Mama's Girl

by Daybreak Jones

  “But, Mama, I don’t want to be you. I don’t want to be messing with married men for their money. I don’t want to be the other woman.”

  Nothing I say is going to change my mama’s mind, and I am tired of talking. I turn away from her and face the curtain and let my eyes close.

  I see my grandmother’s face. She is smiling at me. She was no one’s other woman. Grandma was Papa’s wife. Mama is acting like she has forgotten that she came from a family, not an outside family. I came from a family. My baby will come from a family, my family, not Samuel’s outside family.

  * * *

  When I wake, my mama is still here. “What, you thought it was over? Little girl, let me tell you something: my being the ‘other woman’ clothed and fed you for seventeen years. It bought you dancing lessons and acting lessons, and braces for your buckteeth and knock-knee. Understand this, child: your grandparents helped, but it was and is I who provide for your spoiled ass.

  “It was me, myself, and I who paid the rent for you to live in their house, and bought the food you ate while in their house. All those damn Barbie dolls, cars, and houses came from my ‘other woman’ ass. All those Jordans, jeans, and jewelry I bought. Summer camps, modeling camps, Judo, Rollerblades, computer, iPhone all came from me. So, Miss Ann, if you can be half the bitch I have been to you, that seed growing inside of your selfish ass might just stand a chance.

  “And understand this: I pay to extend the health insurance from your granddaddy’s plan that covers your being up in this hospital. You don’t want to be me. That is some funny shit. Oh, and check this out, Ms. May Diane Joyce, the doctors say you are being discharged tomorrow. Find a ride home.”

  And she gets up and leaves.

  Chapter Twenty

  Carlos can’t miss school. I can’t reach Ms. Carol. Mama won’t answer her phone, so that only leaves Samuel, and he picks me up in one of those short white school buses for the disabled kids because it has a handicap lift on the side.

  A nurse who I have never seen before is wheeling me through the hospital’s glass doors to Samuel’s short school bus. He is lowering the lift so I can be rolled in. If I could walk, I would run away from all of this: Samuel, Mama, and the baby. But I can’t walk.

  The nurse rolls me to Samuel and hands him a folder with my prescriptions and my outpatient appointment slips for rehab and the doctors.

  “Thank you so much,” he says.

  “No problem,” she answers and beelines right back through the doors. It’s cold out here despite the bright afternoon sun.

  “Okay, here we go,” he says, and he pushes me up on the lift and raises me up into the bus. Inside the bus, he locks my wheelchair in place. “How long will you be chair-bound?” he asks, standing over me.

  “About another week. The doctor says next week they will take the stiches out of my thighs.”

  “What about the cast?” He sits in the seat across the aisle.

  “Another six weeks. Then they take this flexible one off and try a brace.” This is how I first met Samuel, him driving a school bus and me sitting behind him, but he doesn’t look as good to me now as he did then. I bet even with me in a cast and stiches he is going to say something about us having sex before we get home. “I’m going away to school, New York University, majoring in theater.”

  “What?”

  “Yep. Ms. Carol and my school counselor are helping me with the paperwork.” They are not helping yet, but they will be, and ol’, nosey, nappy-headed Ms. Stockton will be happy enough to do a dance. I can’t run away now, but I can lay out my plan for later.

  “Cool, I am in New York all the time. I will show you around and help you get set up. Hey, do you want to try to make it up the stairs to my brother’s place? I am sure I can wrestle that chair up the stairs.”

  I don’t even answer him. When he turns and sees the look on my face, he says, “Just checking.”

  Theater school in New York, now that feels right in my head. Samuel is truly stupid if he thinks I am going all the way to New York to do the same thing with him there that I am doing here. If I see him in New York, it will be in passing. And if I see him first, he won’t see me. It’s funny how the right thought will suddenly pop up in my head. I like that about me.

  When we pull up in front of the house, Mama is at the door in her housecoat kissing her friend Peter, the married flight attendant, good-bye. Edith comes running up the block pulling a suitcase, and her backpack is on her shoulders.

  Samuel is lowering me to the sidewalk, and she is waiting. When I get down to the sidewalk, she grabs the chair. “Girl, your mama hired me to take care of you while you are in the cast.” She pulls me off the lift platform and whispers, “And she paid me eight hundred dollars to start tonight, so I am here for you.”

  “Okay by me,” I tell her.

  But Samuel takes the chair from her, saying, “Allow me to get her up the stairs. After that, she is all yours.”

  He isn’t playing. After he gets me in the house, he kisses me on the cheek and hits the door, going back to work. Edith goes to put up her bags, and Mama and me are alone in the living room. The room is filled with yellow and red roses.

  “So, you found a ride home, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  “The flowers are from Samuel, his condolences for Doug, I told him I didn’t know how I was going to bury him, and he sent fifteen hundred dollars to help, but it turns out Doug had a pension from down South and a life insurance policy that will bury him. His ex-wife called me and informed me that the pension is hers, but she has no problem burying him with the policy, so the body is being shipped to Birmingham, Alabama.”

  The flowers smell real nice, fresh, like spring, like a new beginning.

  “How are you, Mama? I mean really, how are you doing?” I look up at her trying to push aside the anger of her not picking me up.

  What I see is that my mama is tired, real tired. “I am a solider, baby. I am always all right.” But, she sits down on the couch and cries.

  “I am going to miss him so much.”

  My mama is not all right.

  “Mama, after everything is settled, I’m going to go to school in New York. You should move there with me.” This is another right idea that just popped into my mind.

  “What?”

  I roll the chair over to her. “You should move with me. Sell this house and move to New York. Start over, us three in New York: you, the baby, and me. Let’s go do something different, Mama.”

  “New York was a childish dream I had years ago.”

  “Smart people turn dreams into plans, Mama. Doug, Grandma, and Papa wouldn’t want you to stay here and live unhappily. We can plan all while the baby is growing inside of me. We don’t have to stay here, Mama.”

  She uses the sleeve of her housecoat to wipe her tears. “You would want me to go with you?”

  “Yes, Mama. I need you, the baby needs you, and you need New York. It’s a big city with a million chances. Go with me.”

  This is a good idea. I am looking at her really hard hoping she sees I really want her to go.

  “Chicago is a big city,” she says.

  “But, New York gives you a fresh start, a chance to make it on your own. A city that big has to have thousands of GED programs. You can get your GED then go to business school. We can start new together, Mama. There is nothing holding you here. Come with us. I need you, and the baby needs you.”

  I can see her thinking about it, and I’ve got time to keep working on her. This is going to happen, my mama in New York.

  She’s still crying, but she looks at me and says, “A dream into a plan. I like that, May. I like that a lot.”

  And I do too.

  When I look to the door, I see Grandma standing in the doorway, and she is smiling. I say nothing to my mother as I watch my grandmother’s image fading.

  * * *

  Edith has wheeled me alongside the couch in the living room. She helped me dress in some purple and pink fla
nnel pajamas and a thick white terrycloth rob that Mama stole from some downtown hotel.

  Edith, Mama, and me are watching TV. The doorbell rings and out of reflex I move toward it, but only my shoulders and head move toward the vestibule, and that tickles Edith, who gets up for the door.

  “Well, look at here.”

  I twist my neck almost backward to see who is at the door. It’s Walter walking toward me smiling from ear to ear. Some people should not show all their teeth when they smile. A toothy smile isn’t becoming on everyone.

  “Hey, May.” He bends down to kiss me, and he places a bundle of red roses in my lap.

  “Hey, Walter,” I say smiling back at him.

  “I heard you got shot.” He comes around and kneels in front of me. “Girl, you look good even shot and in a cast.”

  I laugh, and so does my mama. She asks him, “How long you been home, Walter?”

  “Just today. I have a court date, but the judge said I wasn’t a flight risk, so they let me out. I haven’t been home yet.” He looks down at his watch. “I been out for one hour and fifteen minutes. When I got out, I came straight here.”

  He grins up at me.

  And dang, his grin makes me warm all over, especially in my stomach. Wait, six weeks pregnant, dang. Walter could be the daddy too. Wouldn’t that be something? I smile toward my mama.

  “What?” she asks.

  “Nothing,” I say and reach for Walter’s hand.

  And Walter and me smile at each other like we used to.