I mouthed the words “thank you” to her and waited as she left the room.
Mama stood then. She crossed the room wearing a pretty navy-blue sheath dress and black patent leather flats. I watched in silence as she came to a stop at the bay window. The view from there was to the side of the house where, in the distance, a gazebo draped in ivy was located.
“You used to sit out there with your wagon full of dolls and play for hours,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
I nodded even though she couldn’t see me.
“When I found out I was pregnant with you, I immediately started designing your nursery. I knew you would be a girl, just as I knew you wouldn’t be the pink type of girl,” she continued.
A smile touched my lips, but my heart still ached. I didn’t know how to navigate this conversation, mostly because I’d spent so much time being deathly afraid of having it. Afraid that her disappointment would break me.
“Hunter green, beige and yellow, those were your baby colors. Wen said I was crazy because those colors were more for a boy, but you know I don’t pay her any attention. She hashorrible taste in décor which is why Hugo always hires someone to make changes at their house.”
She wasn’t lying. Aunt Wen, my father’s sister, was probably color blind because I swear her clothes—regardless how expensive they were—never matched.
“But when you turned twelve you asked if you could redo your room. Said you wanted something more grown up. I thought that was funny since you still played with those dolls.”
“I graduated from baby dolls to Barbie dolls though,” I added, because the memories were too wonderful not to take the trip to the past with her.
“You did.” She nodded. “Still piled them and all their clothes and cars up in that wagon and took it out there to the gazebo. Even once that robin’s egg blue and yellow room was finished.”
“They didn’t belong in that room because that was about to become my teenage space.” I didn’t put a lot of posters on my walls because I adored the pinstripe wallpaper I selected too much to mess it up. I stuck them in photo albums instead so when Mo, Hannah and Maria came over, I could flip through it showing off all the pictures of B2K and Mario I’d clipped from magazines. Maria thought the process was ridiculous, but I caught her trying to ease one of my pictures out of the book one day and banned her from my room for two weeks. A full grin spread over my face at that memory.
“You grew up,” Mama said, snapping me out of the memory. “One day you were playing with those dolls and laughing in your room with your cousins and the next you were so serious. So determined to take on the world even before you graduated from middle school.”
Witnessing someone hold a gun to your brother’s head, then watching your brother kill three guys in front of you was more than a little jarring. Pumping bullets into those dead bodies justbecause they’d dared to hurt my brother, was life altering. I never played with my dolls again after that.
“I’ve watched you changing every year since then.” She stayed there, standing in front of the window, staring at me as if she were seeing me for the first time.
I didn’t know what to do with my hands. One minute they were sitting idle, the next my fingers were clasped and now I wanted desperately to reach for my glass of wine and down that shit like it was whiskey.
“When you came into our bedroom a month before your high school graduation and stretched out at the foot of our bed like you used to do when you were a child, my heart leapt at the possibility that my baby girl was back.” She smiled the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen. “Then you told us that you weren’t going to Spelman to major in business finance the way you and your father had discussed. You said you were going to Norfolk State and you were going to study forensic science. You already had your acceptance letter and the day after graduation you were going to start looking for an apartment close to campus. Before your father or I could speak, you got up from that bed and walked out as if your job was done.”
I’d actually hightailed myself back to my room so I could be sick in my bathroom. My nerves had been so bad from the moment I submitted that application to NSU. My parents were set on Spelman because my mother had wanted to go there. Her career path had taken her to Los Angeles where she’d taken classes to perfect her trade, and she’d never doubled-back to the dream. My father was okay with that choice since I would still be following the path he wanted for me. The path that would lead me to the CFO position at his advertising company.
“And now, you’re doing it again.” She walked back to the table and this time took the seat Fabian had vacated beside me. “You came here today with that fine ass man on your arm, readyto make your announcement then bounce your happy self right back out of this house.”
I couldn’t help it, my eyes widened at her words about Fabian, then I chuckled. “Mama.”
“What? I’m not blind,” she said, waving a hand at me. “At least not when a good-looking man walks into a room. And damn, baby girl, that man is verrry easy on the eyes.”
I laughed again at the way she exaggerated that word. She wasn’t lying though. When she reached for my hand, I let my fingers fall seamlessly between hers. How many times had we held hands this way? Walking around the property when I was a toddler and well into elementary school. Then, even sometimes while on vacations. Mainly the ones in other countries because Mama had a thing about one of her children getting snatched up in a foreign land. Cade was able to hang close to Daddy during those times. Only when we were on Sansonique, the private island in the Caribbean owned by the Donovans, were Cade and I allowed to run off on our own and that was mostly because our other cousins were running around with us. I hadn’t realized how much I missed this physical touch between us until this very moment.
“Tell me why you kept this a secret for so long.” The look she was giving me now seemed less hurt and more confused. I hated both.
“Thinking back to that night I came into the room with you and Daddy, I can remember being so anxious about how you were going to react to what I had to say. To the decision I’d made. All my life you’d taught me to be the best version of myself, to show up in every room I walked in. To carry the Donovan name with dignity and grace.” I swallowed and attempted to shake away the tears that threatened to form. “Daddy taught me to never hide how smart I was. To embraceknowledge. Remember, he started calling me the prettiest sponge he’d ever seen.”
We both laughed and she added her other hand to ours, so that mine was now cradled in both of hers. That small action made me feel cradled all over. As if she were wrapping me in one of those tight ‘mommy’s gotchu’ type of hugs and released the biggest sigh.
“You wanted me to be graceful and he wanted me to be smart. You wanted me to dominate the society scene with the strength and beauty you instilled in me and Daddy wanted me to take his company to the next level financially. I wanted science. I wanted to dissect things, study them, figure out how I could make them better.” I left out the part where after shooting a gun for the first time, I wanted to know more about death.
“You both wanted me to marry well and have babies. To grow the family in a way that made you both proud.” I cleared my throat. “Fabian owns a multi-million-dollar company. He’s also irrevocably connected to a notorious MC club. I knew that wouldn’t be your idea of the perfect match. And I knew Daddy, and maybe others in the family would consider it a stain on the Donovan name.”
She continued to stare at me. “You knew all of this and yet, you married him anyway. Tell me again, who’s the smartest person in every room she walks in?”
“Mama,” I sighed again, and she shook her head.
“No, don’t Mama me. ‘Cause you are too damn smart to be so stupid.”
