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“That’ll be something, won’t it? A black man in the mayor’s office in Tuscaloosa and one in the White House in Washington, D.C.” She matched my grin with a hearty laugh.
“Let’s not speak too soon.”
The waitress slid our bill onto the table as my mother looked off reminiscently.
“I remember a South where none of this was possible. But it’s good to see you young people changing things. Chasing your dreams,” she said.
“Yeah, I’m still trying to figure out mine.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, putting cash onto the table.
“Nothing,” I said, regretting my slip. I didn’t want to become the topic of conversation. And I was already late meeting Billie at my house so I could take the test.
“No, really. Tell me,” she pushed.
“It’s nothing, Mama. I just wonder sometimes what I’m doing with my life,” I blurted. “Jr is begging me to come work at the church. Daddy wants me in the choir. The kids need me at the school. Evan wants me at home. And I have no idea what I want. I know I love teaching, but I don’t know if I want to do that forever. It’s like you said at church the other week, I’m thirty-three and I feel like I should have all this figured out by now.”
“Dear, I told you that so you could see the blessing that your life is and move ahead in that peace,” she said. “You know your father picked out your name, and sometimes I think we cursed you with it. Because, forever, you’ve been trying to find somewhere to go when your life is right here.” She pat me on the hand and smiled meaningfully. “I’m not saying you need to just accept whatever life gives you, but you must have the wisdom to know when you have a good thing going.”
“I know, Mama. But sometimes I wonder if a good thing is enough to make a life on. Like maybe there’s somewhere else for me to be. Something else for me to have.” I thought of Kayla and how she just packed up her life and moved South to chase love. I wished I had that kind of passion for anything.
“No, listen to me. Some people search the planet looking for something to fill them up, never happy with anything. But in the end, they realize that everything they needed was right in front of them. They wouldn’t notice it only because they thought they could find something better.” She sat back and laughed. “When I was young and we were trying to go into town to just sit at white restaurants like this one and order a soda, we had a little joke. We’d ask if the apples in a black yard were better than those in a white yard. We always said the white ones were better. Bigger. Sweeter. But really, they just seemed better because we’d never had them ... and when we did have them, we’d fought so hard to get them that they just seemed better, bigger, and sweeter. But you know, after you have five of those apples, you realize that they’re all the same. In fact, those black apples are better because they came from your yard.”
We got up and walked to the door and I tried to make reason of what she’d said. My mother always had a way of making everything sound so easy.
“Now I don’t remember fighting over apples at all,” she added. “The joke was really about the way people see things.”
We stopped in the doorway and she turned to look at me, her honey eyes soft and calm.
“Your life is what you perceive it to be, Journey. If you want to be happy, you will be. If you don’t want to be happy, you won’t. It’s that simple. You have a good life. You just have to take time to look at it,” she finished, rummaging in her purse as we both searched for our keys before walking out of the airconditioned opening.
“Oh, no,” she said, peering down in the bag. “I think I left my keys on the table.”
“You sure?” I asked.
“I had to.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll get them.”
“You don’t have to,” she offered when I’d already turned to retrieve the keys.
As I headed back toward the door, I noticed my mother standing outside talking to Deacon Gresham—one of my parents’ childhood friends who’d been with the church forever. He was a handsome man, one whose good looks hadn’t faded with gray hair and a cane-assisted step. Deacon Gresham was always sharply dressed and wearing or carrying a hat to match his handkerchief-donned jackets. A retired attorney, his wife of forty years had died a little over a year ago and he’d become the choice chatter of my mother’s circle. Grandmothers and some great-grandmothers, they sounded like teenagers when they plotted over dessert as to who’d get with Deacon Gresham.
I could see that his face looked stressed, his jaw was tight, and he hadn’t smiled. He looked at me and then shifted his eyes very sternly back to my mother. She turned to me, shooting a blank stare, as he said something and then walked away.
“You found the keys,” my mother said, smiling nimbly when I came out.
“Yeah, they were on the table.” I handed her the keys and looked down the street to see the back of Deacon Gresham. “Why didn’t he stay to say hello?”
“Oh, Journey, I don’t think he saw you.”
“He looked right at me.”
“We were,” she started slowly, “supposed to have lunch.”
“I thought you said you canceled a business meeting.”
“We just meet for lunch sometimes. He’s still very sad about Emma, so we talk about old times.”
