Take Her Man

“Mom, you’re going to get us killed,” I said, holding on to the glove compartment. Thank God for seat belts.

“Well, like I was saying”—she readjusted herself in her seat—“I know you get mad at me, but there’s a reason why I’m so hard on you with these men.”

“Why, Mom?”

“It’s because I know what you’re worth,” she said. She looked over at me again. “And I don’t mean money. I know what your heart is worth. And I don’t want you to accept any man who doesn’t know your worth. Do you understand me?” She paused. “I know it’s hard for you, Troy. You see these men out here and they seem like they’re everything you want—in more ways than one…”

“Mom!” I put my hand over my forehead. This was almost as painful as our sex talk when I was fifteen.

“I’m serious, Troy.” She laughed. “My point is, there are a lot of men out there, but you have to be selective.”

“I know.”

“Yeah, I know how you and your friends rate men.” We both laughed. “But that’s not what I mean. See, you can find a man with a good upbringing, a great career, and lots of money, but if he doesn’t know what you’re worth, then he’s not worth your time. You understand?”

“Yes.”

“Now, that’s why I don’t like this Julian,” she went on. I exhaled and looked away. She was cursing him just like she had Champ. “No, hear me out, Troy. Julian doesn’t know your worth. What kind of man just walks away from a beautiful, intelligent, warm woman like you? Saying he needs time?” I couldn’t believe my father had told her everything I said about the breakup! “I’ll tell you, Troy: a foolish one who’s so worried about his own worth and everything else going on in the world that he can’t see what’s right in front of him.”

“I know. You’re right, Mom,” I said, fighting to hold back tears. I didn’t want to hear it, but she was right.

“And your grandmother told me all about your little plan to get him back,” she added. I almost had a heart attack. Grandma Lucy—a traitor, too? “And that’s okay. You’re young, and your ego makes you do crazy things when you’re young sometimes. I was there too myself when I was your age. But listen to me good, Troy.” She slowed the car down and locked her eyes on me. “You can’t ever make a man do something he didn’t want to do in the first place. No woman has ever made a man do something he didn’t already want to do. Now, when and if your plan goes as you want it to and Julian comes back to you, I want you to ask yourself one question.”

“What, Mom?”

“Ask yourself if you really want him back,” she said, “and if he was worth all of the energy it took to get him. And, Troy, what it will take to keep him. Because the energy you put out to get him, it will take double that to keep him. And you can quote your mother on that.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I said, noticing that her eyes were growing teary too as she watched the other cars around us on the road.

“No problem, baby. That’s just what mothers do—we tell our little girls the truth.” She pat me on the leg warmly as tears began to fall from her eyes.

“Mom? What’s wrong? I was listening. I heard what you said about Julian.” I turned to her.

“It’s not that…I’m just going through something.”

“What is it? Is it Dad?” I was growing concerned. My mother had always been emotional, but something in her eyes was broken, heavy.

“No,” she said. “It’s something I’ve been dealing with on my own. I didn’t want to tell anyone…I couldn’t.” She began crying and wiping her tears as she fought to control the wheel.

“Pull over,” I said, looking to see that there was no one in the lane to our right. I had over an hour before I had to be at the airport, and she was in no condition to drive. She pulled the car over to the side of the road and rested her forehead on the center of the wheel. “What’s going on? Just tell me.”

“I promised myself I wouldn’t tell anyone. Only your father knows.”

“Mom, you’re scaring me.” I kept thinking she was about to tell me about some awful disease she was dying from. I couldn’t take that kind of news, but I had to know.

“Before my father died, I…I…”

“What?” I asked. My grandfather had died of kidney cancer, just hours after his old kidney had been removed and a new one had been inserted. Before the doctor walked out with the bad news, we were all outside the hospital room, crying happily as Grandma Lucy thanked God that he had been spared. While my mother had been quiet, seemingly meditating in her own space, I’d assumed it was because it had been such a long time that my grandfather had been struggling with his illness. For two years, as the cancer progressed, the doctors had searched all over for a kidney that would save him but he had a semi-rare blood type, so even with his money, it was a difficult process. Even my mother tested out, as she’d inherited Grandma Lucy’s blood type and wasn’t a suitable donor. By the time the B-type kidney came in, we were rejoicing and looked forward to Grandpa beating the cancer. But then the doctor came out of the room with the bad news. He wasn’t strong enough; his body had been weakened by two rounds of chemotherapy and he’d passed. “What happened before Grandpa died?” I asked.

“I wasn’t a match. I couldn’t be a donor.

I…I wasn’t his child,” she cried banging on the wheel. “There was so much going on and I just had to watch my own father die. All those years and there was nothing I could do. Just watch.”

“What are you talking about? Not his daughter? He was your father…right?”

“Not according to the blood test.” She looked over at me.

“But you have Lucy’s blood type. Mom, this is crazy.”