“Who’re you here for?” she asked.
“Boateng,” I said. “Room 4016?”
“Ah! Karen’s her nurse, but she’s on break right now. I’ll take you,” she said, taking off in a direction. She looked back at us, her eyes narrowing, and I saw, in real time, as a gear clicked into place in her head.
“I’m Whitney, by the way. And um... I’m so sorry to ask this. But by any chance, are you Dr.Jojobee?”
I winced. I’d been so preoccupied by my thoughts that I’d forgotten that young women in health care were my target demographic.
“Yes,” I said flatly, hoping my tone would invite no further speculation.
“Oh, cool. Um... I follow you. I really like all the things you have to say about working in health care. Also that you’re, like, so girlie while doing it.” Whitney’s cheeks reddened, and she ducked her head, embarrassed. “Anyway, I’m really sorry you’re here right now. But I just had to let you know that I think what you’re doing is really important.” We arrived in front of 4016, and she bit back a smile. “I’ll page the team, let them know you’re here.”
“Thank you, Whitney,” I managed, unexpectedly moved.
“It’s no problem,” Whitney said, then scampered away.
“That was cute,” Ezra said when she was out of sight.
I nodded, staring at the silver door handle before me. Every hospital I’d been to had the same wood laminate doors, the same steel handle that I’d nudge open with my hips and elbows when my hands were too full of supplies or notes or ultrasound machine. To think that my mother was behind this door, that all I had to do was push, and she would be there.
The knot in my throat pulled tight. I could feel the ghosts ofold anxieties creeping into my head, long-resolved insecurities. I’d been rejected by Prudence so many times as a child that I’d grown numb to her indifference, but now, as an adult, I felt raw, nervous. What if she didn’t actually want to see me again? What if Dr. Hosseini had only called me because I was her next of kin, her living adult child and therefore her legal surrogate decision maker, and because chasing me down was simpler than assigning a legal guardian? What if I opened the door and Prudence pushed me out?
Ezra reached for my hand to squeeze.
“You don’t have to go in if you don’t want to,” he said. “It’s not too late to walk away.”
I shook my head. No. I’d come this far. I had to see this through.
“I’ll do it,” I said softly. “I just need a minute.”
But I was denied even that, because in the next second, the door opened from the inside, and a man slid out.
I could tell he was Ghanaian from one glance. Stout and square-jawed, with a bald head that folded on itself in the back, he looked like a stereotypical Ghanaian uncle, though I was quite sure we had never met. By the way he was staring at me, like he’d known me my whole life, I wondered if I was wrong. I’d met so few of my relatives, and Prudence hadn’t exactly had many friends—
“You must be Josephine,” the man said, and I watched, stunned, as he lowered his wire-framed glasses to wipe away tears. “Excuse me. But you look just like her.”
For all of her faults, Prudence Boateng had never brought a man into our home.
“Do not open your legs for any man,” she’d told me. “Givethem something one time, and the next time, they will think they can take. And who knows what they will leave you with after.”
It was one of the only times she’d ever troubled herself to advise me. The other first gen kids complained that their parents were always trying to dictate their lives, but Prudence had always seemed to regard me more like a small, unwelcome guest that she was forced to harbor. We rarely spoke outside of her directives: clean the bathroom, do the laundry, wash the plates.
But that day was special. Hours earlier, I’d lowered my pants in the bathroom during third period science to find them soaked in dark, sticky discharge. I had known my period was coming soon; I was thirteen, after all, and a cover-to-cover read of my library’s copy ofGirl’s Body Bookhad provided me with the baseline knowledge of the wonders of puberty. When I informed Prudence that evening, it was not to celebrate my development so much as it was to warn her that she would now need to consider me when stocking up on her menstrual products.
But instead of grumbling about having to spend more money on me, Prudence imparted her wisdom: Do not listen to men. Do not trust them. They will say anything to get between your legs, and you can get pregnant now. Don’t let one ruin your life (the thinly veiled implication: like you ruined mine).
And yet, so many years later, here I was, speaking to a man who called himself my mother’s partner.
His name was Kweku. He was a CPA. He and Prudence had met at church eight years ago, and they shared a small three-bedroom home in Bolingbrook.
I took in the new information numbly.
“The doctors said they had a hard time reaching you,” Kweku said. He had a gentle manner of speaking, soothing, like a voiceactor for the sleep meditation podcasts I often listened to at night. He gave Ezra and me a look over. “I suppose they must have only just succeeded.”
“Yes,” I said, suddenly incapable of speaking more than one word at a time.
“Thank you for coming,” Kweku said. Then: “What do you know?”
