Chapter Two
“What took you so long? I told you that I had a meeting at the church this evening.” Dedicated to her position as the ministry head of the Pastor Aide committee down at the neighborhood church, my mother, Deaconess Vivian Doreen Jenkins stared at me as I walked inside of the house. “Now, I’m going to be late on account of you.”
With a raised brow, I apologized, “Sorry, Mama.” It wasn’t a surprise that she had started on me as soon as I walked through the door. It had always been that way with us ever since I could remember. “And hello to you.” I allowed the screened door to slam shut behind me before forcefully yanking the wooden door closed that led directly into the kitchen from the outside.
My mother stopped short in the middle of sweeping crumbs from the breakfast nook table and stared at me with wide eyes. “Don’t give me attitude, girl. You know we just spoke an hour ago and you told me that you were on your way here.” She resumed clearing the table of food and wet spots left from the cups filled with melted ice where condensation had pooled beneath them.
“Mama, I said that I was sorry.” I looked away from her, determined to keep the peace. I had enough on my mind already. “You know how the traffic is coming through Charleston this time of day. Besides, it’s pouring down cats and dogs out there.” I leaned my tall umbrella up against the wall.
She stood to an upright position and planted a hand on one side of her full hips, allowing the partially crumpled dish rag to dangle from her fingers. “You take that drive every day, and every day you say the same thing.” She then pointed, scolding me as if I was twelve years old coming home late from a friend’s house. Her glare took me right back there. Those times when I would always hear from her, “Don’t let the sun beat you home.” As a grown woman now, she still has a way of making me feel like a young child.
“It doesn’t take that long for you to get here. Not as long as it took you.” She carried on with her rant as she walked over to the sink a couple feet away. “Shoot, I have a life too. I didn’t retire from the school system just to go back to looking after kids all day.”
“Mama, do you argue with Mikala like this too? If memory serves, you have more than just my child up in here during the day.”
I flinched as she slammed her fists down on the edge of the sink. “Yes, I do have more than one grandchild, up in here,” she mimicked my voice, and then continued, “but Mikala knows how to pick her child up on time. Do you see R.J. here?” She needled her eyes into mine. “And need I remind you that my help to you are on my terms, not yours. Put him in daycare and see how much it’ll cost you,” she huffed, and then snatched her eyes away from mine.
Suddenly, her attention was divided by the car pulling into the driveway. The headlights shined through the kitchen window as she extended her neck and squinted. “Looks like Hilda is already back.” She then faced me again. “She was here earlier, but I told her to go ahead and pick up the food for the meeting since you hadn’t gotten here yet to pick up Sean. So, now that you’re here, I’m about to go.”
I fought to hold back my tears as my mother simply pulled her rain coat from the coat rack near the door. She knew what I had been struggling with over the past few months and yet it seemed as if she could care less. In my heart, I know my mama is loving me the way her mama had shown love to her, but it still hurts. Right now I needed a hug, I needed her to say that everything was going to be alright, but all I was getting from her were stiff words and angry stares.
“Sean, come here, baby!” she called him from the other room. “Your mama is here.”
I tightened my jaw and turned my head as Hilda honked her car horn.
Mama opened the screened door and poked her head out. “I’m coming!” She waved an arm at Hilda, and then quickly stepped back inside just as Sean came running into the kitchen.
“Mommy!” Sean shrieked as he wrapped his arms around my legs. “Let me show you my picture,” he exclaimed, pulling me towards the refrigerator. “Look!” He pointed in excitement. “I drew our family.”
I stared at the picture with five stick figures drawn on it.
“See, there’s you, Grandma, Daddy, me, and Ms. Lisa.”
My stomach turned as if I had eaten a bowl full of bad greens. I glanced back at my mother who stood with her fingers poised over the buttons of her rain coat. She stared at me for the first time in months with sympathy in her eyes.
“I gave him some crayons and paper to color while I cleaned up after his snack.” She sounded apologetic. “I had no idea that’s what he was going to draw.”
I looked away from her down to Sean’s smiling face. “O-okay, honey.” I gently patted him on the back. “Go get your backpack and jacket so we can go, but be sure to put the crayons back in the box.” My little boy was notorious for leaving stray crayons all over the house.
“Okay.” Sean’s smile was endearing. “Here.” He proudly handed his portrait to me and ran away to the other room.
I held the drawing in my hand and just stared at it. I looked closer at the stick figure Sean had pointed out as Ms. Lisa and then looked to my mother. “Do you see this?”
“What?” she asked, and then moved closer to me.
I held the picture up in her direction. “Lisa has a big stomach.”
My mother’s eyes grew as she placed a palm over her mouth.
“Yeah … so that vasectomy he said he had after we lost our baby six months ago was a lie too.” With pursed lips, I gazed back down at the picture Sean had drawn. “And to think, I had my tubes tied because we decided that last loss was too much for us to go through again.”
“Oh Melinda,” my mother started, but then Hilda honked her horn again. Mama looked to the screened door before back to me. “I’m sorry. I never thought he would’ve done something as low as that.”
“And to think we’re not even divorced yet.”
“Oh he’ll get what’s coming to him,” she stiffly said.
“Well,” my voice cracked, “that sibling we always wanted for Sean, I guess he’ll have after all.” I blinked back my tears and sat at the table Mama had just cleared. “I did that for us and he told me he had done the same …” I dropped my face into the palms of my hand and the tears streamed down my cheeks.
“Melinda, it’s going to be okay.” Mama sounded as if she really cared, but my assumption came too soon because she then said, “Look, I’ll call you later, okay … after I get back home. I really have to get down to the church. Be sure to lock the door when you leave.” With that she hastily grabbed her keys from the counter and left.
I watched in disbelief as the attached swag curtain and white plastic blinds subtly hit up against the encased window on the door. She was really gone at a time when I needed her most. All of my life that church always came before me. I sucked my teeth and rolled my eyes as Hilda’s car backed out of the driveway.
When I looked back to the picture Sean had drawn, I realized then that he had drawn himself on the right side of the paper in between Lisa and my ex, Kevin. Sean had placed me on the far left with my mother in the middle.
“I’m ready, Mommy.”
I peered down at my baby boy, a spitting image of his conniving father, and gently stroked his cheek with subtle movements of my thumb. He gazed at me with bright, attentive eyes and a broad smile that always seemed to warm my soul on the darkest days of my life. I reached for his hands and asked, “How about we do something special tonight?”
He nodded his head repetitively in anticipation of my suggestion.
“I was thinking that we’d watch your favorite movie while eating pizza for dinner. How does that sound?”
“Yeah!” he screamed. “Pizza, pizza, pizza!” Sean followed his chant with a happy dance.
Children are so innocent and carefree. Despite the separation between me and his father, Sean had adjusted well. So much better than I had.
After we both loaded into the SUV, I called an order in for a medium ground beef
and pepperoni pizza. It would only be a quick trip through the drive-through on the way home.
When we pulled onto our street, Sean was engaged into a world of his own as he watched Daniel Tiger on the DVD player built into my headrest. Despite the bad press of the day, I was starting to feel a little better. Maybe it was hearing that little cartoon tiger sing that familiar song, Won’t You Be My Neighbor, from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood that brought back faint memories of my childhood. Or maybe it was the fact that the men from the city who emptied my garbage actually remembered to pick up the lid and pull the trash can out of the road today. Every Tuesday and Friday evening I would have to drag my can out of the road and back onto my property. I guess today wasn’t a total disaster.
I looked into my rearview mirror at my son who bounced happily in his seat. These were the times that I lived for, but sometimes I wonder if he’d be better off without me. He has his whole life ahead of him and here I am feeling forced to make it day to day. I thought back to the picture he had drawn with Kevin, Lisa, himself, and … and the new baby on the way. He had drawn me on the other side of my mother. It was obvious that he saw me as some faraway caretaker.
Was that really how my baby saw me? I can’t be that pathetic. Was Kevin right about him being able to raise Sean better than I ever could?
Something had to change for the sake of Sean. And to ensure that he would have the life he deserves, there was no better time than the present.
Once Upon a Sunday Page 2
