Page 67 of Love Bank
“Y-yes. You don’t understand. I think we broke up today,” I wailed, the gate lifted and the water released.
Mom clucked repeatedly, flummoxed beyond words.
“Well, what did you go and do that for?”
I swiped at my cheeks, the phone wedged between my ear and my shoulder. “There’s this girl.”
“Oh, Lord have mercy. I knew it. I’m sorry, dear, but men are assholes driven by their dicks like a homing beacon. All they care about is finding compatible vaginas. Hell, most of the time, they don’t even have to be compatible, just accessible.”
“Mom!” I didn’t want to hear my mom’s theory on dicks and vaginas.
“You’re an adult. I can speak freely now.”
I shook my head to clear it of everything she just said. The only thing I latched on to was “speak freely.” It was about time I did.
“Listen, Mom. I’m in love with Bain. And he says he loves me. But then this woman, Addi, shows up on his doorstep and says she’s pregnant with his baby.”
Mom stays silent.
“Mom? Did you hear me?”
“Yeah, I was waiting for you to get to the part about the breakup.”
“Well, I obviously walked out after that. Bain denies it’s his, but of course he would, right?”
“Let me get this straight. You love each other, but at the first sign of possible trouble—not even confirmed trouble—you walked away?”
My shoulders sagged. “You don’t get it.”
“So explain it to me, love,” she said softly.
I kicked off the covers and sat up straight. Time to lay it all out there while Mom was in a receptive mood and my filter had pulled a disappearing act.
“Imagine being the baby of the family with a sibling ten years older and uninterested in your life. Imagine growing up believing you weren’t important enough to have your dad stick around to watch you grow. Then imagine growing up, fading into the background with no friends and no life outside of your one parent. I’m thirty-six years old, Mom, crying over my first boyfriend. To say I’m a slow bloomer is under exaggerating in epic proportion.”
“Oh, Lucille…”
I rubbed at the spot on my chest that wouldn’t give me a break. “For one very short period of time, I had a gorgeous man interested in little ol’ me. He liked me, Mom. He chose me over my new, beautiful friends. He wantedme.” My voice hitched and wobbled. “And now this woman is here, staking her claim and stealing my moment. Stealing the time and attention I wanted—no,needed—to feel seen.”
I shook my head, tears dripping off my cheeks and sprinkling my pillow. “I won’t share the spotlight. Not now and not ever again. Not when it comes to the man in my life. I want to be his everything.”
I could hear Mom breathing through the phone, but she didn’t say anything for long moments, for which I was grateful. Those moments were necessary to get my tears under control. The pain in my chest was still there, but the weight in my stomach was lessened, simply from the sharing of my heartache.
“I’m sorry.” Mom’s voice wobbled, the first time I’d heard it less than confident and below twenty decibels. “I’m sorry you weren’t happy. I’m sorry for the part I played in your childhood that left you feeling unseen. I see you, my child. For a while there, you and Lavender were all I could see. You two are the reason I made that club. I wanted to show you that unlike your gullible mother, you didn’t need a man to feel whole and complete.”
I hung my head, wondering how we’d gotten so off track when we just wanted the best for each other.
“I know you did. But your refusal to tell me about my biological father makes me feel like you don’t trust me. And the man-hating has convinced me you don’t want me to have a man in my life either.”
“I don’t tell you about your father because knowing would only hurt you and hurt everyone in this town. All of that’s better left buried and I just ask that you trust me to know best.” She cleared her throat and changed the subject. “I’ll say it again: if you’re happy, I’m happy. If that includes a man in your life, I’ll find a way to be okay with it.”
I sighed. All this truthfulness, and while she approved of Bain, or someone like Bain, she still wouldn’t spill the beans about my dad.
“Thanks, Mom.”
My phone dinged and I pulled it from my ear to check the screen.
Lenora:Hey, girl. Everything okay?
