When I attended church with my family, I was with family… not because anybody went out of their way to extend special privileges, but because every member was taught that it was good manners to make everyone feel welcome. And politicians certainly were not welcome in the pulpit to speak about elections. We didn’t have a sophisticated pastor, but he knew well enough to keep church and politics separate.
Michael sensed my discomfort and took me by the hand. I put on a considerate smile. I knew that we were being closely studied and didn’t want to give the wrong people a bad impression. More and more every day, he was showing me how well he was adapting to this way of life and the spotlight it attracted. I knew without asking that this was going to be his career path; it was something I hadn’t bargained for.
Afterward, we were invited to dinner at my parents’ house. When we arrived, all of my siblings were there except for Cliff. My mother had the extension leaf in the table to accommodate ten and the grandkids were seated in the kitchen. Michael was not used to that kind of assembly. His brothers were scattered about the world and after his mother’s death, his father had sent his two youngest children away to school. It wasn’t the first time he’d shared a meal with us. He’d been invited a number of times over the years and happily accepted every invitation. He often joked that our dinners were like a black version of the Waltons—so picture-perfect.
I had no idea Phillip and Patrice were in town again. They looked so happy together. I just couldn’t help thinking that their happiness was at the expense of a little girl. If I wasn’t careful, I could resent Patrice—just because I knew she was his reason for not claiming his daughter.
He was as generous with his open displays of affection, as he was selfish toward his daughter. Both so inappropriate but the latter more so, because Pia was a victim, while Patrice was a willing participant. It stung to see him being so blatant, choosing a new beginning with no regard for the past, no matter who it hurt. My mother’s eyes darted to them often with a look of satisfaction and not the annoyance I would have expected. Her smile was almost smug. It was obvious that she was happy for her favored son. While everyone else ate their food and praised her roasted chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy, I seethed as the newlyweds huddled together. They carried on their own private, whispered conversation, as if none of us were at the table.
But when the giggles ceased, their whispers grew harsher with a tone of urgency, accenting some words more than others. Their body language became disagreeable, as Patrice moved to rise from her seat and Phillip pulled her back with a rough hand, two or three times.
“What is going on with you two?” My mother’s satisfied gleam turned to a scowl.
They both looked up in surprise, as if they didn’t realize they’d created a disturbance.
“I have something to say,” Patrice’s trembling voice announced. “No. You don’t. Leave it alone, Patrice.”
“If you don’t say it, I will.” Her eyes were unflinching and fixed on his.
My pulse quickened as my body braced itself for the blow. The fear in Phillip’s eyes made him look like a coward and the actions to subdue his wife told of his desperation. The shit storm was about to start. I could feel it in my bones, just like my father’s joints when stormy weather approached. It needed to happen so the healing could take place.
“Phillip what the hell is going on?” My father demanded. “One minute you’re practically peeling this girl’s clothes off at the table and the next, you’re acting like a caveman.”
“Tell them, Phillip,” Patrice’s voice was louder and more persistent.
The room grew quiet and I held my breath. Phillip leaned all the way back in his chair and dropped his head back, blowing out his frustration. I knew how much he hated contentious scenes, especially if they made him look bad. I watched as he came to terms with what he had to do. When he straightened his posture, he addressed my mother, as if she was his main priority.
“I found out I’m a father, Ma, right after Patrice and I got married.” His voice sounded thin and unsure.
My mother sputtered, “Wait…What? Who’s the mother? Are you sure it’s yours?”
“She’s mine.” His voice had actually grown steadier.
“A little girl?” That seemed to give my mother a degree of comfort, that it was a girl child. “How old is she?”
It was hard to sit quietly when I knew everything. And Phillip looked uncomfortable, as if he wanted the whole scene to be over. The hot seat wasn’t his usual position.
Patrice pulled a picture out of an envelope. I recognized it as the one Phillip shared with me at the reception, the one Humphrey had shoved into his tunic. She handed the photo to my mother and when the recognition hit, my mother emitted a cry.
“My God, Phillip. No!” She let loose a dramatic shriek to which my father rolled his eyes.
“Shit,” my father said. “I assumed that you probably had a couple of little ones running around somewhere. Before you met this lady here, you were sowing your wild oats and a few other people’s.”
Everybody laughed at the remark to relieve the tension coming from my mother. She didn’t laugh at all.
“I don’t think this is funny, Phillip. I am appalled that you waited all this time to tell me about this child. It’s not like she’s from a strange family. We know this baby. And to think that all this time, she was my grand….”
My mother, overcome with emotion, left the room. She was fiercely protective of her family and the thought of someone rejecting a family member was too much for her to bear. After an awkward time at the table, in the silence left behind, my mother burst back into the room, ranted and raved, the result of hurt turning to anger.
“Well, it’s no wonder Humphrey was so crazy at the wedding. I don’t blame him one bit,” she announced upon her re-entry. “If that had been Zoë or Maria, any one of you boys would have behaved much worse than he did,” she addressed the men of the family all-together.
“Ma, I’m sorry for hurting your feelings like this. I didn’t know how to react when I found out I was a father. I was scared and humbled…I wasn’t ready,” Phillip pleaded with her to understand. “Miss Joyce,” Patrice interjected, “it’s my fault that Phillip didn’t say anything. I was having a hard time accepting it and he was waiting for me to come around before he said anything.”
“Baby, I appreciate you trying to stand up for your husband, but there is nothing Phillip or you could say that would make me understand why he would be afraid to tell me. He knows that he can come to me with anything. All of my children know that.”
Phillip was visibly saddened by my mother’s hurt. He seemed to be fighting tears the whole time she talked across the table to him.
“I didn’t want you to think less of me. I never wanted to look in your eyes and see that you’d lost respect for me.”
“Baby that’s something you are never going to see. You are a wonderful man and you will make a wonderful father, once you stand up and take responsibility for your actions. You’ve got so much to give a child. That little girl is lucky.”
Patrice was wiping tears away and the men around the table all looked like they had big lumps in their throats as they witnessed the emotional exchange in front of them.
I couldn’t keep quiet anymore. From the way they all were talking, it sounded like Phillip wanted to raise the child. I wondered how Humphrey would fit into the equation. He was the closest thing to a father for Pia and I knew he wasn’t going to let anyone just walk into his life and snatch her away—not even her own father.
“What about Humphrey?” I asked and heads snapped around in my direction, all eyes on me as if I’d asked a ridiculous question. “Do y’all think you’re going to just walk in and take this baby like he has no say in the matter?”
My mother jumped to her feet. “Humphrey is not that child’s father. Phillip is.”
“That little girl had to be forced onto Phillip before he would even claim her. He has no
right to take her away from Humphrey—the closest thing she’s had to a father her whole life.”
Michael tugged at my sleeve to coerce me into silence, but I completely ignored his gesture. “Zoë,” he said. “You need to get it together. This is none of your concern. Let Phillip and Humphrey work it out.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Do any of you think this is a simple situation? It’s much more complicated than you know. That family doesn’t know whether their daughter is dead or alive and her little girl is the only thing they have left of her until they know better. Do you think they are going to just hand her over to a father who neglected her mother and was forced to acknowledge the child?”
Silence fell over the table and all who were assembled there. They looked from one to the other in awkward glances as if they were searching for the answer to the question.
Phillip finally spoke, “I know that I handled it poorly, but I do want to know her and make it up to her. And I’m going to do what’s necessary to make that happen. My main concern is my daughter, not Humphrey.”
“And do you think that makes an intellectual answer? Because in my opinion, it sounds really dumb. What you need to realize is that this has nothing to do with what you want. The baby is attached to Humphrey; he loves her. You have to get to know her, grow to love her.” I pushed my chair out from the table, got up and walked out onto the front porch. I didn’t know where the rage came from, but I knew that my concern was in the right place. How could they all not see that I was right?
I was given the looks of a madwoman run amuck and Michael had a wounded look in his eye as if he’d been betrayed. I stood at the edge of the porch looking out into darkness, looking for answers and hoping that I hadn’t overreacted to Phillip’s plan to unite with his child.
“It’s hard, ain’t it?” I turned around to find my sister, Maria standing just outside the door.
“It sure is…harder than it should be,” I answered.
“But it’s not my life I’m worried about. It’s that little girl’s… and it’s Humphrey’s.”
Maria sat in a cushioned wicker chair and patted the one beside her for me to do the same. I felt like I had my big sister back. She had made huge improvements in reclaiming her life. I was so proud of her but our relationship still had a ways to go. She’d basically been absent from my life, when I could have used her most.
“And it’s your life too,” she said. “You worry about other people too much. It’s time for you to worry about you.”
“I don’t have anything to worry about. I just don’t want that baby’s life to be upset anymore than it has and I don’t want Humphrey to hurt anymore.”
Maria didn’t look convinced. She was back with her sharp intellect intact and her sisterly concern in its proper place.
“See. It’s just like I said. What do you want for yourself, Zoë?” “I don’t want anything more than what I have. I have a good
life. I love my job, my home and my man. Life is good.”
“You can tell that bull to somebody who doesn’t know you. It might seem like I was completely out of touch during those years that I was strung out, but I know my little sister. So stop practicing your lines on me. Okay? You don’t have to tell me what you think I want to hear.”
“What are you talking about? I’m not practicing anything. I mean it. I’m happy with things the way they are.”
“Liar.”
The conversation was going nowhere, but heating up just the same. So I stood up and started walking back toward the door.
“I don’t know what drug you are on tonight but you have truly lost it.”
“See that’s just it. I haven’t lost it and I’m not on anything. I’m thinking more clearly than I have in years. But you will lose everything if you don’t start being true to yourself right now. You’re spouting off at the mouth like you mad with everybody just because you can’t say who you truly want.”
Her words cut so deeply, they brought pain like an assault on my person. I raised my hand to strike her and her “I wish you would” expression, made me strongly consider the repercussions. I lowered my hand and felt my lip quiver, like a child on the verge of a tantrum.
“I have who I want.” I stomped my foot. “Then act like it dammit.”
“I love Michael. He is good to me and he’s good for me.” “Well that sounds like the same things you could say about
Dad. You love him, don’t you? And he treats you good and it’s good to have him in your life, right?”
Her tone of voice changed like she was angry with me. All the rage that had torn through me found its way into her words as she told me off about what she thought to be untrue. And she wouldn’t let up.
“Why don’t you stop lying to yourself and admit it? You made a mistake and you shouldn’t have continued the lie with Michael.” “Stop it.” I demanded. “You don’t know a damned thing about me. While you were out there chasing drugs and your child was living with our parents, I was building a friendship with Michael. We have grown up together and we know each other inside out.
Michael would protect me with his life. He’s my best friend. He’ll be the perfect husband.”
I regretted my words when I saw the tears glistening in her eyes. It wasn’t fair to bring up her past, when she’d made such great strides. I was spouting anger at her for disagreeing with me and I had just gone too far. I deliberately hurt her just to make her shut up. But Maria was a soldier and she shrugged those tears off, flung the hurt from her heart and kept right on going.
“It’s not enough though, is it, Baby Girl?” she insisted with remnants of pain and love blending in her voice.
“No,” I whimpered after a long silence. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I have this perfect man who comes from a good family. He’s fine as hell…a helluva good catch. And he loves me. Why can’t I just be crazy about him?” I started crying out my frustration, feeling like a failure.
Maria wrapped her arms around me and while holding me, she said, “There is nothing wrong with you. Michael really is a good man, but he’s not the man for you. When you know a man is the one for you, it doesn’t matter what family he comes from, what connections he has, how much money he’s worth or any of those things. It always comes down to just two people and whether they can exist without each other. I know you love Michael. He’s been in your life for years. And even though you missed him while you were in New York, you found that you could live without him. Didn’t you? Now look at you. You’ve tried to go on with your life without Humphrey and you’ve been putting on a good show. I talk to our mother every day and she’s been so worried about you. At first, she was cheering for you and Michael because she knows that he’s a sure shot. But now she realizes where your heart lies. You had just about everybody convinced that you and Michael were it. That is—everybody except Michael and you.”
I’m sure that my eyebrows shot into my hairline at the news of that revelation.
“Don’t look so surprised. Do you think Michael can’t tell that you are madly in love with Humphrey? He’s known it ever since you packed up and left Baltimore for the man. Anybody who could make you leave the shelter of Mom and Dad is a man with some serious power of persuasion. Michael’s on edge anytime there’s the mention of Humphrey’s name. He needs to be a man and own up to the fact that you and he don’t have that kind of love. If he really loves you the way he professes to, he would walk away. He knows that you are too honorable to do it. But if you two keep up this charade, you’re gonna pretend yourselves into a very miserable life.”
After a long time in silence, I realized that I felt unburdened. For the first time in a long time, I could really breathe…deeply… wholly. I looked over at my sister and when her eyes met mine, I was given a vote of reassurance to handle my business. I knew what it felt like to be drunk with power. And I laughed. It started out as a nervous giggle followed by a sigh, then after a minute- long break, I burst into laughter th
at bubbled up from the depths of my heart.
It seemed that my heart had taken on a new life, sprouting wings so free that it could have flown out of my chest. Most importantly, my heart developed eyes and I could see what love really looked like. All that time I had been looking for love and I’d been looking for it in the wrong form. Real love, I found, was more spiritual than physical and I really couldn’t spot it with my natural eyes and not with my mind’s eye. The look of real love could only be seen with the heart. And it damn sure wasn’t in a romance novel.
Love didn’t judge. It didn’t hold grudges and it didn’t set out to punish us when we showed signs of weakness. Yet that’s exactly what Humphrey and I had done to each other—people we both claimed to love. When he started withdrawing from me, it was more than I could take and I didn’t have time for his shortcomings. I wanted the audacious, cocky man I fell hard for, but he was showing me that he had another side that his overconfident side was really a front for. I hadn’t been prepared to prop him up on every leaning side and he wasn’t prepared for that reaction.
God I needed to talk to him. I was full, bursting with all the emotion I’d been suppressing. I had been so mean to him, so intent to deny the truth. I had to find a way to take it all back and hoped he would take me back.
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