands shook as I grabbed the tape then pulled the boxing gloves and mouth guard from the bag.
“My God. Why can’t my family escape this generational curse?!”
I didn’t even have the capacity to cry because I was too damn angry and afraid. Then I remembered Maleek’s face. Those bruises looked all too familiar to my past with Andre and Courtland. He had it honest, but he went about it differently– he chose to lie to me.
Anything could’ve happened to him while boxing, leaving me in the dark on how to navigate the worst. Why were all the men in my life so fucking hardheaded? That was a trait that couldn’t be escaped either.
I searched through the bag further, seeing the evidence that he’d been doing this a while.
The gloves had wear on them, but they were still new.
The leather was still intact. Something green tucked into the bottom of the bag alarmed me.
As soon as I touched it, I knew what it was.
I pulled loose dollar bills from underneath the bag.
Five of them.
He was getting money for something. It reminded me so much of Courtland and how I would find mystery money in bags. I later found out that he was getting paid to fight for the neighborhood kids.
“You need to come home now.”
“Why? I just got here,” he argued.
“I need to know where you’ve been.”
“I’m with Tyrek.”
I eyed the bag in disgust. “Come home now.”
“Why, Ma? What’s up?”
“Don’t what’s up me. Why the hell is there money and boxing gloves in your bag, Maleek?”
He grew quiet, but I knew he was still there because of his active background.
“It’s not even like that.”
“So, money and boxing gloves from a boy that doesn’t have a job isn’t what it seems like?”
Silence.
I was holding my breath, praying for a different outcome, but I knew the truth.
“Bring your ass home now.”
I ended the call and went to my call log, hovering over the recent number.
“Buttermilk.”
I hated the sound of his breathing, the way he spoke. The fact that he was even alive. I hated his every existence.
“You won’t get him the way you did Courtland! Stay away from Maleek!” I threatened before ending the call.
I shot up from the seat, tossing everything, including the money, into the back and making a beeline to the front of the house. I grabbed the lighter from the TV stand then slapped the screen door open.
“You won’t get him. I won’t fucking let you.”
Throwing the bag on the ground, I bent down, lighting the trap on fire.
“Ma, what’re you doing? That’s my bag!” Maleek yelled out, running into the yard.
“Don’t you…” I warned him with my finger pointed at him, but my eyes were on the burning flame from the bag.
He abruptly stopped.
“Why are you doing this, Ma? Damn. I ain’t hurting nobody,” he cursed.
He didn’t know that this was doing more harm than good. He was hurting me.
We watched the flames from different views. Me, I was putting an end to a start. Maleek, he had hatred in his eyes from me trying to control his life. Either way, we were both grieving. I’d rather him hate me than me lose him to the life that came with that.