by Ni-Ni Simone
Once we arrived at school I didn’t go in right away because I was hoping to catch Malachi before he went inside. Maybe if I spoke with him early it would give him time to think about us fixing our relationship.
I stood by the side entrance, and just when I was about to give up, I spotted Malachi pulling up in his truck. Although I knew what my plan was supposed to be, I had a million conflicting thoughts running through my mind, most of them telling me to keep it moving. But I couldn’t. I had to say something, anything that would make this right.
I walked over to Malachi once he got out of his truck, and he looked at me blankly. “Can I speak with you for a moment?” I asked him. “Please.”
“Hurry up.” He frowned. “I don’t have that much time.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I heard that already,” he snapped. “I thought you were going to say something new.”
Was that a blade he just put to my jugular or were those simply words? I swear my mouth filled with blood and I didn’t know what to say, but I was determined to think of something. “I know what I did was wrong.” I paused. “And I really am sorry, but I never cheated on you. Ever. I love you and I want us to work this out. I just feel like if we had one more chance to do this again, I wouldn’t mess up. So I am asking that you forgive me, please.”
I stopped talking and Malachi stared at me. “That’s it?” he said. “Are you done?”
“Yeah.”
“Ai’ight.” He stepped to the side and walked around me. “I’m out.”
22
I need you…bad as the air I breathe…
—JAZMINE SULLIVAN, “I NEED YOU BAD”
It had been two weeks since Malachi and I broke up, and just when I thought undying misery may not have been my fate, my mother came and announced that today was the day we were to start counseling.
For real, for real, no lie, I was pissed. I thought she’d forgotten about it. I went from lying on my bed, nursing my broken heart, to sitting on the edge of the bed with my legs crossed and smoke rising from my ears.
No matter what, I didn’t feel that I needed counseling. I wasn’t crazy, and from what I’d heard and thought, seeing a therapist meant I was diagnosed as nuts and would be sent home with some psychotropic medication. Not. If my mother wanted to be labeled as a certified nut, then by all means help herself, but why on earth did she have to involve me?
“You may as well fix your face,” my mother snapped while standing in my doorway, swinging her purse on her arm and juggling her keys in her hand, “because we’re going.” She stepped completely into my room. “And we’re going now.”
I sucked my teeth.
“Suck ’em again and you’ll be carrying them in your hand while on your way to the therapist’s office.”
Dang? Why all of a sudden does my jaw hurt? For a moment I thought about voicing how I felt about the situation, but then again, maybe expressing how I felt wasn’t worth the drama it was sure to bring.
I rose from the bed, grabbed my purse, and twisted my lips. “I hope this doesn’t take long.”
My mother didn’t even respond. She simply walked into the living room, where Cousin Shake and Ms. Minnie were watching television. “Cousin Shake,” my mother said, “Zsa and I are off to that counseling session I was telling you about for mothers and their firstborn daughters. Look out for Hadiah for me.”
“Sure thing,” Cousin Shake said. My mother walked out the door, and as I approached the threshold Cousin Shake said, “Zena the princess warrior.”
I turned around. “What?”
He started laughing and twirling his index finger on the side of his head as if to say I was crazy. I rolled my eyes and slammed the door behind me. I swear he is soooo inappropriate.
I was silent for the entire drive to the therapist’s office. All I could imagine were that the walls would be starched white with two gigantic couches sitting in the middle of the floor, one for me and the other for my mother.
We pulled into the parking lot of a brick office building, and once inside I noticed that instead of white walls, they were the color of wheat with beautiful African American artwork and African masks lining the hallway. I was careful not to look as if I was admiring the place too much, because I didn’t want anyone thinking that I somehow wanted, or better yet needed, to be there.
The lobby was sprinkled with a few people, I guess waiting for their appointments with the other therapists that were a part of the practice. Nevertheless, even one person was one too many for me. All I could think was, suppose I saw somebody I knew? Dang, I had to get out of there.
“We have an appointment with Dr. Michael,” my mother said to the receptionist.
A few minutes after we took a seat the receptionist said, “Mrs. Fields, Dr. Michael will see you now.”
“Come on, Zsa,” my mother said as I reluctantly got out of my seat and followed her like a sad puppy into the doctor’s office. I have to say that the office was laid, red leather chairs, no couches, beautiful artwork and tons of degrees.
“You must be Zsa-Zsa.” The doctor, who resembled Jill Scott, rose from her seat and said to me, “I’m Doctor Mya Michael.” She held her hand out and pointed to the red leather wing chairs. “Have a seat.”
“How are you today, Jazmyn?” Dr. Michael asked my mother.
“I’m okay, Doctor.” My mother smiled. “And yourself?”
“I’m well,” she said, taking a seat across from us. “Are we ready to begin?”
“Yes,” my mother said.
I didn’t answer. I figured if I could get away with keeping my mouth shut then I might actually be able to tolerate this place.
“Zsa-Zsa,” Dr. Michael said, “I didn’t hear your response. Are we okay to start?”
“Oh,” I said, caught off guard, “yeah, I guess.”
“I’ll take that.” She smiled. “Let’s begin with what brings us here today.”
“I feel that my daughter and I have some issues,” my mother said. “And some things about our past that we need to discuss. I feel that they are affecting her and the abusive relationship she is in.”
“I am not in an abusive relationship,” I snapped.
“Why do you think your mother feels it was abusive?” Dr. Michael asked.
“Because.” I hunched my shoulders. “She wants to assign me her life, like we’re the same people, but we’re not.”
“Okay, so what makes you different?” the doctor asked.
“I fought back.”
“You shouldn’t have to fight at all,” my mother said. “You should’ve never been in that situation. Just like I should have never been in my situation.”
“Why don’t we start from the beginning,” the doctor said. “Tell me how your marriage was.” She turned to my mother.
My mother smiled. “At first Zach was so wonderful and so sweet,” my mother said as if she could see and smell my father. “He was the perfect gentleman, but he had a drinking problem, and when he drank, he would hit me.”
I felt myself getting sick.
“The fighting didn’t start right away,” my mother continued, “it started with a slap, because I said something Zach didn’t like. And then it went to him pushing me, and then it went to us fighting every Friday night, when the children were asleep.”
Asleep? Did she just say asleep? “We weren’t asleep and you know we weren’t asleep.”
“I know the fighting woke you up, but you always went back to sleep, after I would beg your father to stop hitting me.”
“Are you serious?” I snapped. “Do you know how scared we were? Do you know we couldn’t sleep because of the wall jumping and you screaming? Do you know we were scared as hell? Sleep.” I swear I couldn’t believe she said that. “We weren’t asleep, we would sneak upstairs to Malachi’s house, where it was quiet, and safe, and we didn’t have to watch that damn wall jump!” I screamed. “Sleep? We were never asleep!”
My mother’s mouth hung open. I coul
d tell by looking in her face that she had no idea of what I had just hit her with. “You used to do what?” she said with tears in her eyes.
“You heard me! We would go upstairs and wait for you to call the police, because you always did and you always dragged us into the nonsense. Always! I am nothing like you, because I would never do that to my children! Ever.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Whatever.” I wiped the tears falling down my cheeks. Already I’d said much more than I’d planned to.
“How did you feel, Zsa-Zsa, when your parents would fight?” Dr. Michael asked.
“Like nothing,” I said. “Absolutely nothing. Like I wasn’t even good enough for my parents not to fight. I felt horrible. I was embarrassed all the time. My friends didn’t come to my house to play. I couldn’t have anybody over.”
“That’s not true. Yes, you could,” my mother said defensively.
“When, Ma? Huh, when? Before or after he beat you? Before or after Daddy was drunk? Before or after he brought that nasty Chinese food that I hate!”
“You love Chinese food.”
“I hate Chinese food. And you know why I hate it? I hate it because every time I had it, you and Daddy always fought, and when I ate it, or better yet when I smelled it, it made me feel like a scared little girl. I couldn’t believe you had Kenneth bring Chinese food and then expected me to like him.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Well, pay attention,” I said. “Just like when I was in the hospital and you forced me to go to that group, like I was supposed to admit that I really did see myself in those girls!”
“Did you see yourself?” the doctor asked.
“Yes,” I cried. “I did. And I don’t ever want to feel that way again.” I looked at the clock. “I hope this is over soon, because I can’t do this much longer. I’d rather be home crying over my boyfriend.”
“Do you want to talk about your boyfriend, the one that hit you?” the doctor asked.
“First of all, he isn’t my boyfriend. And second of all, I hit him back when he would hit me.”
“You should have never been in that situation!” my mother yelled.
“Yeah, well, I got it from you. Hell, I thought fighting was a part of a relationship. That’s all I saw, that’s all I knew.”
“It doesn’t make it right, Zsa,” my mother said.
“I’m done with Ameen.”
“But he keeps you in this web. He’s an abuser.”
“Look, I messed up when I let him use my car, okay? I get it.”
“Why did you do that?” the doctor asked me.
“Because I felt sorry for him. His mother died and he didn’t have anybody but me. I needed to help him.”
“But why?” the doctor asked.
“Because he needed me.”
“How do you know he needed you?”
“He told me that,” I said.
“So everyone who says they need you, you have to be there for them?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” she probed.
“Because how else will I fix it?”
“Why is it your responsibility to fix it or to fix them?”
“I don’t know.” I hunched my shoulders in defeat. “I just feel like I have to. I have always been there to fix whatever. When my little sister was scared and crying I took her away so she wouldn’t have to be scared. I just feel like…like…I’ve been grown all of my life and that is what I have to do.”
“I’m the mother, Zsa,” my mother said.
“You didn’t even know I didn’t like Chinese food. Ma, please, all of a sudden you wanna be Mommy to me. Don’t come now. You never cared before about how I felt. You moved us out of the apartment we lived in into this great big house so that you could pretend my daddy never existed, and now all of a sudden you care about how I feel? Please.”
“I do care about how you feel, and I haven’t tried to act as if your father didn’t exist. That’s not true!”
“Yes, it is. You don’t have not one picture of him in the house. Not one!”
My mother was silent.
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“That’s why I’m here. I want to get to know you. I’m sorry I haven’t been all that you needed me to be. I’m sorry that I placed you in situations and made you face things that didn’t belong to you. I am sorry, but I’m here and I want to begin again. And what I need you to understand is that it doesn’t matter if you fight back, you shouldn’t have to fight, period. That is not love. Love is easy and free, it’s freeing. You owe it to yourself to know that any man you have to fight with is not worth having you. And hitting is not the only type of abuse. Having you feel guilty all the time is emotional abuse. You don’t owe Ameen anything, but you do owe yourself a chance to be in a healthy relationship.”
“Ma, none of us know what a healthy relationship is.”
“We will learn together. That’s what Derrick and I have been doing, learning together.”
“You’ve been talking to Derrick?” I asked, surprised.
“Yes.” She nodded. “Almost every day, and we’re determined to get things on the right track. And that’s why I’m here with you. I know it’s going to take time and I know it won’t happen in an hour-long session, but it’s a start.”
I sat back and thought about my life. I thought about all of the choices that I’d made and how I could somehow make different ones. All I knew is that anything had to be better than this. “Ma, I don’t even know how to begin.”
“You’ve already started,” Dr. Michael said. “And a start is all you need to begin to heal.”
“Alright, Ma,” I said, wiping tears from my eyes. “I can’t promise you anything. All I can promise you is that I’m willing to try.”
“And that’s all I can ask for.” My mother hugged me tightly. “That’s all I can ask for.”
“Well, ladies,” the doctor said, as the session came to a close, “I think we have something to build on here.”
“And I do too.” My mother smiled and hugged me once more. “And I do too.”
23
Your lies ain’t working now,
Look who’s hurting now,
See I had to shut you down…
—SUNSHINE ANDERSON, “HEARD IT ALL BEFORE”
“Zsa,” my mother called from her room as I stood in the kitchen washing the dishes, “get the bell for me.”
“Who are you expecting?”
“Kenneth,” she said in a hurry. “I’m still getting dressed.” She slammed her room door.
I swallowed…hard. I knew this moment would come, but I wasn’t expecting it to come at seven-thirty on a Friday evening, but whatever. I walked to the front door and looked through the peephole to be sure it was Kenneth. And yep, it was. I sighed as I opened the door and forced myself to smile. “Hi.” I gave him a small wave. “Come in.” I motioned my hand in an “after you” fashion, and he walked into the living room.
“How are you, Zsa-Zsa?” Kenneth asked, stopping me in my tracks. I was trying like hell to hustle into the other room. I knew I said I would accept that my mother had a boyfriend she wanted to marry, but I didn’t say a thing about talking to him.
“I’m fine,” I said to Kenneth without turning around to face him.
I started walking toward my room and he said, “Hey, listen, is it okay if I speak to you for a moment?”
My back was to Kenneth as I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. “Sure,” I said, turning around to face him. “What is it?”
“I know we didn’t get off to the best start, but I want you to know that I really care for your mother and I would never do anything to intentionally hurt her. And I hope that maybe one day you and I can be friends.”
“Umm-hmm,” I said, “and if I give you a chance…I’m not saying that I will…but if I do…and you hurt my mama it’s gon’ be a problem. I’m just saying.”
Kenneth cracked up. “You sound a lot like my daug
hter. She has that same spice as you.”
“You have a daughter?” I asked, sounding halfway interested.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “She’s a junior at Morgan.”
“Really?” Now I was truly interested. “That’s the college I want to attend.”
“Well, maybe—I’m not saying you will”—he smiled—“but if you decide to give me a chance, I’ll introduce you to my daughter and you can visit the campus and tour the school with her. She just pledged Delta, and I hear they have great parties for you young people.”
“Interesting.” I curled my top lip. “If I gave you a chance, I think I would like that.”
“Well, I’ll make arrangements for that to happen, just in case.” He smiled.
“Kenneth.” My mother smiled as she walked into the living room. “I’m sorry it took me so long. I know you said you had a surprise for me.”
“For all of you, actually.”
“For us?” I said. Now I was the one surprised.
“Yeah, and I think you’re going to really like this,” he said, walking over to the front door and opening it.
“What is it?” My mother rushed to the door and I walked behind her. I should’ve known it was something big when she started screaming, causing Cousin Shake, Ms. Minnie, and Hadiah to run to where we were.
I ran to the door and stood behind my mother, who was hugging some guy dressed in an army uniform, and that’s when it hit me. “Derrick!” I screamed, hugging him and my mother at the same time.
“Wassup, li’l sis?” he said.
I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t been this happy in what felt like forever. I looked at Kenneth. “How did you get him to come home?”
“I’m a captain in the army myself, and let’s just say I have connections.”
“Is that really Derrick?” Hadiah said.
“Yes!” I answered her, filled with excitement.
Hadiah ran over to Derrick and started hugging him as well. We were all engaged in a group hug, and I swear this felt like Heaven.
Once we were done hugging and kissing my brother, we went into the house and Cousin Shake said to Derrick, “You all grown up now, look at you.” He gave him a bear hug. “Heard you was over there in Iraqi. You don’t need no blessing oil, do you? Ain’t bombs on you or nothin’, is it?” He patted him down.
