My stomach fluttered, and that made me want to slap myself. Not because I ever thought I was going to do anything, even if Don Juan oozed all kinds of sexiness. But in the middle of my time of solitude, in the middle of me needing to focus on how I could get my happy back, the last thing I needed was some hot and spicy man messing up what I needed to do. “I’m sure you make an amazing friend, but I am very much married.”
“And very much alone,” he added without hesitation as if he’d said these same words dozens of times before.
Don Juan. I said, “But I’m still married.”
Again, he shrugged with just one shoulder. “What happens in the DR stays in the DR.”
“I’m flattered, Don Juan, but no.” I shook my head.
He feigned a pout. Then he grabbed a napkin, removed a pen from his pocket, and said, “Okay, but here’s my number,” he scribbled digits onto the paper, “just in case you change your mind. Or maybe we can go dancing later.” He held up his hands. “No strings attached.”
He held the napkin out for me, and it dangled in the air. It felt like we were in some kind of face-off; who would blink first.
I took the napkin from his hand. He smiled before he stood, then turned and walked away. I waited until he was out of my sight before I tucked the napkin into my purse.
I opened the door to my room just in time to hear my cell phone ringing. I didn’t even realize I’d left it in the hotel room. That, in and of itself, was huge. The DR had to have been working its magic if I’d just spent the last two hours not even missing it.
I grabbed the phone and looked down to see my daughter’s smiling face on my screen.
“Hello,” I said.
“Mom,” she exclaimed without bothering to say hello. “I’ve been calling you! I was starting to get worried. What’s going on?”
“Hello, sweetheart. How are you?” I set my room key on the table and removed my shawl, throwing it across the bed.
“Horrible. Dad said you weren’t coming home. That you’re extending your vacation,” she whined.
The peace that had just begun to seep into my soul was being pulled away from me just by Anika’s tone. She knew that I couldn’t stand to hear a nineteen-year-old whine. But all my chastising never did any good.
“Yes. I’m taking some extra time,” I said, keeping my voice as even as I could, her hint to do the same.
“But why?” she said, sounding as if she were two years old.
“Because I need it,” I replied, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Dad’s upset. He wants you to come home,” Anika said.
I knew this conversation was necessary, but I simply wasn’t ready to have it with my child.
“I’m not trying to upset your father, or you, for that matter. This is something I need to do.”
“Oh my God,” she said as if she’d just seen a building on fire. “I’ve heard stories about this. Women travel off to some island and meet a young pool boy. Am I going to have a twenty-four-year-old pool boy as a stepfather?”
That was a joke, right? Except that this was Anika, so I knew that it wasn’t. This girl should’ve majored in theater instead of international politics because she was a drama queen. I rubbed my temples at those ridiculous words from my dramatic child. I was two thousand miles away from home, but I could picture her wide-eyed, her curly auburn natural curls bouncing as she paced her bedroom near hysteria.
“Mom,” Anika shouted. “Oh, God. Are you there?”
“I’m here. First, you don’t have to yell, and no, I have not met a young pool boy, so please calm down. How are things going, anyway?” I asked, trying to change the subject.
“Horrible,” she cried. “I miss you.”
Oh! My daughter missed me. Maybe . . .
“I need you, Mommy.”
Oh! My daughter needed me. Maybe I should . . .
“You have to come home to get all my stuff ready for me to go back to school. There is so much that I need because you know they moved my room to a single so I want to completely redecorate. And you know at Spelman, I have to be on point with everything and . . .”
Her words were like a reality bolt of lightning, deafening me for a moment. This was exactly why I had stayed here. “Sweetie,” I broke into the conversation she was having that I wasn’t listening to, “I made sure you had everything you needed prior to my leaving, but I promise to be back in more than enough time to take you back to school. Your dad bought the plane ticket weeks ago.”
“But what if I need something before then?” she cried.
“Then . . . you’ll walk down the hall to our bedroom,” I began, slowing my cadence, “tap on the door, and tell your father what you need. He is quite capable of handling anything. Or . . . your grandmother is there and you can go to her. She would love to help you. Or . . . you’ll get in that Jeep Wrangler we bought and you’ll drive to the store and get whatever you need yourself.”
She sighed like none of my suggestions would ever work and I was the one being difficult. “Mom, you know I don’t want to be bothered with all of that stuff. That’s your thing, not mine.”
I pulled the phone away from my ear to stare at it for a second. Then I told her, “It’s my thing only because it’s the only way anything will get done. But you know what I discovered? I have an intelligent family who are more than capable of taking care of everything themselves. And you’re part of that family who needs to start doing these things for yourself.”
“Mom, what in the world am I supposed to do?”
“You created those monsters.”
“I already told you, and so I’m going to end this call now,” I said, wanting to return to that space of peace.
“But, Mom—”
“I’ll be home in a few days, sweetheart.”
“But Mom—”
“Goodbye, Anika. I love you.” I tapped the screen, ending the call.
“You created those monsters.”
Roxie’s words played in my head again. She always said that, always told me that I was creating monsters instead of eagles who wanted to soar. She’d told me that by doing everything for them, I was stifling their growth. That I wasn’t preparing them to fly; I was just clipping their wings.
As I thought about Anika’s call, all I could say was that she was this way because of me. She whined because of me, she didn’t shop for herself because of me, she didn’t even go to her father because of me. Both she and Eric hadn’t even been pressed about getting their driver’s licenses because I took them everywhere they wanted to go. My family was more than capable, but I’d crippled them.
I bounced up from the bed. I wasn’t going to just sit in this bedroom and think about all the things I was trying to get away from. But even as I changed into my swimsuit and went down to the beach, thoughts of my family stayed with me. Even as I found an umbrella on the beach and laid my beach towel beneath it, I couldn’t stop thinking about how all that disturbed me had been caused by me. I’d built this house over the twenty years that I’d been married.
“I didn’t come out here to think about this,” I whispered to myself as I leaned back on the towel. But even as I pulled out the novel I was reading, my thoughts returned to home and what my life had been like for all of these years.
“Mom,” Anika’s voice came into the kitchen before she did. “Did you wash my volleyball uniform?” Anika asked, pressing against the island where I stood.
But before I could even answer her, my son dashed in and jumped in front of Anika as if she wasn’t there. “Mom, I don’t feel like going to school today.” He grabbed his neck and released a pitiful cough. “My throat hurts. I think I have Ebola.”
My son was only ten, yet in his mind, Eric had had every disease known to man.
“You didn’t have Ebola last night when you were up playing Nintendo.”
“But really, Mom,” he coughed again, “I’m dying. My throat. Are you gonna let me just die?” He staggered backward as if he w
ere about to fall out.
I reached into the basket in the center of the kitchen island. “Here.” I tossed a tin of Sucrets to him. “Take one of those and go finish getting dressed.”
Eric sucked his teeth but turned and left me alone with his sister.
As I reached for the loaf of bread, Anika said, “He’s so rude. But, Mom, what about my uniform? I can’t find it. Please don’t tell me that you forgot to wash it again.”
My hand was inside the bread loaf and it froze right there. I gave my eight-year-old a hard stare, but she didn’t back down. “When have I ever not washed your uniform?”
“Remember that time?”
I held up my hand. “Anika, I’m not going to do this with you. Your uniform is in your bedroom.”
“But I can’t find it,” she whined. “I need you to help me look for it.”
I tossed the bread onto the plate in front of me. “Really, Anika? You want me to stop making your lunch and help you do something that you can do alone?”
“But, Mom . . .”
I inhaled, but before I could say another word, Charles strolled into the kitchen. “Babe, this tie or this one?” he said, holding up a red and a navy tie.
“The red one,” I said, as I slapped turkey onto two slices of bread. “Red is a power color.”
“I knew that.” He paused. “But wait, you don’t like this one?”
I didn’t miss a beat as I spread mayonnaise on the other two slices. “I love it, but haven’t you noticed that whenever you ask me, I’m always going with the power color?”
“Mom, my uniform.”
“Okay, Anika,” I said as I dumped her sandwich and Eric’s into baggies. “I’ll help you find your uniform.”
“Thanks,” she said, as she ran out of the kitchen.
“Thanks, babe,” Charles said before he kissed my cheek and walked out behind our daughter.
I sighed. A moment of peace, until . . .
“Mom!” Anika screeched. “Bailey peed on the floor.”
I sighed as I reached into the pantry for two bags of chips. “Then clean it up, Anika. Bailey is your dog.”
“Ewww, you want me to go to school smelling like dog pee? Yeah, no.”
Instead of arguing, I packed their lunches, then even though I was already wearing my dress for work, I snatched a paper towel, crouched down and wiped up the dog pee, then grabbed the Swiffer WetJet and ran it over the floor.
“Mom!”
I dashed upstairs and in three seconds flat showed Anika where I’d hung her volleyball uniform in the front of her closet.
“Oh wow, I didn’t even see it. Thanks, Mom.” Anika hugged me. “You’re super.” She giggled. “Get it . . . Supermom.”
As I rushed into my bedroom to get my shoes, my cell phone rang and my supervisor’s name popped up. I contemplated ignoring it, decided against it, and pressed Talk.
“Hey, Karen,” I said as I slipped into my pumps.
“Good morning, Aja.” She sounded her usual stressful self. I used to think it was her being extra, but after twelve years on the job as a social worker, I got it; I was stressed most days, too. “I need you to go by the Martins’ house. There was an incident last night with their foster child.”
I sighed as I motioned for the kids to come on. “I hate going over there,” I said as I grabbed my purse, kissed Charles’s cheek, then rushed into the hallway. “I thought when I got promoted, I wouldn’t have to make home visits anymore,” I said, trotting down the stairs. At least one of my children was downstairs, though the way Anika was slouched on the sofa, playing some game on her phone, it didn’t look like she had any plans for school. I pointed toward the garage and mouthed, “Let’s go,” before I turned my attention back to Karen.
“I know, but you know, budget cuts,” Karen said. “You know we’re down and there’s nothing we can do.”
“Mom, I don’t want to wait in the car. It’s gonna be a long time ’cause Eric went back to sleep.” Anika pouted as she stomped toward the door.
“I have to go, Karen. I’ll handle it right after I drop my kids off.”
“I really need you to get over there,” she said. “Your husband can’t drop them off for you?”
Inside, I laughed and I wanted to fill Karen in on the joke so that she would laugh with me. Yeah, my husband was a great father, except when it came time to run our kids around. He’d insisted on private school, yet I was the one who had to take them and pick them up—even though we both worked full-time. But that was another thing Roxie said was my fault and that I should make Charles carry the burden of child-rearing, too.
But I just felt like it was my job, so I told Karen, “I got it. It won’t take much time at all. I’ll drop the kids and will be at the Martins’ in less than an hour.”
“Thanks. Girl, I don’t know how you balance it all, but I give you major props.”
I opened my eyes and peered into the sky that was bright with the sun that was rising to its high noon point. Reaching for my bottle of water, I took a long sip, but that didn’t clear my mind. All I could do was think about how many of my days were like the one I’d just remembered. Roxie used to call it the Clayton Chaos, and she warned me that it would get old at some point.
“You’re going to break sooner or later.”
I’d always laughed her comments off. But it seemed that she’d been right. It seemed my sooner and later had finally arrived. Even though the chaos wasn’t of the same magnitude, I was broken.
It seemed crazy that I’d waited until the kids were out of the house to finally reach this point. But though they were grown and gone—yet still demanding—it seemed like Charles had picked up that slack. He seemed even more helpless:
“Honey, where’s my other shoe?”
“Baby, did you drop my suits off at the cleaners?”
“Sweetheart, can you call the dealership and find out when I can take the car in for servicing?”
All of that on top of working at one of the most demanding and depressing jobs in the world, a social worker for the Harris County Department of Human Services and Child Protective Services. I knew they were probably losing their minds at my absence, but that had been the first thing I decided I couldn’t worry about.
Though my family knew how stressful my job was, when it came to taking care of home, no one seemed to care. It was as if everyone just expected me to effortlessly balance it all. I used to find balance in the solitude of painting. Like my time with my mother. That had been my “me” time. But I guess when you have a family, “me” becomes “us.”
Painting and sketching had been a love of mine since I was ten years old, but it was a discarded dream, a gift that I hadn’t used—because I needed a stable job to take care of my siblings since our father had gone to prison. Then I’d gotten married and had kids, and everything that they wanted, all of their hobbies, had become more important than mine.
“Aja, sweetheart, Anika is crying for you.”
I had just sketched the outline of a little girl being pushed on the swings at the park and was looking forward to filling in the picture with the most vibrant colors of paint when I heard the door creak open and the wails of my four-year-old daughter. I inhaled and turned to my husband, who had just walked into my converted art studio. Anika was on his hip. He set her down, and she came scurrying over to me.
“Mommy, I wanna go to the park!” she cried, as she jumped into my lap and knocked over the easel and the tray of paints. I cringed as an assortment of paints scattered across the picture I’d spent the last three weeks outlining.
“Anika, sweetie, be careful. Look what you did to Mommy’s stuff,” Charles said.
I took a deep breath as I helped her get settled in my lap. “Charles, I thought we agreed that you would keep the kids out of my art studio,” I said.
One of the things I’d loved most about this house when we first bought it was the mother-in-law suite. Not because I had any intention of my mother-in-law coming to
live with us, but I saw it as the perfect place to set up a studio so I could get back into painting. The oversized window provided the perfect natural lighting. I’d decorated the room with plants and modern decor. Inspirational messages were framed and hung on the walls. My eucalyptus scented candles added the perfect touch to finally get the room to be my place of solitude.
Only every time I came in, my family wasn’t far behind. I’d had this conversation with Charles on multiple occasions, but it never seemed to make a difference.
“I told Anika she couldn’t come in here but she kept crying and whining. I tried to explain to her that it’s raining and we can’t go to the park.” He knelt down and started picking up the items Anika had knocked to the floor. “The problem is these kids need some place to play,” he added.
“Why can’t they play in the den?” I asked.
“Because I’m trying to watch football.” I wanted to tell Charles to watch the game on the TV in our room since he’d insisted on that fifty-two-inch in our bedroom, but we’d had that discussion once before and he was adamant that watching sports on the eighty-inch in the den was a completely different experience than the TV in our room.
“Anika, come sit over here and draw,” Charles said, pulling our daughter off my lap and arranging a blank piece of paper and some paints on the floor next to me. “You can sit here and paint with Mommy.”
Before she could get settled, Eric came in with his basketball and Anika jumped up and said, “Basketball, brother. Throw me the ball!”
“Do not dare throw that ball in the house,” Charles said, and massaged his temples before turning to me. “See, this is just ridiculous. There’s just nowhere for them to play when it’s raining.” He looked around my studio. “You know this would be the perfect playroom, with all this open space and natural lighting.”
“Playroom? Yes!” both of my kids squealed in delight.
“Mommy, can we make this a playroom? Please, pretty please?” Eric said. “I can put my video games over there.” He pointed to the back wall.
“And I can put my dollhouse right there,” Anika said, excitement all over her face. “I’m gonna go get my dolls.”
More to Life Page 8