“Because I never wanted you to see me cry. You already seemed overwhelmed most days. I didn’t want to add that I wasn’t happy here and couldn’t wait to leave.” I looked at both of them. Neither returned my gaze. My mother’s jaw was tight, and she faced forward. My father studied his hands. “And I couldn’t tell if you were glad I left home or sad because you certainly don’t call and check on me that often.”
“You don’t call us either,” my mother retorted. “I’m your mama. It’s onyouto callmefirst. I’m not chasing behind a child I raised and gave everything.”
“Here we go,” I interjected. “I don’t need to hear for the millionth time how much you sacrificed to have me.”
“Maybe you do, since you come here unannounced, talking about how unhappy you were when we did our best to give you whatever you asked for.” She shook her head and pushed off from the sofa. “I’m not about to sit here and take this because you probably going through something.”
“Did you want me?” I cut to the chase. “Huh? Did you and Daddy really want me?”
“Why would you ask me that?” My mother slowly sat down again on the sofa. Her expression was pained.
“Yes.” My father’s response was confident and sure, unlike my mother’s stalling question. “I wanted you from the first time your mama said she was pregnant with you. Couldn’t wait to be a daddy.”
Mama wryly said, “He did. The smile that crossed his face when I told him. Meanwhile, I was scared out of my mind that I was becoming what I never intended: a teenage mother.”
Some of the butterflies in my stomach calmed at their answer, tinged with warm nostalgia. “You just seemed unhappy, and you never had another child. I assumed you didn’t want me . . . that I wasn’t enough or that if I could’ve been different, you would love me more.”
“Loving you was the easy part. I was unhappy and resentful for a long time because the future I’d envisioned didn’t happen. I’d earned a full scholarship and planned to study law in Oklahoma, and because I got pregnant by a preacher’s kid, I had to give all that up. I wanted to take you with me to college and raise you by myself, but your daddy and the grandparents on both sides weren’t having it. We tried to have another child, but it just never happened. So we figured one was all we needed.” She finally looked at me. “You thought all this time that I didn’t want you?”
Hearing her explanation rang true to the depths of me, and an overwhelming sadness struck me at how much time we as a family had wasted by not simply communicating and allowing our souls to speak. The strength of a relationship is about the undercurrent of emotion that connects people. Most people miss that as I had with Canaan, and he with me. We let the superficial part of us guide our interactions, so we didn’t trust each other and allowed the true, deep love to flounder. I didn’t want to do that with my parents anymore because, at a gut level, I’ve always known they wanted and loved me. And if we didn’t sift through all the nonsense, we would continue to be a divided family.
“Kensie, you really thought I didn’t love you?” My mother’s voice trembled, and her eyes watered. She mistook my silence for my answer.
“I knew you loved me. Still know that you do. You made sure my hair and clothes were neat, fed me, and gave me mostly what I wanted and all that I needed, gave me kisses and hugs on occasion. Yet, I felt like an obligation, not a desire. That you would’ve preferred to be single and free.”
“That’s not true,” her voice rose with indignation. “I worked hard to make sure that you had everything you wanted. Made sacrifices you don’t even know about.”
“Oh, I know about the sacrifices. You made me aware of that anytime I asked you to do anything besides going to school. Like I burdened you. I didn’t always feel the warmth of a mother’s love.”
“And your father gets none of the blame for why you don’t come home? I was here every day with you, trying to work and get you to whatever activity you wanted, while he was gone two weeks out of a month, andI’mthe reason?” She shook her head vehemently. “That’s not fair, Kensie. I did the best I could with what I knew.”
“It’s not just you, Mama. You two as a couple are the main reason I don’t like being home. I almost liked it better when it was just you and me. As much as I missed Daddy, when he came home, the arguments would start, and then the angry, cold silence would begin, which, in my opinion, was the worst. Be honest, do you wish you could’ve been single and free?”
My father was silent, staring at my mother. Thick anticipation hovered in the air, waiting for her answer.
She tightened her hands into fists and met my wary gaze. “Any married woman with children who never thinks at one point in her life that she wishes she were single and free is lying to herself. I was a wife and a mother by the time I was eighteen. I had the bulk of the responsibilities in our marriage, and in raising you with a man who was only around part-time, and when he was around, he wanted no responsibilities. Just have a beer and sit in the damn recliner like he was the king of this broken castle.” She looked sharply at her husband, who grunted in protest. “You know it’s true, Al. So, don’t try to argue me down. I had to beg and fight for you to help me with a screaming toddler, who didn’t want to go anywhere without me.”
He protested, “That’s because you had to be so controlling. It had to be your way on how to raise her and how to take care of this house.”
Mama leaned forward to see his face. “Bull. I had to have a routine for a baby, and then you come home messing it all up, wanting to hang out late and do you, when we were a family.”
“Hey,” I yelled. “Thisis what I’m talking about. You get to arguing, and I don’t exist anymore. Why couldn’t we be this happy, small family of three, huh?” I swung my head toward Daddy. “And Mama is right. You left everything about the household and parenting to her. I get it if Mama was only in the home, but she worked just as hard as you.”
Mama smiled triumphantly.
Daddy slunk back in his chair. “Always two against one. Y’all made it hard sometimes to come home too.”
I sighed. “This isn’t a competition, and I didn’t come home to fight or to start a fight. I want us to work on us as a family.”
“If that’s what you want, then you have to stop judging me . . . judging us, because we weren’t the parents or the couple you think we should’ve been.” Mama folded her arms.
“I don’t judge you.”
Mama said, “Yes, you do. Otherwise, you would’ve told us you were engaged. Were we such bad parents that you didn’t want to tell us? Do you know how many friends and family members called us, excited to know the details? Can you imagine how hurtful it was that you didn’t even think we were important enough to tell us that you were getting married? I had to pretend I knew about you and that man, even though I knew nothing. I deserved more than a text to not worry about the sex video because you were engaged to the man.”
My face instantly flushed with heat. “You did deserve more. And I’ll explain in a second. But please, please,please, say you didn’t see the video.”
“Hell no.” Daddy loudly replied before adding, “Your grandparents were probably rolling around in their graves. We didn’t raise you that way, Kensie.”
