On Rotation(47)

Her words slashed through me like a knife across my chest. It was like my own mother had sat back and listened to me speak, licked her fingers, and put my enthusiasm out like a flame. And she had done it so dispassionately, with the same regard that she crossed an item off a grocery list. This wasn’t the first time, either. I remembered coming back from school and holding up the poem I had written for our county’s literary contest. My high school English teacher had held me back after class. Angela, she had said, I knew that you were a strong writer, but this? This is incredible. She’d given me a list of local competitions and scholarships for aspiring writers and encouraged me to apply. I had come home beaming with pride, validated for once in a subject in which there was no best answer, just one that felt right.

Momma had taken one look at the list, balled it in her fist, and thrown it in the trash.

“How many SAT practice questions have you done today?” she asked instead, her face smooth with passivity.

It had been a decade since that day. Since then, I had moved out. Gotten my own place. Taken on $258,000 in medical school loans, paid my own bills . . . and yet nothing between us had changed.

“I’m not a person to you,” I said softly.

Momma sputtered.

“What are you saying?” she said.

“I said,” I started, too far gone to turn back now, “you don’t think of me as a person. That’s what this is all about.”

“Ey. Why are you speaking to me in that tone? I’m trying to advise you, and you are getting emotional?” she accused, her voice dropping in pitch. “Your future is not about emotions, Angela. Sometimes you have to hear things that you don’t like. Your father and I are only trying to do what’s best for your success—”

“Oh stop it,” I snapped. The woman at the counter looked at me again, but this time I didn’t care, too overwhelmed with frustration. “My success? I’m in medical school; I’m not going to go broke. Stop making this about me and my emotions and be honest with yourself. I’m not a person to you. I’m just a puppet for you to live your dreams through.” I ground my teeth. “That’s why you treat me like this, right? Like nothing I think or want matters?”

Momma kissed her teeth, and the sound was like gasoline to my fire.

“American children,” she scoffed. “Always finding ways to blame their parents. Since when have I said that what you think doesn’t matter, eh? Since when?”

“Since literally right now!” I said. “Every time you talk, it’s to tell me about all the ways I’m not enough! I don’t work hard enough! I don’t dress well enough! Even the things I care about—they’re not important enough!”

“I promise you, if you can come up with one thought that is worthwhile on your own, I will listen to you! But, look at you, even now, behaving like a child! Like you still haven’t figured out how the world works—”

That was it.

“Oh, forget this,” I spat, and hung up. My brain felt like it was vibrating inside my skull. Before I could get barraged with a series of outraged calls and voicemails accusing me of disrespect, I scrolled to my parents’ contact information and hit “block.” The twinge of guilt I felt was overshadowed by the heat of my rage.

Twenty-five years old, and I was still living with this shit. I buried my face in my hands, surprised to find that they didn’t come away wet. Normally, conflict with my parents inspired tears almost immediately, but what I felt today wasn’t my typical shame. It was righteousness. After all, I had done nothing out of step. My entire life, I had been obedient. I had joined the clubs they’d told me to join, hung out with the friends they approved of, avoided boys when they said boys were bad, sought them out when they decided they were necessary. I had gotten into one of the Top Colleges and then a Name Brand Medical School, and my parents had accepted the awe and envy of the Naperville Ghanaian community but given none of the credit to me. But of course they didn’t. Momma had said it herself—none of what had made me successful had been my idea, because my ideas were stupid and childish. My malleability hadn’t earned me their respect; their expectations had only gotten more granular over the years, more unyielding.

But I had to draw the line sometime. Why it had to be now, in the locker room of King Spa, with a boy wringing his hands waiting for me just outside, I didn’t know. It was like third year of medical school had stripped me of my last remaining pretenses. And so, if my parents were going to forget that I was an adult, I would have to remind them what they had to lose.

Ricky was sitting on a couch outside the women’s locker room when I finally emerged some twenty minutes later. In the aftermath of my Declaration of Independence, I’d forgotten that I was mad at him, and the expression he gave me as I approached, like a dejected puppy, furthered his case.

“Hey,” I said. “Sorry I was gone a while.”

Ricky stretched out like a cat.

“It’s all right,” he said, yawning. Then, noticing my stony expression: “Everything okay?”

I shrugged. I felt drunk, my hold on my body tenuous in the aftermath of my emotional onslaught. I wavered on my feet, then sat down.

“Ha. Not really,” I said honestly. I gave him a small smile. “Just had a massive fight with my parents. You know. Same old, same old.”