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“Greta! I know you heard me. If you don’t get back in here this instance.”
“Stop it, Mom. You are taking your anger out on the wrong people.”
“No, I’m not. You should see the dust I found on the baseboard behind the sofa, and she knows I have bad allergies! Get back in here, Greta,” she said before turning her nose up in the air with distaste.
“And you moved the sofa to look for dust, because…”
“I am not upset with your Father, if that’s what you’re thinking. He just has some misguided thoughts and feelings right now, but don’t be mistaken. I have your Father wrapped around my finger,” she said pointing out her diamond covered ring finger. “Now like I was saying, what I’m upset about is that we pay our help so much and they can’t do something as simple as laying a flower bed or dusting.”
“Sure,” I said as I sat down on the sofa and picked up a magazine. I haphazardly browsed the magazine while she continued to rant.
“Jacob, I want you to know that I’m unbothered by anything those people came in here to do last night.”
“That’s the problem,” I said placing the magazine back on the table. “You should be bothered. The thoughts and feelings you’re unbothered by are serious to me and Dad. If there is any chance for you to salvage the relationships with your son and husband, you’re going to have to understand those facts.”
“Jacob, you do not know what you’re talking about,” Mom yelled with venom spewing from her eyes.
“Mom, calm down and talk to me. Right now, I’m actually on your side when it comes to saving your marriage. The last thing I want to see is my parents divorced.”
“Fine. You want to know how I really feel about last night?”
“Amongst other things, I do want to know how you feel about last night.”
“I feel like it’s your fault for bringing those people into our home and upsetting our family. Of all the black people in this highly populated world, how could you go out and handpick Clara’s daughter?”
“Those people did not upset our family. If anything, Clara coming back into the picture only shined a light on what was already wrong. For instance, before you even knew Ms. Clara was coming to dinner, you had already planned to disrespect my fiancé by inviting Justine.” Mom huffed and turned her back on me. “But, if it makes you feel any better, I didn’t know about Dad and Clara’s history. I found out the same time you did,” I said, knowing that I didn’t owe her any type of explanation after the way she treated me and Destiny.
“Well, that makes me feel a whole heap better,” she said sarcastically, before turning back to face me.
“Mom, no matter what has transpired here, I’m marrying Destiny and she will be a part of this family. In order for it to work, you have to show some damn respect. Your attitude towards her is getting old.”
“You don’t even understand what you’ve done,” she said, throwing her hands in the air and hitting them hard against her legs when they came down. “Your father slept in the guestroom last night, because he’s pining over a forty-year-old love affair. You brought the woman it took me years to extract from his heart into our home. You don’t know how he used to call out for her in his sleep. Do you know what it took for him to get her out of his system? Do you know how many times I’ve caught him looking at her old pictures, Jacob? To this day, he has an album labeled Wellmington memories.”
“Mom, listen.”
“And now, at sixty five years old, I had to watch him stand in front of her acting like he never knew my name. Like he’s twenty again. And you seem to think we’ll just get through this?”
I listened to my mother and couldn’t help but feel torn. On the one hand, after years of idle stability, my parent’s marriage was in a rocky place. On the other hand, she had some nerve to look to me for sympathy after her blatant disregard for my relationship.
At that moment, I hated that my mother didn’t like Destiny. That my father had a past with Ms. Clara. That Ms. Clara slapped my father in front of everyone. That Justine was at dinner. That Justine’s actions caused a rift in my relationship with Destiny, which left the back door open for Montie to slide in. But most of all, I didn’t like that Mom was hurting. At the end of the day, she was the first woman who ever had my heart.
Watching Mom’s tears fall counterbalanced my reluctant acceptance of Dad’s feelings for Clara, the woman he claimed was his one true love. Thinking back, I watched Dad spend countless amounts of emotional energy trying to please Mom in one way or another. He would wine and dine her, and buy her special gifts. He catered to her every want and need, as far as my youthful eyes could see. However, she would only reward him with an artful smile, a kiss, or more requests for things she wanted.
Sometimes, I would see him look at her as she rambled on about new items she purchased or planned to purchase and I would see an empty expression behind his eyes, a longing. Mom didn’t even notice the longing. She just navigated through, making her best effort at becoming the perfect, high-class housewife.
What I knew for sure, as I listened to Mom ramble on about Ms. Clara being at dinner, was that my father longed for the moment he shared with Ms. Clara. He appreciated holding her in his arms as much as his next breath. As a man who went from a relationship of convenience with Justine into a whirlwind romance with Destiny, I understood my father’s position.
Nevertheless, Mom had one thing over Ms. Clara, and that was forty years of matrimony. I just hoped she managed to pull herself together fast enough to express genuine love, before all was lost.
“Mom, I need you to listen to me and listen to me very closely. Do you hear me? Very closely,” I said as I patted a place on the sofa for her to sit next to me.
She sighed as she relented. When she sat down next to me, I leaned toward her and engaged her as intimately and caring as a son could. She looked at me willfully, and I hoped the layers of her nasty, high-society attitude would peel back as I spoke. I needed to get to the core of the woman who had meager beginnings in a small town in Alabama before moving to Miami, when her father got a job promotion.
“I’m listening,” she said, nudging me to continue.
“For me, I demand that you set aside any and all ill-feelings you have for Destiny. That will be necessary for us to have any semblance of a relationship in the years to come. For Dad, you need to figure out a way to get inside his heart again. Make him remember why he chose to marry you. Because what I saw last night was not a man who was intruded upon by unwanted guests.”
I stopped right there. I dared to tell Mom I saw love, compassion and hope in my father’s eyes. A look that let me know for a fact he never stopped loving Ms. Clara one minute. I was sure Mom saw it too. I couldn’t remember a time when he looked at her that way.
