“So, Mama. How have things been going?” I asked.
“They’re going. But don’t act like you care,” she snapped. “You haven’t even been here.”
“I couldn’t come for the first two weeks. Remember the counselor told us that?”
“It doesn’t matter. You tossed me aside so it doesn’t really matter.” She resumed rocking.
“Please don’t be like this,” I said. “You have to understand the position you placed me in. It was either this or jail.”
She tensed up at the word jail.
“The Logans are furious with you, especially Elaine. She wants you to spend the rest of your life in prison.” My mother’s hands started shaking a bit as she rocked back and forth. “And I checked, Mama. If she really pushed for it, you could spend up to thirty years in prison.”
“I did what I felt was right,” she said. But her voice no longer had the confidence that it had the last time she told me that.
“But it was wrong,” I said.
She continued rocking.
“Mama, I need to understand why. I mean, the journal gave me some insight, but I need to hear from you. How you could just lie to me my whole life.” I waited for her to say something. When she didn’t, I continued, “Can you please talk to me?”
She turned and poked her lips out as she looked out the window again.
“You owe me that much,” I said. “You stole my life from me, Mama.”
“I gave you a life,” she said, shifting her head back around to face me. Her eyes misted up as she said, “I knew you were destined for a horrible life with them.”
“How in the world can you say that? The kind of life they could have given me is the stuff people dream of.” Even as the words left my mouth, I thought about Elaine’s drunken fight with Phillip.
“What kind of life is that?” my mother snapped. “One that their money bought?” She let out a convoluted laugh. “Money is not the key to happiness.” She took a deep breath like she was trying to calm herself down. “I know what I did was wrong. But I will always believe in my heart it was the right thing to do.” She stopped rocking again and for a moment, I thought she was going to completely shut down. But she simply said, “You’re right. I do owe you an explanation. And before the good Lord snatches what is left of my mind, I want to give you one.” She stood and turned her rocking chair to face me.
She continued, “You read my journal. You know why I did what I did, but what you don’t understand is that I truly believed that you were going to be better off with me than them. I never set out to take you when I first started following her. Yes, I was distraught over Major. At one point I knew I was spiraling out of control, that’s when I checked myself into the mental hospital. I thought I made progress, but I made the mistake of driving to Beaumont on a visit home. I don’t know why. I just did.” She stood and walked over to the sink in her room, grabbed a paper towel, wet it and dabbed her face. “When I saw him with her, my heart was crushed into a million pieces all over again,” she continued. “I became obsessed with her. I wanted to know what it was about her. I blamed it on her being white, rich, everything. I knew her family was wealthy, but she was no prettier than me. She was no smarter than me. And she couldn’t have possibly loved Major more than I did. So I was desperate to understand what it was about her. I followed her everywhere. I actually moved to Beaumont and stayed there for six months. I watched her as her belly swelled. I watched her as she gave birth. And then I watched her, not even two months after you came into the world, take you to the park. You were too young to be out with all those germy kids. But she didn’t care. She just had to go meet her friends and her sister. And you sat there and nobody paid you any attention. And when you cried, they were too busy taking pictures to care.”
I wanted to interrupt her but I was afraid she would lose her train of thought.
“I watched and I waited,” she continued, then turned to face me. “I fought the urge to tell her, ‘Don’t you know you should pick her up and comfort her,’ and then her sister laughed and said, ‘I always heard little mulatto babies were harder to raise,’ and I was floored. I expected Elaine to say something. To go off, to chastise her sister, and she just sat there. One of her friends was the only one to say, ‘that was mean.’ And her sister said ‘she needs to get used to it because once Mother Madeline sees the child, she will be hearing a lot worse.’ ”
My mother inhaled, exhaled, then continued, “I knew then that you would be subjected to a lifetime of racism. And based on Elaine’s reaction, she wouldn’t protect you. No child should be subjected to that. So I stepped in. I had prayed for God to give me a sign on how to break free from Major, and that day in the park, as I sat on that bench and I watched and listened, they didn’t even care that there was a black woman within hearing distance when they made the comment. They continued with their vile and racist comments. Like it was a joke. And I decided that day, that I would save you.”
I was quiet. There was nothing in Elaine’s demeanor, her actions that said she was racist. She wouldn’t have been married to a black man this long if she were racist. My mother must have been reading my mind because she said, “In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends. That’s a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. Maybe Elaine was the black sheep of the family. Pun intended. But she was silent as her family berated her only child. I didn’t want you raised in that environment. With a mother that failed to protect you. A mother more concerned with hanging out with her friends. You were a prop and she didn’t deserve you.”
I could tell from the determined look on my mother’s face she meant every word she said.
I had come to my mother for answers. And she’d given them to me. The question now was—what was I supposed to do with that information?
Chapter 35
This was something I had dreamed of my whole life. A room full of my family members. Aunts and uncles, cousins, and the like. Elaine had summoned every relative within a hundred-mile radius for a “coming home” party. At first, I was all for it, but right now, in this sea of strangers, and knowing what my mother had told me a few days ago, I was questioning why I’d agreed to this.
I shook off the fact that this didn’t feel like family and chalked it up to the fact that I was a new implant. Malcolm seemed to be blending right in. Right now, he was talking sports with one of my second cousins outside on the veranda.
I sat bouncing Destiny on my lap. Elaine had positioned me in a seat that looked like a throne, right at the front of the living room so that each family member could come greet me as they entered. It felt pretentious to me, but she insisted. Still, the whole thing was making me uncomfortable.
A flutter of nervousness swept through me as Elaine’s grandmother made her way toward me. She’d been the last to arrive to this family gathering that had Elaine running around, barking orders at staff all evening. At first, I thought the chaotic quest for perfection was for me, but Elaine had said several times that everything had to be “just right for Mother Madeline.”
Mother Madeline had to be in her nineties, but still stood like she had descended from royalty. And the way everyone catered to her, I had no doubt she was the nucleus of the family’s wealth.
“Well, I’ll be,” she said as she approached me. Her expression was neutral. No, stoic was a better word. She wore a beaded black dress and a gray fur stole and pearls that probably cost more than I’d made in the last three years. “I never thought this day would come.”
I expected her to embrace me like everyone else had. But instead, she simply said, “Stand up, let me take a look at you.”
I did as I was told, intimidated just like the rest of the family.
“Turn around,” she demanded.
I frowned, but the pleading look in Elaine’s eyes told me to do what she requested. So I adjusted Destiny on my hip and did a slow spin as she studied me.
“Well, you obviously didn’t grow up t
oo poor,” she said. “Because it looks like you’ve eaten well.”
I turned back around to see if the comment made anyone else uncomfortable but if it did, no one seemed to react.
“I am Madeline Wingate,” she said, extending her hand. “The matriarch of this family. And your,” she paused as if her next words pained her, “your great-grandmother.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said. I don’t know why I felt reduced to a little girl standing before this woman. It was at that moment that I noticed the entire room had grown silent since she entered. Almost as if they were waiting on her to give her approval of my very existence.
She leaned in and looked at my daughter.
“This is Destiny, my baby,” I said with a smile. With my daughter’s rosy, plump cheeks, I wondered if Madeline would kiss them or stroke them, as that was usually what people instantly went toward. But instead, she stood back erect. “Destiny. What kind of name is that? It sounds worldly.”
“Excuse me?” I said, again noticing how no one flinched.
“Grandmother, you know these kids today,” Elaine interjected, releasing a fake chuckle. “They like to use fancy names.”
“There is nothing fancy about that name,” Mother Madeline said. “It’s just ridiculous.” She cocked her head and studied my daughter some more. “And do something with that child’s hair,” she ordered.
I ran my fingers through Destiny’s wild ’fro and said, “What’s wrong with my baby’s hair?”
Mother Madeline shook her head, her nose turned up. “That nappiness is unacceptable. Put a . . . what is it that you all do?” She looked up like she was searching for the right term. “Put a perm in to straighten her hair. Do something,” she said with disgust, “because that child’s hair is a mess.”
I was dumbfounded. “She’s only eight months old. I’m not putting a relaxer on her head,” I said.
“Hmph,” she replied. “You need to do something, because no Wingate child needs to be walking around looking like that.”
“Well, she can’t walk, so there’s that,” I said, getting pissed. Not just at her comments, but at the silence in the room. “And she’s not a Wingate. She’s a Reed.”
It was obvious no one ever dared challenge Mother Madeline. Even she looked stunned for a moment before saying, “Well, if you are who you say you are, Wingate blood runs through her veins.”
My mouth fell open. “Wow. If I am who I say I am? The DNA test says I am the child of Elaine and Major Logan.”
“Hmph,” was her only response to that. She stiffened and glared at me. “Elaine, you’d better educate your long-lost child on the respect that is given in the Wingate family because her tone with me is totally unacceptable.”
I waited for Elaine to step up and say something, but she remained quiet.
“Respect must be given in order to be gotten,” I said.
“And this is why I have always been against inbreeding,” she said, glaring at Elaine. “Their classless genes always dominate.”
I couldn’t believe her words—or the continuing silence.
“Wow, so my great-grandmother is a bigot. Glad I’m learning about my heritage,” I said.
Gasps resonated across the room. But I didn’t care. These people could be okay with this old lady’s bigotry, but no way was I about to subject me or my daughter to this.
“What did you just say?” she said.
“Everyone else may be okay with your antiquated, racist ways, but I’m not. I don’t know you and at this rate, I don’t care to know you,” I told her.
Mother Madeline put her hand to her chest in shock. “Catherine,” she said, motioning to a woman who had been identified earlier as an aunt, “Take me out to the veranda. Your useless niece needs to teach this girl some manners.” She turned to Elaine. “It should come as no surprise, though, that you birthed such a disrespectful child. You don’t demand respect, not from her,” she said, spitting out the reference to me, “and not from your philandering husband. It’s no wonder she’s a disrespectful twit.”
Major, who was also off in the corner, gritted his teeth but didn’t say a word. In fact, none of the twenty or so people in the room said anything as Catherine scurried to lead Mother Madeline out.
My husband’s entrance broke the silent tension that hung in the room. “Hey, why is everyone looking so solemn?” he asked as he walked in the family room.
My anger was on overdrive.
“What’s going on? What did I miss?” he asked.
I held my daughter tight as I steadied my breathing. Phillip, who was standing off in the corner, simply smirked and said, “Just another day in the Logan family.”
“Babe?” Malcolm said.
“Get me out of here,” I said. My mother had been right—there were some things that money couldn’t buy.
Chapter 36
I tapped on the door and waited until I heard Elaine call out, “It’s open, come on in.”
I’d left right after that fiasco with Mother Madeline. Malcolm had managed to calm me down, then I had feigned a headache. Well, I didn’t really have to fake it because the whole experience had sent my head to pounding.
This morning, I’d wanted to talk to Elaine, not just about that bigot of a woman she called her grandmother, but the “philandering husband” comment, which had bothered me all night. Not as much as the derogatory comments toward my daughter, but they were still very much unsettling.
I eased the bedroom door open and walked in to find Elaine sitting in a chaise in the corner of her room. Her smile lit up when she saw me. “Hello. How are you this morning?”
“I’m okay,” I said. “That was . . . something last night.”
A sympathetic expression crossed her face.
“I am really sorry about that. Mother Madeline can be . . . a lot,” she said.
My thoughts replayed my mother’s words: I don’t want you raised in that environment. Had my mother saved me from a lifetime of that treatment?
“Well, I apologize if it didn’t go like you wanted. I know that dinner meant a lot to you,” I said.
“It was fine. The family got a chance to meet you. That’s all that matters.” She slapped her palms on her thighs and a wide smile crossed her face. “So what brings you by so bright and early?”
“I actually wanted to talk to you about the party. A few things—one, your grandmother is ninety. While that doesn’t excuse her bad behavior, she’s from a different era. But I don’t understand why you, or no one else, stood up for me,” I said.
“Our family dynamics are complicated,” she said. “I know that Mother Madeline can be a little bigoted.”
“You are either a bigot or you are not. There is no such thing as a little bigoted,” I replied.
Elaine shrugged. “She’s old. We just overlook her.”
“That’s unacceptable,” I replied. “I guess we need to stay away from one another, because I will call her out.”
Just the thought seemed to mortify Elaine.
I continued, “I am very easygoing—until it comes to my daughter. I will allow her to see for herself exactly what your grandmother is and I will show her what it means to stand against vitriol—even in one’s own family—so that she knows how to stand against it in the world at large.”
My words must’ve gotten to her because Elaine got quiet, then she said, “I wish that I had your strength back when you were a baby. My grandmother used to say vile things, and I just pushed them aside, telling myself you were too young to understand anyway.”
I wanted to ask her what her plan had been for when I was old enough to understand. But I already knew the answer to that—she didn’t have a plan.
“But I understand,” she said. “And again, I deeply apologize.”
She reached out to hug me and it wasn’t until she released me that I noticed the pink bedspread and the dainty décor throughout the room. It was shocking that a man would be staying in this room.
Elain
e must’ve noticed my expression because her smile faded and she said, “Yes, I live alone in this room.”
“Oh,” was the only thing I could think of to say.
“Have a seat,” Elaine said, motioning to the small sofa that sat across from her bed. “I guess now that we have dealt with my grandmother’s racist comments, I should explain her comments regarding Major.” She sat back down on her chaise. “He told me what happened with Stephanie.”
My mouth fell open. “You . . . you know about Stephanie?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes and let out a pained laugh. “Stephanie has been a thorn in my side for years. For some reason, she believes Major will,” she made air quotes, “come to his senses and leave me.” She motioned around the room. “Leave our home and marry her.”
I was speechless. I didn’t know what to say. “So, you’re okay with my father having an affair?”
“My grandfather was a philanderer. Mother Madeline looked the other way. My mother looked the other way. And now, I look the other way.”
“But why?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Men will be men. Just keep living. Marriage isn’t about monogamy.”
That caused my right eyebrow to rise.
“Oh, it’s great if you can get it,” she added. “But marriage is a contract. A business deal. And your father and I make some wonderful deals.”
“Marriage is about love.” I said, not believing that I was having this conversation. Is that why my mother didn’t feel like Elaine deserved my father?
Elaine shook her head like I had so much to learn. “Love is all roses and dandelions . . . until you are tested.” Her expression turned solemn. “Your kidnapping tested us.” She shrugged nonchalantly. “And I suppose we failed. I withdrew and became a shell of my former self. And by the time I came out of my fog, my husband was seeking comfort in the arms of another woman.”
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