Black Cake(57)

I didn’t think we’d end up going eight years without seeing each other. First, you ran off and never called again. Then your father became sick. And I figured I’d let you know once he was better, tell you to come back home to see us, but before we knew it, he was gone. And then we didn’t see you at the funeral and that was just too much, even for me. It’s true, I didn’t feel like talking to you after that. I felt I needed to keep my distance to stay healthy in the head. What a fool I was, Benny. Once again, I had wasted time that was never mine to squander.

Once in a while, I’d leave a voice message on your cellphone but you never responded. But now I have your letter, the one with the photos of the cake. The photos you said you meant to mail to me months before. I called you when I saw them. I left you a message. I love those pictures! And now I know. About your reasons for leaving college. About Steve. Why didn’t you tell me any of this before? Why didn’t you ask for help? Why do we women let shame get in the way of our well-being? I thought that times had changed since I was a girl, but apparently, not enough.





Betrayed





Betrayed.

That’s how Byron feels, hearing his mother’s words. He doesn’t even know what she’s talking about. He doesn’t understand what’s happened with Benny. And who is this Steve person, anyway? All Byron knows is, he’s been left out. He, who did everything for his mother while Benny was off who knows where.

How many times had Byron wanted to see Benny but had stopped short of calling her out of loyalty to his ma? How many times had he cursed his sister for not bridging the gap, for not reaching out? How many times had he asked around, trying to keep track of his sister without calling her directly? Now he finds out that his mother and sister were in contact and neither of them even bothered to tell him.

For a while, Byron had been so angry with Benny after her no-show at their father’s funeral that he hadn’t even wanted to talk to her. It had been the latest in a series of steps that had served only to agitate their mother. Dropping out of college. Moving from one city to another. Cooking in Italy, art in Arizona. Sharing less and less with them about her life. It seemed to Byron that his once openhearted baby sister had morphed into a self-absorbed bitch. Don’t use that kind of language about a woman, his mother would have said, but that was exactly what was going through Byron’s mind. And wasn’t it true?

After his mother nearly broke her neck surfing last year, Byron had wanted to pick up the phone and call Benny and say Benedetta, please come home, because the idea that his stubborn, eccentric mother might want to do anything but live her life, even after their father’s death, had shaken Byron’s sense of security. But then he got to thinking, why should he have to call his sister? When was the last time that she had called Byron?

Although Byron had lived much of his adult life fully aware of the tenuousness of his existence as an African American man—the vulnerability of his job, his popularity, his physical safety, always, his physical safety—he had felt himself to be on solid ground once he’d stepped into his childhood home. The virtual disappearance of his sister and then the loss of his father had caused the foundation of his life to tremble, but it was his mother’s so-called accident, and the state of mind that it seemed to imply, that had threatened to fully dislodge the cornerstone.

Byron also came close to calling Benny the last time he was pulled over by a cop. He was overcome, afterward, by the need to talk to her, to hear her voice, to hear her say his name, to tell Benny what had happened, to know that Benny, at least, was safe, even if Byron might not be. Might not ever be. He could not talk to his mother about such things. You could not talk to your parents about their worst nightmare. He picked up his cellphone and scrolled down to Benny’s name but just sat there in his car, looking at the screen, his hands still shaking.

At least Byron knows now that his mother didn’t go to her deathbed without hearing from Benny. That’s a good thing, right? Still, he feels betrayed. He knows that he and Benny are going to need to have a real talk, soon. He just doesn’t know how to begin that kind of conversation.

“Oh, wait,” Byron says. “What was that?” He asks Mr. Mitch to stop the recording. He realizes he’s just missed part of what his mother was saying. Mr. Mitch presses pause and reaches for a tissue box on the coffee table. Byron sees that Mr. Mitch’s nose is bright red. What’s with this guy? He’s not crying, is he?

“Sorry, the allergies are killing me,” Mr. Mitch says.

Right, Byron thinks, allergies at this time of year.

“Would you like a cup of tea or something, Mr. Mitch?” Benny asks.

“No, I’m fine, thanks. But, please, just call me Mitch, no Mister. Or Charles. That’s what your mother called me. Charles.” And the way he says your mother sets off a ding in Byron’s head. Of course. Why didn’t he pick up on that? There was something going on between Charles Mitch and Ma, wasn’t there? Charles Mitch is in mourning, too.

“Okay,” Benny says. She’s hugging that cushion again, the way she used to when she was a little girl, just like that, over her middle. Maybe not the same cushion, a different color. His mother would have given the old one to a shelter years ago. She was always taking little pieces of their lives and giving them to families who had less. Their old toys, their old books, their old blankets. These things aren’t you, she’d say, these things are just things. Right. Unless you were talking about that awful sofa of hers. How many times had Byron tried to convince her to part ways with it? Who invented crushed velvet, anyway?