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Gathering up as much courage as I could, I knocked and pressed lightly on the door. Peeking in, I held my breath.
“Cali?” a strained but familiar voice said from within.
“Yeah, it’s me, Mama.”
“I’m glad to see you,” she said with drowsy eyes and a smile.
Allowing the door to close behind me, I moved to the side of her bed. Although she was more awake than she had been the night before, she might have looked worse. All of her purple bruises had darkened. I couldn’t imagine that being a good sign, but hadn’t they moved her to a new room because she was doing better?
“That bad, huh?” my mother said, reading the look on my face.
“No, Mama. You’re looking better.”
My mother smiled. “Here’s a secret, Cali. You have a tell when you lie. A mother knows,” she said emphasizing her usually light Jamaican accent.
Was that true? Could she tell when I was lying? I was certainly lying this time.
“Mama, how did this happen?”
Sadness entered my mother’s eyes. It was the same one she got whenever I brought up my newly-found brothers.
“Does this have something to do with my father?”
She looked at me, staring into my eyes.
“It does, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know that. And neither could you, so there’s no point in asking about it.”
“What are you talking about? Someone told me that your car was rear-ended. You could have been killed. I almost lost you. If you’re still in danger, I need to know about it. If someone’s trying to hurt you because of me…”
Mama took my hand in hers. Looking at her, all I could see were the tubes attached to her arms.
“What happened was an accident. That’s all it was.”
“But what if it wasn’t? You have to tell me who my father is. If he’s someone dangerous, I have to know. Titus, Claude, and I need to know.”
For the first time since finding out there was more to my past than I was being told, my mother looked at me with empathy. I hoped it would be followed by an explanation. It wasn’t.
“Even now you’re not going to say anything?”
“Cali, there is nothing to say.”
As relieved as I was that my mother seemed more like herself, I was once again furious at her. I deserved to know the truth. She was withholding a part of who I was from me.
Maybe if I knew who my father was, it would explain things about me that I didn’t understand. I wanted to yell that at my mother, but I couldn’t. Not now, and maybe never again.
“I’m going to be taking a break from school to take care of the bed-and-breakfast,” I said to her, changing the topic.
“No!” she replied emphatically.
“What do you mean no? There are guests staying there. Now that business is starting to pick up, we have to think about reviews.”
“Promise me that this won’t affect your schoolwork.”
“Do you think I care about school right now? Do you see where you are?”
“Promise me!”
