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The whole scene is askew, and I’m so disoriented it feels like I’m standing on the ceiling.
One of the hardest parts of aging is being the one “still standing” when everyone else has found their peace lying down.
Just as I’m finally getting an empty nest, Zere realized she wants to fill hers. Neither of us was willing to budge, so… is that mutual? Her ultimatum. My refusal.
Is she losing me? Did she ever have me? Did I have her?
Those eyes rest on me in an unwavering stare that might disconcert another woman. Me? I just stare right back, assessing him as much as he’s assessing me.
“How was that?” Flirty Bartender asks right on cue. Look at God. He may not come when you want Him, but He always comes on time.
The “my” in that sentence is totally unnecessary if she’s subtly warning me off. Girl, I don’t want your man.
“Hey, Bet,” I say, using the name my mother’s family always called her by. “Ma?” my mother asks, her voice going breathless with hope and relief. “Is that you?”
oh that’s so heavy
Losing my mother was different. Like a thread ripped from a quilt that instantly unravels.
Still I don’t stop myself from uttering the next words as I climb the stairs toward my bedroom. “Hey, Bolt, find out all you can about the Aspire Fund out of Atlanta.”
“I didn’t want you to find out I’d sold the house and not talked to you because I know you love it so much. And I would give it to you because I care about you.” “Not enough, though, right?”
girl come on
“Well, he likes women who are…” She must hear her feet squishing in the shit she just stepped in.
“We are not magic,” she says. “We are resilient. It’s not a wand. It’s work. We work harder and shine brighter to survive. Excellence for us has been a matter of necessity. In a climate where less than half a percent of venture capital funding goes to Black women, women founders still perform sixty-three percent better than all-male founding teams in the first round. With those odds, we can’t leave our success to chance and we for sure can’t depend on magic.”
“Funny you mention masturbation,” Skipper fires back, taking a step closer to Bolt, standing a few inches above him and leaving little space between them. “Since you strike me as a man who has no other options.”
“Charlotte. Well, a little town right outside of it. When you’re from a rural area, you kinda just claim the closest big city.”
“Pretty much. When I was young, my dad played for the Clippers. The team had relocated from Buffalo to San Diego and then to LA, which is where I was born.”
go bills!
The glance is as hot and quick as a drop of oil in a pan,
“I like you, Hendrix.” He says it without a smile, in a way that sounds earnest and real and not like he’s saying something to fill the space. He doesn’t take it back or explain it away, but forges on.
There are women like me who are mothering in our own ways, but have never carried a child or been a parent. We’re teachers and mentors and social workers and godmothers. We find ways to pour love into the world, to shape the world for good without bearing a child. It’s not about our wombs. It’s about our hearts and how we share them. That is bodily agency—me getting to decide what I do with my body in this life.”
“You look happy right now,” I tell her, taking a chance and slipping my arm through the crook of hers, linking our elbows. “I’d love to see you happy all the time.”
WOOOOO
“I’m calling you this week,” I say without preamble, and she stumbles for a second before steadying her gait.
I’m not inviting Maverick up. He’s not coming into my apartment. We’re saying goodnight right here in the car, and that’s it. “Nightcap?” he asks. “Sure,” I say unhesitatingly, shocking and kicking my own self in the ass.
And isn’t girl code for friends? I’ve known Zere for years, and I’d never heard your name before that party. You are, at best, business associates beginning a friendship.”
point
He flinches, but smooths his features out, molds them into the mask he shows the world. “That’s really not fair and I think you know it.”
it’s rly not
“The right one won’t ask you to give up your dreams, but will care just as much as you do about them.”
“That woman has been working overtime, but she helped me see that the same way it wouldn’t be fair of you to expect me to give up my dream of having kids, it’s not fair for me to expect you to want something other than what you feel is right for you.” She needed therapy to reach that conclusion? Is that what’s passing as a breakthrough these days? Note to self. Pay my therapist more.
Caught, like if you blew forensic dust over my body,
“We are adults,” I tell her, struggling to tamp down my impatience.
GROWWWN
“I’m chasing my dreams,” I finish with as much strength as I can muster. “I’m chasing you.”
“You can’t earn enough. You can’t achieve enough. Ambition for things and accolades is a bottomless pit. It’s all you can eat, but you never get full.”
“You don’t want a man holding your happiness hostage, putting his needs over yours, but isn’t that what Zere would be doing if she tried to stop you from seeing me if that’s what you want?”
“No, I wanted one thing. One thing, Hendrix, that he would never give me and that was a child. If I’d been fine with no kids, we’d still be together. Have you thought about that?”
oh girl
“Imagine waking up and not knowing what day it is. Or where you are.” My breath catches at this rare glimpse into how Mama is processing everything. She never talks about it.
“Love?” I draw in a sharp breath and close my eyes. “That translated to me as Do you think you should jump off this cliff with a tinfoil parachute?”
My heart squeezes around the reality of my father really being gone. Of the people I’ve loved and lost. I don’t blame Mama for slipping away sometimes, her mind taking refuge where it finds it. If I could escape to a place where they were still alive, I would.
I allow myself one last tear because it’s not actually Maverick who is teaching me how it feels to miss someone before they’re gone. It’s Mama.
Loving someone this way feels like giving them a blank check and telling them they can fill it up with zeros.
