The Mothers

by Brit Bennett

  “Why? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Still. You didn’t call to hear all this shit.”

  “It’s your life,” he said, “I want to hear it.”

  She closed her eyes, trying to remember the photos that had hung on the walls. She had passed these pictures every day, but now she only remembered them vaguely—her parents on their wedding day, her mother in a garden, her family at Knott’s Berry Farm. How had she not memorized them? Or maybe she had once but she was beginning to forget. Did the house smell different because her mother’s scent was gone? Or had she just forgotten how her mother smelled?

  —

  THE SHEPPARDS LIVED in a sleepy, sedate neighborhood, one home in a row of identical houses with wavy roofs and canopies of arching palm trees. On the front porch, a brown welcome mat read God Bless This Home—a prayer or an order, anybody’s guess. In the front entrance, tan walls were covered in paintings (two women playing lawn croquet, a funeral procession painting they had seen on The Cosby Show). A mahogany piano that looked too pristine to be played rested against the staircase, and on top of it were carefully arranged family portraits. Pastor and Mrs. Sheppard smiling in front of a chapel on their wedding day, the proud parents posing with their newborn son, and toward the end of the piano, teenage Luke in a cap and gown, glowering at the camera, too cocky to smile.

  The afternoon of the wedding shower, Nadia followed voices into the backyard, where round tables, covered in deep red tablecloths, clustered on the Sheppards’ lawn. The catering crew, a passel of black teenagers in starched white shirts and aprons, ushered around the yard, pouring ice water and lemonade into glass goblets. She spotted Aubrey across the lawn, under a leafy tree surrounded by a circle of women. She wore a white dress swirled with gold that flowed to her knees, her curly black hair hanging to her shoulders, and she was laughing, her hand covering her mouth. It was striking, how perfectly she belonged here.

  Aubrey beamed when she saw Nadia pick her way across the grass. She skipped over to her, throwing her arms around her neck, and their bodies collided, knees knocking.

  “I can’t believe you’re back!” Aubrey said. “I missed you so much.”

  “Me too.” Nadia laughed, feeling silly for hugging in the middle of the yard but unwilling to let go first.

  Aubrey looped an arm through hers and guided her around the party, past women from Upper Room who seemed as shocked to see her again as if she’d floated out to space. Well, look who it is, they said. Others pulled her into hugs and said, more pointedly, well, look who finally decided to come back home. In their eyes, she was a prodigal daughter, worse than that even, because she hadn’t returned home penniless and humbled. A prodigal daughter, you could pity. But she’d abandoned her home and returned better off, with stories of her fascinating college courses, her impressive internships, her cosmopolitan boyfriend, and her world travels. (“Paris?” Sister Willis said, when she’d shared the story. “Well, la-di-da.”) Was she pretentious now? Or had leaving caused an irreparable tear between her and the other women at Upper Room? Or maybe that fissure had always been there and leaving had allowed her to see it. Halfway through the conversation, Mrs. Sheppard wandered over to the circle. She wore a pink skirt suit and heels that sank into the grass as she walked.

  “Welcome back, honey,” she said, patting Nadia’s shoulder.

  Nadia wanted to tell Mrs. Sheppard about all that she’d done in the past four years. Her residence on the dean’s list, her internships, her trips abroad. She’d gone away and made something of herself and she wanted Mrs. Sheppard to know. But just as quickly as she’d said hello, the first lady was gone, bustling around the yard, chatting with the other guests. She didn’t care about anything Nadia had accomplished. Any interest she might have held in her had faded years ago, as soon as Nadia ceased working for her. So Nadia swallowed her stories. She allowed Aubrey to drag her to another group of women, and when the tour ended, she made her way to a table where Monique and Kasey were seated. She hugged both of them, grateful for their familiarity.

  “Enjoying the spectacle?” Monique said.

  “Don’t do that,” Kasey said.

  “What? Is it not? I mean, waiters? Who is she trying to impress, really?”

  But who did Mrs. Sheppard need to impress? No, Mrs. Sheppard had thrown Aubrey this bridal shower out of love. Nadia imagined Mrs. Sheppard and Aubrey poring over wedding catalogues together, Mrs. Sheppard at the dress fitting, watching Aubrey twirl in the mirror, how the first lady might have teared up a little at the vision, how proud she felt that her son had found a good girl—the right girl. How happy she must be, now that she had finally won the daughter she’d always wanted. At lunch, Nadia picked at her food before scraping the remains into the trash can. She felt claustrophobic in the sweeping backyard and went inside to the bathroom upstairs, where she sat on the fuzzy toilet seat cover and texted Shadi. Miss you, stinky. He should be getting off work soon, and she wished she were back in Ann Arbor, lounging on his beat love seat or drinking coffee at a sidewalk table on Main Street, watching people pass by. She didn’t belong here anymore, not the way Aubrey did.

  She had started back downstairs when she spotted Luke’s bedroom. From the hallway, it looked different, and as she eased closer, she saw that it had been converted into a guest room. No longer Luke’s room, the walls covered in football posters, a twin bed pushed against the window. She remembered sneaking into that room, how she’d always felt strange undressing in his childhood bedroom, tossing her bra atop a desk papered with red and blue footballs, slipping out of her jeans near a shelf that held Pop Warner trophies, kissing him while Jerry Rice, plastered above his bed, watched.

  “I don’t live here anymore.”

  Behind her, Luke Sheppard appeared in the doorway. He looked cleaned up, his stubbly cheeks shaven, and he even wore his glasses, a rectangular pair he’d bought from the drugstore. “I only wear them when I need to look smart,” he’d told her once, carefully folding them into his breast pocket. She hadn’t understood. Didn’t he always want to look smart?

  “I moved out,” he said. “Got a place by the river.”

  “I don’t care,” she said, embarrassed that he knew she did. “I have a boyfriend.”

  “I know. The African guy.”

  “He’s American,” she said. “His parents are from Sudan.”

  He shrugged. She hated how casual he seemed, how freely he commented on her life when they hadn’t spoken in years. Anything he knew, he’d learned from Aubrey, and she felt betrayed, imagining the two of them in bed together, chatting about her. He stepped inside the room, leaning on a wooden cane, and she looked away as he hobbled past her, plopping on a bed that squeaked under his weight.

  “You wanna know something?” he said.

  “What?”

  “I used to steal shit from church,” he said. “When I was little.”

  “Liar.”

  “Dead ass.”

  “Like what, then?”

  “Anything. Just to see if I could.”

  To prove it, he reached under the bed and pulled out a maroon prayer book with a cracked leather cover. He’d stolen it from Mother Betty’s piano bench in the sixth grade. Sister Willis had sentenced him to thirty minutes of prayer in the sanctuary for talking in class, and he’d explored the church instead, lying on his belly to peek under pews, toeing at the fringes in the carpet, stomping around the altar. The piano bench had fascinated him—a seat that stored things? There must be something important and secretive inside, like the fake books where movie villains stored guns. Instead of the weapon arsenal he’d hoped for, there were only loose sheets of music, ballpoint pens, and the prayer book.

  “That’s my mother’s,” she stammered.

  She hadn’t seen the book in years. Her mother used to keep it on her nightstand, but one day, it’d gone missing. She’d searched for it
all over the house for weeks.

  “I know,” Luke said.

  “She thought she lost it.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Why the fuck didn’t you give it back?”

  “I felt bad.”

  “So you just kept it?”

  “I forgot all about it,” he said. “I found it when I was moving. I had to get it to you.”

  He handed the book to her. She sat next to him, flipping through the silvery, thin pages. Hymn names floated past her eyes and when she leaned closer, the book smelled like dust and leather and, faintly, her mother’s perfume. She felt her eyes water, and Luke’s hand, warm on her back.

  —

  THE WEEKEND BEFORE THE WEDDING, a reply from Aubrey’s mother finally arrived, written on the back of the invitation she’d sent: We can’t make it. But congratulations! She stood in front of the mailbox, reading the message once, twice, then three times, before she slid the card back into the envelope and threw it in the trash can. When she stepped inside, her sister was sitting on the couch, watching the news. Aubrey slipped off her shoes and climbed on the couch beside her, laying her head in Monique’s lap.

  “She’s not coming,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  “That’s it?”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “I don’t know.” She chewed her lip, watching as a blonde reporter interviewed a firefighter in front of a smoldering house. “Is it so stupid that I wanted her at my wedding?”

  “No,” her sister said. “Who wants to say they hate their mother?”

  She closed her eyes, feeling her sister brush her hair back from her forehead. The summer before her senior year of high school, Aubrey had visited her sister in Oceanside for the first time. At the airport, Mo had met her at the baggage claim, waving wildly as if Aubrey wouldn’t recognize her otherwise. She looked the same—petite, her hair cut short the way their mother hated—but she’d beamed as she pulled Aubrey in close and said, “Look at you. You’re all grown up now.” Behind Mo, a white woman stood with her hands in her pockets. Late twenties, dirty-blonde hair that looked wet, a smile that looked too much like a smirk. She wore a gray tank top and baggy jeans cuffed at the ankles and she stepped forward, jutting out her hand.

  “Great to finally meet you,” she’d said. “Hope your flight was good.”

  Aubrey said that it was, thank you, and they’d all stood there awkwardly until Mo said, shouldn’t they be going now? She grabbed the rolling suitcase and Kasey lifted the duffel bag off Aubrey’s shoulder. She pretended to struggle under the weight.

  “Oof,” she told Mo. “She is your sister.”

  She seemed like the type who tried to be funny when she felt uncomfortable, and Aubrey vaguely felt like she should laugh, just to relieve everyone. On the drive to their house, they asked her harmless questions about school and her friends, and she offered soft, monosyllabic answers. From the backseat, she could see them exchanging worried glances and at a stoplight, she heard Mo say quietly, “She’s just sleepy.” Like when they were younger and she’d always speak to their mother on Aubrey’s behalf, as if she weren’t actually there.

  She wasn’t, not really. All week, she’d wandered around her sister’s house like a ghost. She felt like she’d left her body behind in her bedroom, under Paul’s hands, his breath hot against her neck, and she was floating around outside of it, always feeling its pull. Her last day in town, her sister had taken her to the beach, where they’d fallen behind a tour group. A bespectacled old man with a fanny pack strapped around his waist told the small crowd about the glory of the Oceanside pier, the longest wooden pier on the West Coast, which had been rebuilt six different times. A storm destroyed the first pier over two hundred years ago, and during low tide, you could still see the remnant woodpiles under the water. The second and third piers were damaged by storms, and when the fourth pier opened in the 1920s, the town threw a three-day-long celebration. Twenty years later, it was leveled by another rainstorm.

  “This pier,” he had said, stomping his foot, “this very pier was dedicated in 1987. A few blinks ago! And in your lifetimes, there’ll be another pier and maybe even another. The storms will come and we’ll keep on building.”

  Later, once they’d reached the end of the pier, she’d asked her sister if she could live with her. She’d squeezed Mo’s hand and whispered, please don’t make me go back. But during that slow walk behind the tour group, she’d stared down at the wood beneath her feet, exhausted just imagining the city continually rebuilding a pier that would eventually fall into the ocean. There was nothing special about the pier aside from its length, no boardwalk or Ferris wheel, just a tackle shop marking the midway point and at the end, a diner. The pier was nothing but a long piece of wood that kept crumbling until it was rebuilt, and years later, she wondered if that was the point, if sometimes the glory was in rebuilding the broken thing, not the result but the process of trying.

  The day after her mother’s reply had arrived, Aubrey met Nadia at the beach. She lay in the sand, propping herself up by her elbows, while beside her on the blanket, Nadia rolled over onto her back. She wore a tiny black bikini that made every man stare, but she seemed indifferent to the attention, as if she were so accustomed to captivating strangers that it hardly registered. Of course she was used to it, just look at her. Since high school, she had grown leaner, her clothes simpler and her makeup less dramatic in a way that only seemed to highlight how naturally beautiful she was. Aubrey felt so pudgy beside her, she couldn’t even bring herself to take off the baggy T-shirt and shorts she’d worn over her swimsuit. Had she always felt like the ugly friend? Or was this new? Was she just feeling insecure because of what she’d accidentally witnessed at her bridal shower? She’d tried to tell herself it was nothing, but she still couldn’t get the image of Nadia and Luke talking in bed out of her mind. Not in bed, really, but on his bed, as casual and intimate as if they were old pals. She’d left her guests in the yard to search for him, and when she saw the two of them in his room, she froze in the hallway, as if she were the one interrupting their party. She’d felt terrified every time she’d grown closer to Luke—the first time he held her hand, or kissed her, or invited her to cuddle in his bed. But Nadia looked comfortable. This closeness wasn’t new to them. They shared some sort of past together, and the fact that neither had mentioned it hurt the most. An unspeakable past was the worst kind.

  “What happened with you and Luke?” she said.

  Nadia shifted. Her eyes were hidden behind big sunglasses, her arm draped across her forehead.

  “What?” she said.

  “I know you guys were involved.”

  She didn’t actually know this, but if she pretended she did, it would give Nadia less room to deny it.

  “A long time ago,” Nadia said. “It was nothing. We hooked up a few times and— You’re not mad, are you?”

  “Why would I be mad? It was nothing, right?”

  She sounded jealous and ugly but she didn’t care. Why had neither of them told her anything? Did they think she was so fragile, she’d crumble at the news?

  “Look, I swear it was nothing,” Nadia said. “I mean, fuck. I haven’t talked to him in years. We just hooked up in high school. Do you know how many guys I hooked up with in high school?”

  She laughed a little at herself, then sat up from the blanket, brushing sand off her stomach. Aubrey saw herself reflected in the black sunglasses—her face almost a pout, her hair smushed from where she’d been lying on it. She felt silly for being upset. Of course Luke had been with other girls. She’d known about his reputation before she’d begun dating him. And high school seemed so far away. She’d had crushes on boys in high school whose names she couldn’t even remember now. To Luke, Nadia had probably just been another conquest. Or maybe she’d been memorable to him. How could she not be? She was beautifu
l and confident and strong. She wouldn’t feel scared just sitting in a man’s bed. She probably wore the types of nighties and lingerie that Aubrey had received from the more brazen of her bridal shower guests, things she knew she would never put on. She would feel like an idiot, standing in front of Luke in some tiny, strappy thing. She didn’t know how to titillate a man. How was she supposed to know what he liked? What if she still felt like jumping out of her skin when he touched her? She clenched her fist again, feeling the sharp relief of her own fingernails.

  —

  THE SUN BEGAN to lower in the sky when two Marines wandered over and tried to goad them into joining a game of volleyball. Both men wore dark swim trunks but their identical buzz cuts gave them away as military. Not just their haircuts but their eagerness. The stocky Latino smiling at Nadia looked too friendly, like all of the young Marines who lingered by the movie theater and the bowling alley, hoping to talk to girls. He bounced on his heels in the sand like a hyper child, his face still dotted with acne scars.

  “Come on, ladies,” the tall black one said. “We need two more players.”

  He was looking at her, Aubrey realized, a direct gaze, the way most men looked at Nadia. She looked away. She always felt nervous around strange men, even though she’d known the man who’d hurt her. If a man who knew you could hurt you, who knew what a man who didn’t might do?

  “I’m not really sporty,” Nadia said.

  “You can be on my team,” the young one said. “I’ll teach you how to play.”

  She smiled. “I know how to play. I’m just not good.”

  “That’s okay too,” he said, smiling back. “I’ll teach you how to play better.”

  His name was JT, which stood for Jonathan Torres. He told them they could call him whichever they liked. He wasn’t exactly handsome but he had an easy smile that seemed to break Nadia down. She toed Aubrey, who was still firmly planted on her blanket.

  “Come on, Aubrey,” she said. “Let’s play.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll just watch.”