by Xenia Ruiz
“You don’t understand; this isn’t about him,” Maya explained. “It’s about my personal relationship with the Lord. I leave my husband in His hands. His salvation is not up to me. I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing.”
“What’s the use in being married to a man when he’s not doing what he’s supposed to be doing?”
“Men change,” Maya said, almost sadly.
“And women don’t?” I asked.
“Women change due to hormonal changes, childbirth, motherhood, the stress of being slaves to their husbands, especially working women,” Simone cut in, sitting down to eat her salad. “Men change because they think their wives are supposed to pick up where their mothers left off.” One would think Simone had been married forever instead of the one year she sacrificed to what she called “the world’s oldest form of slavery.” Married women, she always said, were still in bondage. While I disagreed with her, I had my own issues with marriage.
“That’s why I’m afraid of getting married again,” I said. “Take Anthony. When we were living together, he used to help me with the housework. As soon as we got married, I swear not a month later, he just stopped.”
“I’m not going to take that chance,” Simone said. “I know I’m never getting married again. Marriage is overrated.”
“With God, you’re not taking a chance. God is about faith, not luck, not chance. Just as He did not intend woman to have a multitude of men, He also did not intend woman to be alone. You don’t put your trust in Man, you put your trust, your faith in God. Man will disappoint, but God never will.”
“So what are you doing with Luciano?” Simone asked pointedly.
“I’m trying to keep myself from dying of boredom,” Maya said without skipping a beat. “Even though we’re just friends, I know I shouldn’t be with him. It’s one thing to sin and acknowledge it, but it’s worse when you sin and don’t care. Meanwhile, I’m praying for a sign from God ’cause I don’t know how much longer I can stay married to my husband.”
“What exactly did you pray for?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Did you pray for your marriage to work or did you pray that Alex wants a divorce so you can be with Luciano? I mean, you have to know what you want before you ask for it.”
“I prayed for patience, for guidance. All I know is, I want my husband to kiss me with passion, like he used to. I want to be loved like I deserve to be loved. I like the attention Luciano gives me, I don’t know if I want to be with him.”
“I would rather kiss a man than have sex any day,” I announced. They gave me that collective look of adoration once again, so I jammed a forkful of lettuce and chicken into my mouth.
“Check her out. She isn’t dead after all,” Simone said, smiling.
“Get out,” Maya said in disbelief.
“I’m serious. I’ve always thought kissing was much more intense,” I said quietly.
“Okay, now I know it’s been a long time for you,” Simone joked. Then she chanted, “Some-body’s sweat-ting the Rasta-mun.”
“It’s sweat-in,” I corrected her mispronunciation of the slang term.
“Oh, hush. Me? I don’t particularly like kissing. All that sharing of saliva,” Simone said, shuttering, her face recoiling.
“Oh, and sharing other body fluids is better?” I countered.
“When you wear condoms you don’t share body fluids,” she said shamelessly with a sly smile. “I believe a man cannot truly possess you until fluids are exchanged.”
“Simone!” Maya admonished.
“It’s S’Monée,” she corrected. “If you call me Simone, I’m not going to answer.”
“Keep fooling yourself,” I told her, ignoring her request. “Every time you have sex with a man, he takes possession of you. You lose a little of your soul, piece by piece.”
“Listen to you,” Maya said looking at me with a look of pride.
As I was saying the words to Simone, I hoped my sister was taking heed, and then I thought I should probably remember them myself as a precautionary measure.
CHAPTER 10
ADAM
MY MOTHER IS a very spiritual woman, fiercely devout and ardently dedicated to my father, her husband—and, simultaneously, another woman’s—for twenty years. My mother found out about the other woman years before my sister and I did. When I confronted her, demanding to know why she never said anything, she replied rather calmly, “One day you’ll understand what love is about.”
I could not understand why she would knowingly put up with sharing her man with another woman. I could not perceive how she forgave my father and continued to sleep with him, knowing the only thing that separated her from this woman was a hot shower. I could not comprehend how she embraced this other woman at the funeral, and still kept in contact with my half siblings, who were close enough to my and my sister’s ages to have put our mothers pregnant at the same time. My incomprehension was so entrenched that I still could not bring myself to visit my father’s grave almost twenty years later. So I guess I had yet to learn what love was.
My mother lived in a senior citizen condo building; she moved there after selling the house I had lived in until I went away to college. She acquired two cats to keep her company and took up acoustic guitar and stained glass art, which she sold at seasonal arts and crafts shows. She stopped cooking large Sunday meals and became a vegan who believed in holistic healing. Essentially, my mother became a hippie in her old age.
As I arrived at my mother’s floor, I saw a rather distinguished looking man in a suit emerging from her condo. I thought he was perhaps the landlord, or some other kind of businessman, but then I watched as my mother stepped into the hallway and kissed the man on the cheek. I froze, hoping I would blend into the tan carpet unseen.
“Oh, there’s my son,” my mother exclaimed when she saw me. I walked slowly down the hallway with my mouth half hanging open. “Jameson Stevens, this is my son, Adam. I call him Love.” I was dumbfounded. I could not believe she had shared something as personal as my nickname with this stranger. When I was born she’d wanted to give me “Love” as a middle name but my old man put his foot down. From the time I was little, she had called me Love.
The man stuck his hand out toward me, smiling like he wanted to be my friend or something. I reluctantly, and automatically, shook his hand.
“Nice to meet you, Adam,” Mr. Jameson Stevens said before strolling to the elevator, whistling. “I’ll see you later, Naomi.”
I could not speak as I watched my mother walk toward me. She was dressed elegantly in a floral print dress that accentuated her slimmed-down figure, her pecan face flawless and glowing. Her hair was in a high French roll, giving her the appearance that she was wearing an African headdress. A retired hairstylist, my mother always kept her hair coiffed.
“Love, close your mouth,” she said, kissing me on the cheek with the same lips she had used on the stranger. I forced myself not to wipe my face like I used to do when she kissed me in front of my boys when I was young.
“Who … who was that?” I asked when I found my voice.
“Jameson Stevens,” she said matter-of-factly, turning to go inside.
“I know his name. Who is he?” I followed her into the condo and closed the door.
“He’s my friend.”
“Boyfriend?”
She laughed boisterously and gave me a patronizing look. “Boyfriends are for young girls, Love. He’s my companion.”
I dreaded thinking what the term “companion” encompassed. I didn’t want to know if she was sleeping with him, though I knew it was unlikely. My mother took her Christianity very seriously. I didn’t want to know if she loved him or was planning to marry him. I didn’t want to know anything, but I needed to know everything. “And?” I asked.
“And none of your business. I’m a grown woman. Now, what did you bring me?”
I handed her the shopping bag of fresh fruit and herbal teas I bought at her
favorite organic grocery store, enough for two months. She squealed like they were diamonds. My mother no longer ate sweets, so birthday cakes were useless. “Happy Birthday, Mama,” I said dryly.
She kissed me again and I took a seat in the dining room.
“Look at this cantaloupe. Beautiful! Grapes!”
Two new stained glass creations with abstract designs hung in the dining room. Her artwork, along with the numerous stained glass supplies, had taken over the apartment, obscuring family portraits of her children and grandchildren. The cats, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, strolled into the dining room, barely acknowledging my presence. They knew I didn’t like them and the feeling was mutual.
I handed her the birthday card, which she quickly opened. In her haste, the money I put in it fell to the floor.
“Adam, what did I tell you about giving me money? When I need it, I’ll ask for it.”
I picked up the money and tried to hand it to her. “Put it in the bank until you need it.”
“No, you put it in the bank and give it to me when I ask for it.” She began reading the card. “Oh, you wrote me a poem.”
I sighed and stuck the money in my wallet. “Don’t read it out loud.”
“I’ll wait ’til your sister gets here.” She put the card aside and began to prepare her infamous fruit salad.
“So, who is this Jameson Stevens?” I asked, inconspicuously examining her apartment for evidence of his stay.
“I told you. He is my companion. He lives in the building. And he accompanies me to book readings, to the museums, all the places your father never wanted to go. We have a good time.”
“Not too good a time, I hope,” I added, half jokingly.
“Be careful what you’re implying, young man. I’m a Christian,” she scolded, but then she smiled. “How about you? Have you met anybody? Have you even tried to find a good woman?”
“Mama,” I warned.
“Oh, you can ask about my business, but I can’t ask about yours?”
“I met a woman,” I admitted softly before I could stop myself. “We went out for coffee.” I didn’t know why I mentioned Eva. Perhaps because I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. I hardly ever discussed my relationships with my mother. I gave her bits and pieces about certain women I had dated, and over the years, I brought a couple of them to family picnics, barbecues, and other informal gatherings, but I never actually brought one home “to meet Mama.” Not only because I knew no woman would ever be good enough for me in my mother’s eyes, but because despite this, she would probably hear wedding bells if she saw me with one woman more than once. I knew that if I were to introduce Eva to her, they would probably hit it off, given the religion connection, and that made me very uneasy.
“Coffee? Hmmm. What’s she like?”
“She’s uh … she’s … tough, funny. Smart. And, uh … Puerto Rican.”
“Puerto Rican?” She said this like I had said she was a Martian.
“Yes.”
“Puerto Rican? Does she speak English?”
“Of course she does. She was born here.”
My mother, while profoundly spiritual, was adamant about interracial or interfaith relationships—not that she was prejudiced, she was always quick to point out. She truly believed that the more people had in common, the more likely the compatibility. She still believed my sister’s marriage broke up, not because of infidelity, but because she had married a Korean man. The fact that he had been a Catholic, which my mother considered different from Christian, was just one more reason why their marriage failed—in Mama’s eyes.
In the past few days since Eva and I had coffee, I thought about her quite a bit and found myself feeling stupid for doing so. It had been a long time since I had allowed a woman to creep into my thoughts so often and for such a minor encounter as having coffee. One would have thought I had had sex for the first time. Whupped was not something I have ever been and it did not fit me well.
I had not planned to visit her church, but something woke me early the previous Sunday and so I went. I tried to remember the last time I had stepped foot in a church other than the biannual holy days, and I vaguely remembered going back around the time when I was sick, when I begged God not to let me die.
The Community Church of Christ was filled to capacity by the time I arrived and I was forced to stand in the back with the other latecomers and irregular attendees. I had passed the church many times on my route to and from work but had never given it a second glance. Churches had become part of the regular urban landscape, as ordinary as storefronts and gas stations. As Eva had promised, I found the pastor’s voice riveting in a subdued sort of way. Although there seemed to be a lot of emphasis on marriage in his sermon, his delivery was what captivated me, the way he held the audience’s attention without getting all worked up. From the back, I could see only the backs of people’s heads and I took note of the varying hair colors and textures reflecting the multicultural congregation, something I had never witnessed. I had attended all-Black churches all my life, and been to a couple of all-White churches for the weddings of old college friends and coworkers. This was an eye-opening experience.
When the pastor announced altar call, one of the ushers turned to me and asked, “Do you know Jesus?” My first impulse was to ask him, Does anyone really know Him? But instead I just nodded slightly, uncertain what “knowing” Jesus entailed. Did I believe He existed or was He a constant presence in my life? I felt very self-conscious and out of place, and then I began to panic, afraid someone would discover I was a visitor and drag me to the altar. I was one of the first ones out the door.
“She’s a Christian,” I added.
“Hmmm. Is she Christian-Christian, or Catholic?” she asked suspiciously. “You know a lot of Hispanics are Catholic.”
“I think the preferred term is ‘Latino.’ She’s Evangelical, I think.”
“Well, that’s good,” she said approvingly. “Maybe she’ll get you to go to church.”
As my eyes wandered around my mother’s living room, I tried not to look at the framed pictures on the walls and tables, because my father was in almost every single one: my sister and I as children, sitting on his lap; my father and I at my high school graduation, which he attended in a wheelchair; my mother and sister at his hospital bed at home during his last days when he resembled a famine victim. More prominent was the eleven-by-fourteen oil painting my mother had commissioned after his death, a portrait of him when he was young and suave and eerily resembled me. It hung over his old raggedy La-Z-Boy Every time I looked at his hazel eyes and sly smile, all I could think about was his betrayal and the lie he had lived.
I looked away from the photos and settled my eyes on a pile of magazines on the end table. On top was an issue of Diaspora, the magazine Eva had mentioned. I picked it up and saw it was last month’s issue and turned to the table of contents; there was Eva’s name, next to the article, “Bringing G-O-D Back to Schools After 9–11.”
“When did you start reading this?” I asked my mother.
She looked up and shrugged. “They’ve been sending me free copies. It’s pretty good. I might start subscribing.”
I turned to the article and started reading to get a feel of Eva’s writing style. It was more in depth than the newspaper editorial and emphasized her objectivity, knowledge of politics, and the Bible.
“Are you coming with me next week to visit your father?” I heard my mother ask as I tried to concentrate.
My jaw tightened. “No.”
“Why not?”
“I’m trying to read,” I replied sternly, trying not to get upset with her. “You know I don’t believe in visiting graves.”
“Love, at some point, you’re going to have to forgive your father.”
“He’s dead. You can’t forgive dead people,” I said, stressing the “dead” each time.
“Sure you can. He’s hanging over you like a bad spirit. You’re still angry with him and your anger is keeping
you from committing yourself in a relationship. You keep bouncing from woman to woman with no plans to settle down just because—”
I looked up at her without bothering to cover up my irritation. “Mama, I haven’t been with a woman since— You know what, I’m not having this discussion with you. Not today.”
“’Cause you know I’m right—”
The doorbell buzzed and I happily jumped up. It was Jade and the kids. After recently divorcing her husband, Jade would be prime fodder for my mother’s nit-picking. It didn’t matter that Jade ran a successful catering and wedding coordinator business, or that she was studying for her real estate license; she was a divorced woman and single mother, the equivalence of a fallen woman in my mother’s eyes. “Hurry,” I whispered into the intercom and buzzed her in.
I opened the door and walked out into the hallway to greet them when they got off the elevator.
“Unc-Adam, Unc-Adam!” Kia and Daelen screamed my name as if it were one word.
I scooped up my niece and nephew in each arm and mimicked their munchkin voices, “Unc-Adam!” At four and three, they were at the age where they were still cute and not yet annoying.
“She starting already?” Jade whispered in my ear, kissing my cheek. I nodded. My baby sister looked like a teenager in her bare midriff top and low-riding, hip-hugging jeans, which she pulled up to hide her exposed bellybutton from our mother. She had recently cut her long hair into a chin-length bob and colored it a very light brown, all of which my mother had criticized. Jade proceeded toward Mama for the obligatory hug and kiss. “I know you don’t eat cake, Mama, but I bought one anyway. My kids associate birthdays with cake, not fruit and salad. Sorry.” I could see Mama scrutinizing her, ready to attack.