by Tracy Brown
Jada shrugged. “I didn’t write you back because by then I felt like I didn’t need you anymore.” Jada knew that she was speaking bluntly, but she had little concern for whether Edna was disturbed by what she was about to say. “I don’t think you really understand how terrible it was for me being out there all alone.”
Edna was ready to listen, and really wanted to hear what her daughter had been through. “Come in the kitchen, and let’s have some tea or something. We shouldn’t talk in here and wake Sheldon back up.”
Jada agreed, and followed her mother into the kitchen. She sat at the table while Edna got some water boiling for her tea. Edna turned around, and faced her daughter. She knew that this would be the night that it all came pouring out. Sitting before her was her child, who was no longer a little girl. Jada was a woman, with a child of her own. And both women had a lot to reveal. There was a lot to discuss.
“Jada, I want to tell you some things that you may not know. But first I want you to tell me everything that I don’t already know. We both have a lot of catching up to do. For the past few weeks, we’ve been living under the same roof, barely speaking. I want to rebuild our relationship. But before we can do that, we have to clear the air. Tell me everything that you went through. From start to finish. I want to know when you started using cocaine, and everything that happened to you after you left.” Edna sat down, across from her daughter, and waited for her to begin.
Jada took a deep breath, and began her story. She told her everything, from the time she and Shante started smoking crack to the day Jada got arrested while pregnant with Sheldon. She pulled no punches, and held no details back. She revealed to her mother how she’d resorted to selling her body for crack. She told her all about Mr. Charlie, and how he’d taken advantage of her vulnerable state of mind in the midst of her addiction. She told Edna about meeting and falling in love with Born, and how she’d lost him because she couldn’t end her new relationship with drugs. Jada told her mother about the day she’d come looking for her mother, and that she’d known that Edna had been home that day, yet had refused to answer the door. She told her about the bricks she’d stolen from Jamari, and how she’d stashed the money at Ingrid’s house. The only detail she left out was her and Sunny’s roles in Jamari’s murder. That would be one secret Jada would never reveal. She watched as her mother cried tears of regret as she listened to her daughter’s heartbreaking story. Finally, when Jada was done, Edna wiped her eyes, and looked at her child.
“Jada, I know that saying sorry doesn’t fix anything. Sorry is only a word. I can’t change the fact that I left you all alone for so long. And I was home that day you came by to see me. I saw you through the peephole, and I couldn’t bring myself to open the door. I thought I was giving you tough love. I thought that we had years ahead of us, and that forgiveness could come later on. But I see now that I was wrong.” Edna sighed deeply, and shook her head. “I never should have turned my back on you. I gave up. I quit. And I should have had the strength to fight for you. But I didn’t.” She reached across the table, and took Jada’s hand in hers. “When you were in the hospital, and you called me to come and get Sheldon, I wish I had come to get him. I really do. But I think now that maybe you had to come that close to losing him before you realized how glad you were to have him.” Edna sounded like she was speaking from experience. “I have something to tell you, too,” she said. “I found out a couple of years ago that I have breast cancer.”
“What?!” Jada’s face registered pure shock. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Edna shrugged her shoulders. “Well, for one you weren’t talking to me, Jada.”
“But I would have listened if you told me you were sick! Why didn’t you make me listen …”
“I didn’t want your forgiveness just because I’m sick. I wanted us to fix our relationship because we both wanted to. I didn’t want your sympathy. To be honest, I don’t think I deserve it. After all the pain you’ve been through, all by yourself … I have no right to expect you to feel sorry for me.”
Jada began to cry. “So you still have it? Can’t they treat it?”
Edna nodded. “I’ve been through chemotherapy. I’ve had a couple of operations to try and remove it. But it’s spread, and now I have to get a double mastectomy.”
Jada gasped, and the tears flooded down her cheeks. She understood finally why her mother looked so much thinner, why her once long hair was now cut so short. She imagined the pain Edna must have gone through while Jada was busy getting high. Jada imagined her mother’s anguish, knowing that she had to have her breasts removed in order to try and conquer the disease that was ravishing her body. “Mommy, I’m so sorry.” The words got caught in Jada’s throat. Edna got up and walked over to embrace her daughter. They sat and cried together in the kitchen for all the years wasted with anger and bitterness. And when the tears subsided, they looked at one another with so much regret.
Finally, Edna spoke up. “I want to tell you what I’ve learned. Listen to me carefully.” She held Jada’s hands once again. “God is the only reason I’m still standing. He is the only one you need to get you through. Trust Him. I know I’ve made mistakes, and so have you. But the Bible says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Even as messed up as we are, He still loves us. You have a second chance with your son. And I have a second chance with my daughter. But the only way that we can even begin to fix what’s been wrong for so long is if we lean on Him for strength. I’m not asking you to make a change overnight. But I will tell you this. You are not strong enough to beat this addiction by yourself. I know that you haven’t used drugs in a while. But every day there will be hardship and pain, and you will be tempted to go back to the one way you know to numb that pain. The only one who can give you the strength to fight it and stay clean is God. That’s your only hope. You have to pray, and trust that He will clean you up, and help you stand. I’m a witness, Jada. When I went to the Lord, I was a weak and broken woman who couldn’t find the courage or the strength to fight the demons in my life. But He changed that. He is my strength. And He will be yours, too. All you have to do is let Him.”
Jada nodded her head, listening to her mother’s advice. She knew that if God could change Edna from the pushover she had once been into the survivor that sat before her now, that He could do the same for her. She hugged her mother, and they began from that evening on to mend their torn relationship. Jada accompanied her mother to church on Sundays, and every night they sat up after Sheldon went to sleep and talked about any- and everything. Every day they added a piece to the puzzle until finally it looked like their relationship might reach completion. It was a dream come true for both women, as they began to become friends as well as mother and daughter. Edna had surgery to remove both breasts, in hopes that the cancer would be completely removed. Jada helped her mother through her recovery, and they shared many laughs and good times in the months that followed. Ava came to spend the weekend once a month, and the three women all enjoyed themselves spoiling Jada’s son. They played cards. They played Bingo for loose change, and baked cakes together, just like the good old days, when they were little girls in Brooklyn. Jada helped her mother cook, and learned all her best recipes. And Ava would brush, cut, and style Edna’s hair. They had beautiful times. Sheldon was thriving, and Edna’s cancer seemed to be in remission. It seemed as if they might get the fresh start they all needed as a family.
In June of the year 2000, the court deemed Jada a fit parent for Sheldon. She no longer had to submit to visits from Administration for Children’s Services, and she was officially Sheldon’s sole custodial parent. Jada knew that she had gotten a second chance, and she thanked God for it every day. Sheldon was almost two years old, and he was such a smart and beautiful child. Jada loved him beyond measure. She used the money she’d gotten from sheisting Jamari, and bought herself a house in Staten Island, so that she could be close to her mother. She put the rest of her money in the bank. Jada studied for and
passed her GED and was proud of herself. Through one of the members of Edna’s church congregation, Jada got a job working as an entry-level clerk in the accounting department at a consulting firm. She was working full time, Monday through Friday, and it wasn’t long before she pursued her dream of going back to school. She majored in journalism, and focused hard on completing her education. She attended school three nights a week and on Saturdays. She was determined to turn her life around, for good this time, and to make her family proud. Edna watched Sheldon while Jada went to work, and to school. He loved his grandmother to death, and she loved him even more. They sang songs together, and played and danced together, and Edna got the chance to be silly with her grandson, and to forget temporarily about all the pain, both emotional and physical, she’d endured in her lifetime.
Jada graduated from college in May 2005. Edna, Ava, Sheldon, Sunny, Mercedes, and Sunny’s mother, Marisol, all came to cheer her on. As she walked across the stage and accepted her degree, they all cheered loudly for her. They didn’t care how ghetto they sounded to the other people present. Only they knew the depths to which Jada had fallen, and they were proud of her meteoric rise to the top, where she belonged. Tough as she was, Sunny cried tears of joy for her friend. She was proud of Jada, and proud of herself for all that they had managed to accomplish despite their pasts.
Over the next two years, Jada became an assistant editor at a premier black women’s magazine. She and Sheldon were closer than ever, spending their weekends taking road trips with Sunny and Mercedes, or just cuddled up on the sofa watching DVDs. They went to Edna’s house every Sunday for her delicious home-cooked meals. Those Sundays were so special, and Jada found herself anticipating them each week. And then Edna had a relapse. Her cancer had resurfaced, despite the double mastectomy, and she was hospitalized. The doctor told Jada and Ava that Edna’s prognosis was grim. Cloaked in sadness and regret, the sisters held vigil at their mother’s bedside, trying to liven Edna’s cold hospital room with laughter and memories. They would lie with Edna in her hospital bed, and reminisce on the good days, never mentioning the bad days. Despite the pain and the weakness Edna was enduring, those last days with her daughters made her smile. After being hospitalized for three weeks, Edna died, with Jada and Ava at her bedside.
Jada was distraught. Now that she had the relationship with her mother that she had longed for all her life, she was gone. Jada cried not only for the loss of her mother, but for the years they’d lost being mad at each other, and unwilling to forgive. She found solace only in the fact that she’d forgiven her mother before she died. She was happy that Edna had gotten to know Sheldon, and that he had been given the gift of having a grandmother who loved him. Despite all the pain she felt her mother had caused her, Jada missed her terribly. With Ava working on some big legal case in D.C., the responsibility of making Edna’s funeral arrangements fell on Jada’s shoulders. She set about the task of burying her mother, and of burying the pain of her past along with her.
AFTER THE RAIN
37
FORGIVENESS
January 9, 2007
Jada held her head in her hands, as if doing so would prevent her from remembering all the pain of her past. It was all more than she could stand at that moment. The last thing she needed was to be remembering these things, feeling this pain again. Getting the flowers that Born had sent to her, reading his note … it was enough to send her back along all the corridors of her recollection to places she hadn’t visited in years. Jada was overwhelmed with so many emotions. Instinctively, she picked up the phone and called Sunny. Sunny had been her friend for so long. She knew Jada better than anybody. As dependable as ever, Sunny answered on the third ring.
“City morgue. You kill ‘em, we chill ‘em,” Sunny answered, jokingly.
“That’s not very funny, since I’m in the process of burying my mother, Sunny.” Jada’s voice was trembling as she shook her head at her friend’s twisted sense of humor.
“Sorry. I didn’t even think about that. I was only joking, girl. How you holding up?” Sunny asked.
“Not too good.”
“What’s the matter?”
Jada sighed, rubbing her head to try and stop the headache creeping up on her. “I got a package from Born today.”
Sunny didn’t respond right away. Instead, she let Jada’s words linger for a few moments. “Wow. What was it?”
“Some flowers. He sent a note with them, and it didn’t say much. But now I can’t stop thinking about him, and about us. I thought I had dealt with all this shit, but—” Jada’s voice trailed off, as she fought to compose herself.
Sunny listened intently, and heard the pain in her best friend’s voice. “You want me to come over?” she asked.
Jada closed her eyes, and gripped the receiver tighter. “Yeah, could you? I need to get some of this shit off my chest.”
Sunny knew that was exactly what Jada needed. “I’m on my way.”
Born walked into his mother’s apartment and smiled at his favorite girl. She stood in her kitchen, shredding cheese for her famous macaroni. “Wassup, old lady?” he asked playfully, kissing his mother on her round, brown face.
Smiling back at her only child, Ingrid said calmly, “I got your ‘old lady.’” She swatted Born’s hand away as he reached for a piece of cheese. “Don’t come in here trying to eat up this cheese. Go on and look in the fridge and find something.” As Born walked to the refrigerator, and looked around inside for something to nibble on, his mother watched him sideways. She loved to see her only child whenever he walked through her door. He was like a ray of sunshine in her life, and she loved him tremendously. She thought of how proud her husband would have been if he had lived to see his baby boy. No longer a baby, Marquis Graham was a tall young man, solid and well toned. He was always dressed to impress, even if he wasn’t trying to, and his smile could be either mocking or sincere. His brown skin was reminiscent of his father’s caramel complexion, and Ingrid knew that her husband would have been proud.
Born pulled up a chair at the kitchen table, and poured himself a bowl of Froot Loops. He ate his cereal as his mother filled him in on gossip he cared nothing about. He wasn’t thinking about the goings on in the hood at that moment. His mind was on Jada. Born knew that she mast be heartbroken about her mother’s death. When he’d been with Jada, she was never close to her mother. But Born knew that she was hurt by Edna’s absence in her life, and he had no idea whether or not they had reconciled prior to her death. When he’d seen Edna Ford’s obituary in the paper, he couldn’t resist the urge to send his condolences. Thinking about her, even after all this time, made him feel all the love he had tried to suppress for so long. Jada. Her name made his heart pause. Jada had taught Born about love, and about disappointment. She still had a place in his heart.
When Born was in prison, during his conversations with Ace, he realized that he had blamed her for more than just her own addiction. Born had told Ace the whole story of their relationship. Ace had listened, and he asked Born if he was so mad at Jada because of her own mistakes, or because she had repeated his father’s mistakes? That made Born wonder if he should have handled things differently. Should he have gotten her into rehab and loved her out of her addiction? Or was walking away from her the right thing to do? He wasn’t sure. But he knew that he had never been able to forget her. Almost ten years had passed, and Born still thought about her all the time. A song would come on the radio, and he’d remember dancing with her or singing to her. A movie would come on television, and he’d remember her persuading him to watch it with her. Someone would say a phrase that Jada used to say all the time. It seemed that there were reminders of their love everywhere he looked. There had been a time when it hurt to think about her. He had once believed that Jada had quit on him. But he wondered sometimes if it was the other way around.
“I sent Jada some flowers today.” Born said it so matter-of-factly that Ingrid wondered if she’d heard him correctly. She turned
and faced him, placing the cheese on the counter.
“You sent flowers to who?”
Born smiled slightly. “Jada, Ma. Her mother died. I saw the obituary in the newspaper. I don’t know why, but I just felt like I had to send her something to let her know that I know how she feels.”
Ingrid looked at her son. She heard what he wasn’t saying. He made it sound like his concern for Jada was only about the death of her mother and how she must be affected by it. True, Marquis would understand what Jada must be feeling, since he himself had lost a parent. But Ingrid knew that there was more to it than that. She knew her son better than he thought. “How did you find out where she lives?” she asked, continuing the preparation of her macaroni and cheese.
Born sat back in his chair, and cleared his throat. “I called her sister. Ava gave me her address.”
Ingrid stopped making the macaroni again. She turned and looked at her son, and wondered if she should ask her next question. “Her sister? Why are you keeping in touch with Jada’s sister?”
Born shrugged his shoulders. Then, realizing what his mother suspected, he shook his head. “I know what you’re thinking. It’s not even like that, Ma. I never did nothing with Ava. That’s my word. I wouldn’t do that.”
Ingrid scrunched up her lips in disbelief. “Since when wouldn’t you do that? You forget that I know you, Marquis. I know that when you’re hurt, there’s really nothing you won’t do to get back at the person who hurt you. I remember that child who cheated on you back when you were younger. What was her name? Well, whatever her name was, you sure did start screwing her best friend when you found out what she was doing while you were away. Don’t think I forgot.”