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“Whatever! And when are you coming to visit me? You’ve been home for months and not one visit.”
I sighed. “It ain’t like you haven’t seen me, though.”
“Because I came down there! School has started, and I have to work and I have a whole child and a whole husband. There’s no telling when I’ll be down that way again and I wanna see you.”
“You’re whining, Cake. You have a PhD. People with PhDs aren’t supposed to whine.”
“I can whine all I want when I’m missing my big brother. Come on! Romey U’s homecoming is in a few weeks. Yougottacome for that since you’re an alumnus. Pweeeeeeease.”
I laughed and shook my head. “I don’t think the public is ready for me Dr. London-Higgs.”
“Fuck the public. I’m your sister and now you have a niece. We need to see you, Vann.”
“I…I’ll think about it. Okay?”
“Okay.”
There wasa time when I dealt with my issues by running. If I got too close to someone, felt like my soul was opening up in a way I was uncomfortable with, I’d buy a plane ticket and fly from one brown country to another—Nigeria to Ghana, Ethiopia to Uganda. When I failed to become a capoeira master, I left Brazil for Peru, and so on and so on.
That all began when I was twenty-one and my father outright rejected me, inciting me to leave the contiguous United States for a destination unknown. After that, I only returned to the states for brief stints or to visit my mom and sister until I began working with Messiah, but even then, I still steered clear of Mississippi for the most part. Then I was diagnosed with cancer, my world fell apart, and I was compelled to leave said life behind and come home to the comfort and safety of my mother. And today, when I descended the stairs in my childhood home and saw what I saw, my first instinct was to run again and fast.
As soon as my bare feet hit the first-floor landing, I saw the black SUV sitting in the front yard through the screen door. There was a suited man standing in front of it, his eyes hidden behind a dark pair of aviators. Then I heard the voices—his and hers. Slowly, I made my way to the kitchen to find them sitting at the table, steaming cups of something sitting before them, and that familiar look in both their eyes—love. The shit made everything in my stomach curdle. I could understand him loving her after all these years, but how in the hell could she still love him after the way he’d treated her?
In response to me standing in the kitchen doorway in pajama bottoms and nothing else, staring at them, my mother said, “Well, good morning, Vann. We have company. Come join us.”
Completely side-stepping her statement, I asked, “Where is Rabbit?”
“Already gone to school. He rode the van today.” School was a resource center he attended a couple of days a week, a place for him to socialize with other differently-abled adults.
I knew this was one of the days, but our company had wiped it out of my memory, leaving me to simply reply, “Oh.”
I still didn’t move deeper into the room, my gaze affixed to my mother. She offered me a soft smile and beseeching eyes. I hated this man and she hated that I hated him, but it was his fault I felt this way. It wasallhis damn fault.
Slowly, he turned in his seat, his face a reflection of mine—gray eyes, keen nose, slightly full lips. His fine salt and pepper hair, a contrast to the jet-black curly hair carpeting my head, was combed back from his face. The only other difference between my father and me was the color of our skin. His was white. Mine was not.
“Son,” he drawled, his voice just as commanding as ever, even when speaking a single word.
A single word that made me want to punch a hole in his face.
I had to give him credit for not flinching at the sight of me, at my now modified appearance, but he was a liar, so I was sure he was well-versed in schooling his facial expressions.
Without acknowledging him, I turned to leave the kitchen, becausefuck this, only to be stopped by my mother’s voice.
“Vann, come sit down and have breakfast with us.” She spoke in that no-nonsense voice she always used when I was a boy and had misbehaved.
I wasalwaysmisbehaving, if you could call it that, but I believe my actions were warranted.
Anyway, that voice made me stop and turn around. I looked at her and she gave me a firm nod, so with a sigh, I sat down at the table across from my damn father.
I could feel his eyes on me as I paid my attention to the top of the table. Besides the sound of my mother’s chair scraping against the floor as she stood to make me a plate, the room was silent, but at the same time, loud with tension.
“How’ve you been, Vann?” was how he chose to break the silence.
In response, I shrugged. “I’m still breathing. That’s all I can say.”
“I’m glad you are.”
My “humph” was little more than a mumble.
