Something She Can Feel

“Okay, but I just don’t understand why he walked off like that.” I looked back down the street. He was gone now. “Anyway, I’d better get going. I have to meet Billie.” I looked at my watch.

“Give her my love,” my mother said, asking not one more question about where we were meeting or what we were doing. This was more than a rarity, but a welcomed departure I was in no position to question.

“Okay,” I said quickly.

We traded pleasant kisses and departed.

In the car ride home to meet Billie and take the pregnancy tests, the discussion I had with my mother reverberated throughout my mind. Here, I’d signed up to start a new life and it seemed I had no clue how I fit into my own. Now how was that? How was I thirty-three and so unsure about everything around me? I wanted to put on my high-heel shoes, click around confidently like Kayla, chasing love and life like I knew exactly where I wanted to be. When I was a teenager, I dreamed of being bold like that. Of just doing what I wanted to do and not caring about what other people thought. But at some point, I just went numb and accepted less from myself.

“That’s how life’s lined up,” Jr said to me when I was sitting in the passenger seat of his car after he’d been sent to get me from a party in shack town my parents specifically told me I couldn’t attend when I was fourteen. Billie was in the backseat and we both had our arms folded over our chests, angry at the world that he’d barged in and embarrassed us. “You can’t go acting however you want out in public. You’re a wild child, Journey, but you’ll learn that people don’t like to see you step out of line.”

And he was right. After years of being kicked in place, I realized that I was just happier when people liked to see me. I hated to think about that. How I’d learned to

stand in line and like it. How I’d been numbed.

But was my mother right? Was I ... was Kayla ... seeking apples that weren’t sweeter than the ones we had?

If being a happy adult meant being thirty-three with a mortgage, husband, tenured job, and loving family and friends, then I’d done that. I was something my family could be proud of, healthy and as happy as I’d expected I could be in my grown mind. Yes, I still had unfulfilled fantasies and got tired of being where I was being, but in no story I knew had an adult not felt that way. It seemed that, like my mother said, people were always just chasing something else. Maybe she was right.

The Storyteller

June 23, 2008

Afternoon in the Sky

“Were you pregnant?” Kweku asked, sitting up impatiently. The dignified demeanor he maintained when we boarded the plane at sunrise in Accra had now been reduced to that of a high school girl sitting in the bleachers, listening to the latest gossip. “What happened at the house with Billie and what was going on with that deacon at the restaurant? Did you ask your mother about it again?”

It was early afternoon. And the flight attendants announced that we were halfway to a layover in Amsterdam. Kweku and I eased into our routine as neighbors, chatting and passing snacks and drinks along when the flight attendants did their rounds. The baby a few rows back was crying again, but we’d been in the air for a long time now and Kweku and I joked that she must be wondering why on God’s earth her mother still had her on that plane. “Let me off,” we joked, translating her cries.

Kweku was a great listener and even though he was a man, I felt so comfortable sharing even the most intimate things with him—some things that two months ago, I wouldn’t have dreamed of uttering to another person beyond Billie. But here I was, not giggling or covering my mouth, but sharing my story like a grown woman and knowing deep down that this was a good thing. I needed to hear my story. To remind myself of how things were before that plane touched down. In this way, I guessed Kweku wasn’t a friend or even the guy who was just sitting next to me on the plane. He was an ear. And I really needed someone to listen.

“No, I wasn’t pregnant,” I said. “Billie and I did all fourteen of those tests and each time we saw a ‘negative.’ ”

Kweku repositioned himself worriedly.

“I wasn’t upset,” I said, patting his arm. “It was odd, but when I realized I wasn’t pregnant, I felt kind of relieved. Like ... maybe it wasn’t meant to be or ... maybe it wasn’t time yet. Evan and I hadn’t been trying long and if we really wanted a baby, it would come. God would see to it. I had to trust that.”

“Faith is sometimes the only thing that can get you through times like that.”

“That and a little uncertainty,” I said. “Maybe God knew I needed a little time.”

“So what did Ms. Billie have to say about it?” Kweku asked. He seemed to like hearing about her.

“She’s my best friend, so she had my back either way. We hugged and she said it would be okay. But really, I think she knew what I was thinking inside about it. Your friends tend to know what you’re really feeling—even if they don’t say it aloud.”

Kweku turned and looked through the sliver of space between our seats at a white man who’d been listening, I was sure, to most of my story. Each time I lowered my voice, I saw him nod forward. And sometimes, when we were laughing, I heard a chuckle come from behind.

“Are you okay ?” Kweku asked the man gruffly.

“Yes.” He responded and turned his head as if to say he was no longer listening to us, but I knew better.

“Anyway,” Kweku went on. “I’m afraid to ask, but what about the deacon?”

“At the time, I just kept thinking of reasons why my mother would be meeting with Deacon Gresham. I mean, it was clear something was going on. My mother was no liar and ‘lie’ was written all over her face. And then when I got to the house, I ran it past Billie and she reminded me of what Deacon Gresham did for a living.”

“What?”

“He’s a divorce attorney. One of the biggest in the city. And if my mother was meeting up with him for lunch ...”