My mother looked pathetic. It made me sad that she was so lost, and I almost wondered how she really was my mother.
“Education isn’t where it’s being taught, but who is teaching. The excellence of being Black? How can you be excellent when you’re at a school with a bunch of young adults who know nothing of excellence? You yourself are lost. You can’t focus on the education you're so graciously given by the people you call family because you’re chasing around a boy who is still finding himself. You're at a school that declares to be Black and Proud when most of you know nothing of the two. You, Samara, have no business at that school or with that family because yours is right there. So, this is what I’m going to offer,” he said with a short smile.
“I have already made arrangements for you at the commune. You will come, or you won’t have to worry about Peace or Savior because their parents will need both by the time I’m done. You are the sacrifice. So, what will it be?” He held up his finger. “Ah, don’t answer. Make it happen. Just as your mother told you before, we will give you until the end of the semester so that you can at least say goodbye to Dionysus. If you think you're slick, I’m slicker. Oh, and if you send that so-called daddy of yours to find me, he won’t. I’ll be seeing you soon.”
With that, he snapped his fingers, and my mother looked up. He walked out of the door with her right behind him. She didn’t even bother to look at me, and that spoke volumes. I needed to tell Chevy and Zaria because if this man thought I was choosing a cult, he was as crazy as I already believed he was. I would die first. Now I knew this trip abroad was needed.
PHOEBE
I watched as Xavier held his packed bags and walked past my room. I went to walk out to stop him when my mother stood in the doorway.
“Move!” I shouted.
“Phoebe, let your dad handle it,” she said to me.
“What is wrong with y’all? Okay, we got caught. He apologized! You act as if you have never done anything messed up.”
My mother dropped her head. “Kyle wouldn’t—”
I lost it. “I’m not fucking Kyle!”
My dad turned and stood behind my mother. “Watch your fucking mouth!” he shouted.
“No!” I barked back.
It was the comparing me to Kyle. It was the holding onto him, and he was never coming back. It was treating me like a little fucking girl when I was no longer one, and I was tired.
“Kyle is dead! He’s gone and never coming back. Did you hear what I said, Momma!?”
I could see the tiny sparkle in her eye dim. “Phoebe, we know he is gone, and you're just hurting.”
I shook my head. “No, you don’t know he’s gone. Neither of youhas stepped into his room since he’s been gone. Neither of you has shed a tear. What you did was use all of your pain and put it on me. I have become Kyle!”
I didn’t want to tell them Kyle’s secret, but it was the only way. I sat on the bed and cried. “Did you even know that he was broken? He was sick of polo, sick of Hillsdale, sick of his life.”
My dad looked at my mother. “Go see to it that boy doesn’t leave.”
My mother cried as she walked away, and my dad came in and closed the door behind him. “Let it out, Phoebe. I know it hurts, sweetheart, but you cannot take your pain out on others. I didn’t raise you like that. It’s okay to hurt—”
I held my hand up. “Just stop.”
“Kyle was afraid of what he was,” my dad started. “He was a Black man who held a desire in him, and because he wasn’t strong, it put fear in him. Although it’s widely accepted in the world we live in today, he wasn’t from that world, and that’s my fault.
“Phoebe, you both are my children. I wasn’t born yesterday. I know my son was into men. I also knew my son was an addict. I—” he choked up, “—I didn’t care about any of it. All I asked for was greatness, and Kyle looked at that as me not accepting him for who he was. He was the reason you ended up at TSU. I could have shut it down when you told me you applied, but it was I who wanted to see you shine into your own person. I didn’t want to shelter from your culture, especially after I saw you sneaking out all those nights. I wanted you to have what Kyle didn’t: the Black experience. From the teaching to the trials, you needed it all. Your mother isn’t as accepting, but that’s something I have to worry about, not you,” he said as a single tear fell from his eyes.
My dad had never been this open, and to see him like this made me think about how I had been moving around for over a year withheavy emotions, using my skin as my vent session. He caught his tear and continued.
“Just like I know you don’t want to play polo, and like since the day that boy walked into my house, I knew immediately that you two have been messing with each other. Phoebe, I’m not a fool. Each and every night at two a.m., I go into Kyle’s room, and I cry something terrible, but that wasn’t for you to know. It was for me to mourn my way. You cannot tell a person how to mourn because each person’s experience is different. Because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. God—” he paused as he dropped his head and sobbed like a baby, “—I miss my son so much.”
My father was torn up. I knew I couldn’t tell them what truly happened. My father and I cried until the tears ran dry. When we were done, he stood from the bed.
“How much do you like Xavier?”
“As much as I like science.”
“I need you to respect my house. That’s all I ask. If you choose not to play polo, that is fine, but I do expect you to finish school. You are a beautiful, independent Black woman. You are smart, eclectic, and everything that I’m proud of. I love you, Phoebe.”
Tears spilled out of my eyes as I hugged my dad tightly. “I love you too. Now, can you help him so he can play again? That’s all he wants to do,” I said to him.
