The Mothers(30)
—
IN THE MORNING, Luke’s bum leg burned. An unusual type of pain. He knew other types well, a side effect from a reckless youth. A broken arm after accepting a dare to swing across the monkey bars blindfolded, sprained ankles and jammed fingers from pickup basketball games taken too seriously, cracked ribs from drunk fights with friends. In college, he learned pain intimately, the tautness of sore muscles, the feverous push beyond all points of reason, the weight of a hundred pounds on your back, digging into your shoulders, cutting off your breath. The pain of too-tired, can’t-get-up, no-thinking, just-surviving. After football, he didn’t think he could ever unlearn pain. He felt violence still in his body, echoing against his bones.
The leg hurt differently, not the sting or swell he knew, just a dull, seasoned pain that felt hot when he stepped, especially in the morning after hours of not moving it. So when his mother banged on his door early one Sunday morning, he took a minute to untangle himself from his covers and shuffle barefoot across the room. Golden shards of light slanted through the slats of the blinds and across his carpet. He eased toward the door, gingerly opening it and poking his head out. In the hallway, his mother stood in a peach skirt suit, her purse clutched under her arm. He squinted into the sunlight, clearing his throat.
“What you need, Mama?” he said.
“Hi Mama,” she said. “Good morning, Mama. It’s so good to see you, Mama . . .”
“Sorry, I just woke up.”
“Let me give you a hug since I don’t do nothin’ but work and hole up in my room all day . . .”
He stepped forward lightly, putting an arm briefly around her shoulders.
“What’d I tell you about going to see that doctor?” she said.
“It don’t hurt that bad.”
“Can’t hardly walk and still won’t listen to nobody.” She shook her head. “Why you standing like that in front of the door?”
“You don’t wanna go in. It’s messy.”
“You think I don’t know that already?”
“C’mon, Mama, what you need?”
“I don’t need anything. I just want to see my son.”
“I been busy,” he said.
She scoffed. “Busy. I know you’re still thinkin’ about that Turner girl. You just like your daddy. Can’t let the past be the past.” She touched his cheek. “Look, what’s done is done. You got yourself in this mess and you should be on your knees thanking God for getting you out of it. Don’t everybody get another chance, you know that?”
“Yes,” he said.
“What you need to do is come to church,” she said. “If you’d listened to the Word a little more, maybe none of this would’ve happened.”
Luke leaned against the doorframe. He hadn’t meant to get his parents involved but he needed the money quickly, and part of him had hoped that they would scold him for even considering aborting the baby and refuse to give him a dollar. Then he would’ve returned to Nadia, hangdog, his hands thrown up, and told her that he’d tried his best but couldn’t find the money and maybe they should take a moment and think this over. But his parents, who didn’t drink or swear or even watch rated-R movies, had helped Nadia kill his baby. He had asked them to.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll try to make it.”
—
IN OCEANSIDE, seasons blended together into year-round sunshine, but fall came regardless: cheerful welcome messages now flashed on Oceanside High’s electronic marquee, and backpacks and binders had been pushed to the front of Walmart. Nadia had received e-mails from the University of Michigan informing her of orientation. She tried to swallow her nervousness each time she passed those generic back-to-school images framed in red and orange leaves. In Oceanside, leaves didn’t burst into red and orange; they withered and faded into a pale green that filled the gutters and lined the streets. But for the first time in her life, by the time the trees hung empty, she would be living somewhere else.
The Sunday before she left for Michigan, Upper Room took up a love offering to send her on her way. She was the first one in the congregation to earn an academic scholarship to a big university, but it didn’t cover everything. She would need little things—like a real winter coat—so the pastor asked Nadia and her father to stand at the altar with an empty paint bucket by their feet. Second John tossed in his cigarette money; he’d promised his wife he’d cut back anyway. Sister Willis gave the cash she’d set aside for her Powerball ticket and whispered to Magdalena Price that her numbers better not win that week. Even the Mothers tossed in a few dollars, long used to stretching Social Security checks like watered-down dish soap. Nadia had been so distracted by member after member who rose to give that she almost didn’t notice Luke at first, sitting in the back pew. He wore a gray suit that dug into his shoulders and when her eyes flicked to his, her father’s arm around her shoulders felt tighter.
After service, while her father stood in the receiving line to thank the pastor, she felt Luke sidle up behind her in the lobby.
“Can we talk?” Luke asked.
She nodded, following him past the congregation gathering in the lobby, out the front door, and around the church to the garden in the back. Violet African daisies bunched around the fountain and a bitter-leafed acacia spread over the stone bench where Luke sat, stretching out his bad leg. She lowered herself beside him.