Should Have Known Better

If she was capable of acting like that, behaving that way toward a woman she didn’t know and then toward someone she’d slept across the room from for two years, what else was she capable of? What else had she done?

“Mr. Morgan gave me information about a doctor,” my mother said, talking about the lawyer. “I can call if you want.”

“I don’t need a doctor, Mama. I told you and I told him, I don’t need to see a psychologist or psychiatrist or whatever.”

“Now, I know our people don’t commonly go to these doctors, but Mr. Morgan said it’ll be good for you, and considering everything that’s going on—”

“Everything that’s going on? What exactly is going on, Mama?” I asked. “You and Mr. Morgan seem to want me to see this doctor about what’s going on, so what’s going on? You tell me, because I don’t know. Maybe you know. Maybe he knows.”

“I don’t kn—”

“And there it is. You don’t know. And neither does he, so how can you tell me to get help for something neither of you understand? Not one of you! I don’t have my children. My husband is . . . Who’s supposed to fix that? How can they?” I hollered. “They can’t. No one can fix this but me.”

“I still think that maybe you could at least try it. Who knows. With prayer and a little help, you might be able to—”

“Mama, please stop it!” I rattled. “What is it with you? What? Do you believe those test results? Do you believe I’m using drugs?”

“There were three tests,” she answered. “They all said the same thing.”

“But what do I say?”

“I don’t know what you say. You show up at my house. You scream. You run off. Drink up that old liquor,” she said. “I don’t know what you say.”

“I’m your daughter! The least you could do is believe me when I tell you I didn’t use drugs.”

“Then how did they get into your system?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about that. I just don’t get it,” I said. “But until I do, I need you to back off. And trust me.”

“It’s not just about me trusting you. For this weekend—” she said uneasily, bringing up a topic I’d forced into silence.

“Forget about it,” I cut her off, pushing the bowl away from me. “I’m not going to see my kids in that house. Not with her.”

“Well, then, how else will you see them? The judge gave Reginald temporary custody and he ordered supervised visits until they can clear your drug test and psychological evaluation.”

“I don’t need to be supervised with my own children,” I said. “I’m a good mother. I’m a damn good mother and Reginald knows that. He’s just listening to Sasha and letting her fill his head with all of these lies.”

My mother looked off and I could see in her face that she thought I was tumbling through excuses.

“Here we go again,” I said. “First you think I’m crazy and need a therapist, then you think I’m using drugs, and now you don’t believe me when I say Sasha is the person behind all of this. God, Mama, who do you think I am?”

“I don’t know who you are. I really don’t,” she said. “You left this house in a rush and you never turned back. You acted like me and your daddy was monsters.”

“One monster’s just as scary as two,” I said.

“He wasn’t that bad.”

“Wasn’t that bad? Were you there? Do you remember?”

“He was hard on me, but he wasn’t ever really hard on you. I protected you. I protected you as much as I could.”

“Well, it wasn’t enough.”

“You’re OK now. You turned out fine,” she said, getting up from the table and carrying the nearly full bowls with her. She flung them into the sink and there was a crash of glass. “I did what I was supposed to do. I put a roof over your head. Got you in school. Took you to church. Fed you. Gave you an extra blanket at night. I couldn’t do none of that without your father and you know that.” She stepped toward the sink and looked out the window into the dark night. “I wasn’t nothing but a baby when I came to Atlanta. No education. No skills. Had to get on my knees and scrub floors. You know what that’s like?” She looked at me over her shoulder and then looked back outside. “No, you don’t know what that’s like. Because you ain’t never had to do it. I made sure of that. I made sure you had a daddy who’d stay. A home in a nice neighborhood. That you were smart. That you’d never be like me.”

I began to cry and took my eyes off of my mother. I couldn’t look at her. She’d had her hands holding on to the sink like she was about to fall down. She was weeping and shaking with her back to me.

“I made sure you went to college. Fought like hell to get you out of this house. Begged your father to pay for it. I begged! Begged! On my knees! Raw. On this floor. Right here.” She stomped on the floor. “And I knew, I just knew that it’d come back to me. That you’d go out in the world and be something and come home and show your mama. Show her that even if everything wasn’t right, she did something right. But you left me. You found that man and you left me.”