Tyrone gives me an up-nod and unlocks his door.
In my apartment, I take my shoes off right inside the door and place them on the rack. My living room is a riot of colorful paintings on dark-gray walls with a maroon accent wall. My stepdad’s niece, my cousin, is a painter, and between me and my parents, we might be keeping her gallery in business. I take comfort in the purple and yellow throw pillows on the dark-green couch.
The bland whitewashed world bores me, so I need my space to come to life. The living room is separated from the kitchen by a breakfast bar, and my bedroom and bathroom are beyond that in a single-file block of rooms.
My bedroom is my sanctuary and the opposite of the living room. Light earthy-green walls, cream bedding, and no art. This is where I decompress.
I dial my mom as I flop down on my bed and sink into the comfort.
“What’s wrong?” Mom answers after the first ring.
Suppressing a groan, I pretend to be offended. “Can’t I call my favorite person?”
She clucks her tongue but starts talking about her job. After telling me every detail about her new coworker, she asks, “You ready to tell me why you called?”
There’s no point in delaying the inevitable. “I’m tripping. My entire life, I’ve hated John King for abandoning us, leaving us to live in poverty, and ignoring my existence. But you’ve said you thought things worked out for the best. It’s like you knew if we stayed with the sperm donor, life would’ve been worse.Why?”
“Oh, baby.” She lets out a slow breath. “I was young and foolish when I met John, but things changed after you were born. You were my responsibility to love and protect.”
“And you think I needed protection from him,” I state as a fact, not a question.
“Are you sure you want to know this? I’ll tell you the truth, but I never want to hurt you,” she says, and from the background noise, I can tell she’s cooking.
“I need to know.” I throw an arm over my face as if it will shield me.
My mom skips the details of their whirlwind romance because I’ve heard it before. He promised to introduce her to his friends in the music industry and pay all her bills so she could sing. She declined an offer from a historically Black college to move in with him.
“He said he wanted to marry me, but something held me back. Always trust your intuition, J. I made excuses about a proper wedding, but he insisted we go to the courthouse. John planned to exclude our families, and alarm bells went off. I’m putting you on speaker.” I hear her set the phone down.
“Once you were born and it was clear you were mixed race, he changed.” I hear the flicker of a flame from the stove burner lighting. “When I brought it up, he dismissed my concerns and said he was just surprised because he’d assumed you’d be whiter. As in white-passing. I knew we couldn’t stay, and a visit from his family confirmed it. I took you in the middle of the night to your Auntie in New York and never looked back.”
Her account is more direct and basically calls the King family racist—in her nice way.
“Why did you want to talk to Theo O’Keefe the other day?” My heart beats faster in anticipation.
“Has he done something?”
“Nothing out of the usual. I saw him today with his girlfriend, and he was a totally different person. Most of the time, he looks like there’s a bad smell in the air, but with her, he transformed to reasonable and…and happy? Maybe even nice. It’s hard to describe.” I hold back from asking my mom if she thinks he could’ve been abused because she doesn’t have much more information than I do.
“It’s good he has someone he trusts.”
“Yeah,” I say noncommittally.
“But to answer your question. He looked angry, and I wondered if it was me or his general attitude.” She sighs, and I hear her fill a pot with water. “I hope he’s had a good life, but I doubt he has. The thing is, Jamal, hurt people, more often than not, hurt other people, and Theo’s carrying a lot of anger.”
“What does he have to be angry about? He has everything!” I burst out, all in my feels. “He hates me for no reason. I’m your son.”
“No reason that you know of. You think he has everything, but I bet he disagrees.”
I hear the door open through the phone.
“Your dad’s home. We can keep talking, but our dinner’s almost done.”
“Hey, my darling Kenya,” he says, and my mom shrieks. I can picture him kissing the side of her neck where she’s ticklish.
“DeAndre.” She smacks him. “I probably deafened Jamal.”
“Hi, son. Sorry, I didn’t realize you were on the phone.”
