“Yeah,” Mal said. “I’ll call you.”
“Sure,” Jo said. The door snapped shut behind her, and he listened to her steps echo down his hall, down his staircase.
The next day, when Mal tried to make good on his promise, her line had been disconnected.
Chapter Seventeen
Jo
I knew from a very young age that my mother didn’t love me because she told me so herself. She’d been drunk, sprawled out on our ratty sofa with a leg propped up on its arm, an unstrapped heel hanging from her foot, her usual post-Saturday-night-party position. I—being ten years old and already accustomed to taking care of myself—had asked for ten dollars and her signature on a permission slip for a school trip to the history museum. She’d looked me dead in the eyes, released a long-suffering sigh, and said, “I think I’m broken. I was supposed to love you by now.”
“That’s horrifying,” Ezra said, sputtering, when I’d told him. We’d been lying on his bed in his house on campus, my feet braced against his headboard, his crossed by my head.
I disagreed. If anything, by telling me outright that she didn’t love me, Prudence Boateng had given me clarity. She’d spared me the torment of disappointment, assured me that I was, in fact, alone in the world, and as a result, I’d behaved accordingly. From that moment on, I signed my own permission slips. Told my teachers never to expect my mother for their scheduled parent-teacher conferences and made excuses so that they wouldn’t call Child Protective Services. Worked odd jobs, cooked my own meals, managed my own schedule, and made myself as unobstructive a roommate as possible so that I could continue to have a roof over my head. The second I turned sixteen, I moved out and filed for emancipation. As expected, my mother didn’t show up for my hearing to contest.
What she had not successfully eradicated, however, was hope.
Because no matter how much I tried to convince myself that Prudence Boateng meant nothing to me, that the relationship I had with Renata was enough, there was still a part of me that hoped.Maybe she struggled with depression too, I thought.Maybe she was young and overwhelmed and was forced into motherhood against her will. Maybe she didn’t know how to mother a child but might know how to befriend an adult.
And then one day, Prudence called.
I’d just been pictured in aMarie Clairemagazine article alongside Renata at an event for New York Fashion Week. Ezra was out in LA shooting a pilot for a series that never made it off the ground, and Paul had long established himself as too busy to make it to Renata’s little parties, and so she had asked me to be her plus-one. We had a fabulous time shopping for my outfit and an even more fabulous time cutting up on the dance floor, and when an unfamiliar number flashed across my screen the next morning, I’d been too giddy and exhausted to think twice before picking up.
“I see you’ve made friends in high places,” Prudence had said, skipping even a perfunctory attempt at small talk. “Look, I was wondering if you could ask them if—”
I’d felt like I’d been dropped into a wind tunnel. Her voice sounded just as I remembered it, a clipped, resonant tenor, an American accent layered over the Ghanaian one like paint-on plaster. But instead of apologies, I heard demands. Instead of contrition, I heard derision.
Stunned, I hung up, increased my therapy sessions to biweekly, and tried, with limited success, to piece my self-esteem back together.
And now, five years later, Prudence was calling again, and this time she didn’t even bother to say hello.
“I need help, Josephine,” she said. “I know you don’t want to hear from me. But I did one good thing by bringing you onto this earth, and—”
I hung up before she could say another word, unsure if I could hold myself together. Suddenly, Mal’s living room felt too bright, the sun shining through his windows searing hot. Haphazardly, I slapped two fingers to my pulse at my neck, following the second hand on the analog clock hanging on the wall across from me.One two three four five six seven eight nine. Sixty divided by six seconds is ten. Nine times ten isninety, regular rate, regular rhythm, physiologic.I inhaled through my nose, let the breath round my belly, hollowed it with a slow exhale through my mouth.
In the kitchen, I could hear the clang of dishes hitting the sink, Mal humming contentedly as he ran them under water. Some people, I thought, were born good, and Mal was one of them. Others were rotten.
I wasn’t quite sure what category I fell under yet.
“Hey,” I said to his broad back. “Um... sorry, but I’ve got to head out.”
Mal whipped around, surprise rounding out his face, and I felta pull in my chest, knowing that if he asked me to stay, I might like to cry in his arms. They would be good arms to cry into, bigger than Ezra’s, warmer than Renata’s, his scent spicier, his hold necessarily closer. The arms of a man who wasin lovewith me.
But Mal was respectful, and not at all selfish, and granted me the space that I had requested without fanfare. So instead, I cried in the backseat of my Uber.
“Ummm, you good, girl?” my driver, a woman with cherry-red locs named Kayla, who I suspected might have recognized me, said.
“Yeah, thanks,” I said. It was an obvious lie, given the mess I’d made of my face, but Kayla, who was making three dollars and twenty-two cents to cart me from Bronzeville to Lincoln Park, didn’t seem in the mood to play therapist. That was just as well. I was busy emailing the person I paid to help me process my Big Feelings, and oh, was I going to get my money’s worth.
Dear Rochelle,I typed to my therapist.
Sorry for the long disappearance! Busy busy! Anyway, wondered if you had any availabilities this week for an appointment.
Thank you,
Josephine Boateng
I received a response instantly.
