Sincere Bellamy
Pulling up to my parents’ house, I killed the engine, sat there for a second, and tried to calm down before I got out. I had been pissed with my mom since my cousin’s birthday party, so this conversation I was walking into was overdue.
My father was in the den when I walked in, posted up in his usual chair with a low lamp on beside him and the television on the news cycle. He looked up over his glasses when I stepped through the doorway. “Hey, Son.”
I nodded once. “What’s up, Pop?”
He looked at me with a knowing smirk. “Your mother’s in her office.”
I chuckled. “That obvious?”
He gave me a dry look. “She told me what happened.” Then he picked his glass up from the side table. “Try not to tear into her too much. I have to deal with the after math when you leave.”
I scoffed with a laugh. “I’ll do my best.”
I left him in the den and walked through the house I’d known all my life.
It was big and carefully put together. Everything in that house had intention.
Every piece of art, rug, and chair my mother had overseen herself.
She demanded excellence, polish, and composure.
She had raised me to be discerning and impossible to shake.
Which was exactly why I had a problem with what she’d done.
When I got to her office, I knocked once before opening the door.
She looked up from behind her desk, and the pause that crossed her face was subtle but there.
She hadn’t expected me, and she probably wasn’t eager to see me either.
We hadn’t spoken since I checked her at my cousin’s birthday party.
I’d meant every word I said then, and judging by the tension that had settled between us since, she knew it.
“Sincere,” she said.
“Ma.”
Her office smelled like the candle she was burning and whatever tea she’d been drinking. Her desk was neat. Her laptop was open. A legal pad sat beside it.
She sat back in her chair, composed as ever, but I knew my mother well enough to see the reluctance under it.
“You’re here unexpectedly,” she said.
“I needed to speak with you.”
She gestured toward the chair in front of her desk. “Then sit.”
I took the seat across from her as she folded her hands on top of the desk and waited.
“You are never to disrespect Rhythm like that again.”
Her eyes rolled as she blew a nonchalant breath. “Sincere—”
“What you did was out of line.”
Her chin lifted. “Out of line because I said what needed to be said?”
“Out of line because you took it upon yourself to address a woman I’m seeing as if she was beneath you. Out of line because you decided your opinion gave you license to be disrespectful.”
She leaned back in her chair like she was settling in, which let me know she still thought she was justified. “I am your mother. I’m not going to sit by and watch you get your heart, time, and money played with again because some heffa can’t figure out who she wants.”
“I understand your concern. I really do. But I am a very big boy. I can take care of myself.”
Her eyes narrowed into judgmental slits.
“Can you? You’re still working with that family.
It’s only been a few months, and here you are again, losing yourself in another woman you barely know.
You don’t even know this woman. You don’t know what she wants from you.
She has children, and I can tell she’s not from where we’re from.
She has city all over her, and you are already centering her in ways that should concern you. ”
“You made sure I was not a stupid man,” I reminded her.
“And you did not raise a weak one either.” She opened her mouth, but I cut off what she was about to say.
“I might have misjudged with Tempo. I can own that. And even if my judgment is off now, which I doubt, that is on me. Not you.” I leaned forward a little, enough to let her know I meant every word.
“You do not get to decide which woman is respectable enough for me based on what makes you comfortable. If I bring home a doctor with no children, you will respect her. If I bring home a woman with six kids, you will respect her. If I bring home a stripper, you will respect her too.”
My mother’s eyes bucked a bit. Then the smugness vanished. My mother just looked at me, genuinely taken aback. For the first time in my entire life, this woman couldn’t find words to say.
“You do not have to like every woman I choose. You do not have to understand her. But if you want to be a part of my life, then you will treat the women in my life with respect. Especially when they have done nothing to you.”
She blinked and looked down for a second. When she looked back up, some of the haughtiness was gone. “I was trying to protect you.”
“I know.”
“I do not want to see you embarrassed again.”
“I know that too.”
She began to wring her hands. For once, she looked less like the woman who always had all the answers.
“I should not have spoken to her that way,” she finally admitted. “You’re right. It was disrespectful, and it was not my place. I’m sorry. To you, and to her.”
I nodded once. “Thank you.”
She looked at me carefully. “You care for her.”
I sat back in my chair and exhaled through my nose. “I do.”
She took that in, and this time there was no smugness in her face, just concern and curiosity.
“All right,” she said quietly. “I hear you.”
That was enough for me.
I rose from the chair, straightened my jacket, and looked at her one last time. “I meant what I said.”
“I know,” she replied.
I nodded and turned toward the door.
“Sincere.”
I stopped and looked back.
Her expression had softened into who I recognized again. “I am sorry, and I love you.”
This time, I believed her. “I know, and I love you too.”