Time, Perspective, and the Woman Across From Me

Time got a funny way of settin’ things straight. It’ll take what you thought you knew, flip it over, and show you somethin’ you ain’t never seen before. That’s exactly what happened the day I found myself sittin’ across from Marlene, my mama, but only in name, after all them years of silence and hurt.

I was twenty by then, two years deep into LSU, livin’ in my own apartment, makin’ my own way. Every weekend I still drove home to see Daddy and Odette, sittin’ on that porch, eatin’ good food, listenin’ to Odette talk her talk. I called my uncles and cousins in Mississippi every few months, checkin’ in, laughin’, keepin’ them bonds tight. Nobody really brought up Marlene no more. Her name floated around the edges of conversation like a shadow, there, but nobody lookin’ directly at it.

Last I heard, that man she married , Darnell, had been found guilty on every charge they threw at him. Fraud, embezzlement, theft, all kinda mess. They found even more dirt durin’ the case, so he was gone for a long, long time. Federal time. The kind you don’t come back from the same. And Marlene? She stuck by him like he was her savior instead of her downfall.

So, when she called me, called me herself, I damn near dropped my phone.

My aunt Stacy gave her my number after Marlene kept harassin’ my uncle for it. I wasn’t mad. Truth be told, if I had been in Stacy’s shoes, I probably would’ve done the same just to get Marlene out my face.

I agreed to meet her at a café near my apartment. I wasn’t lettin’ her step foot in my space, not with all that heavy, twisted energy she carried around. My apartment was my peace, my sanctuary. She wasn’t gon’ touch that.

When I walked in, wearin’ my earthy clothes. My linen pants, my soft brown top, my braids swingin’ down my back, I saw her eyes flicker. Not big, not dramatic, but enough. Enough to know she still judged everything she saw. Enough to know she ain’t changed one bit.

She looked old. Not regular old, worn old. Greyin’, tired, beat down by life and choices she made herself.

She looked older than Odette, and Odette still looked like she was in her early fifties, movin’ through the world with that quiet strength she always had. Marlene was fifty‑two, but anybody walkin’ by would’ve sworn she was pushin’ seventy.

I sat down across from her with my coffee, and the wildest thing happened, I felt absolutely nothin’.

No love. No ache. No anger. No want. No sadness.

Just… nothin’.

And that nothingness hit me harder than any emotion could’ve. Because this woman was my mama. She gave birth to me. She shaped my childhood; mostly in ways that hurt. And yet, sittin’ across from her, she felt like a stranger who just happened to know my name.

She started talkin’ like we were close, like she had been part of my life these last years, like she had earned the right to smile at me with pride. She acted like a mama who had shown up, who had stayed, who had loved.

I let her talk for maybe half a minute before I cut through all that pretendin’.

“What you want, Marlene?” I asked, calm as still water, like she was takin’ up my time, because she was. I had things to do. A date to get ready for. A life to live. I wasn’t about to waste my afternoon entertainin’ a woman who still refused to take accountability for the things she said and did.

I saw her face tighten. She didn’t like my tone. She didn’t like bein’ called by her first name. She didn’t like bein’ reminded she ain’t earned the title Mama in my mouth.

But I didn’t care.

Her feelings weren’t my responsibility. Not anymore. Not ever again.

I sat there, waitin’ for her answer, feelin’ time settle between us like dust , quiet, honest, unmoving. 

Marlene sat across from me lookin’ like she didn’t know where to start, her mouth openin’ and closin’ like she was tryin’ to catch the right words before they slipped away. I watched her stumble through her sentences, talkin’ ’bout how she wanted to “try and have a relationship now that I was older,” like age was the magic fix for all the things she broke. She kept circlin’ around the idea, never once touchin’ the truth, never once sayin’ the words that mattered like I’m sorry. I was wrong. I hurt you.

She danced around accountability like it was fire and she didn’t want to get burned.

And the whole time she talked, I kept lookin’ at her hand; at that wedding ring she still wore. That man’s ring. Darnell’s ring. The same man who beat her, humiliated her, dragged her through the mud, and left her lookin’ twenty years older than she was. She hadn’t left him. I knew that before she even opened her mouth. She was still tied to him, still loyal to him, still blind behind him.

So, when I mentioned his name, she snapped like a rubber band stretched too tight. Her whole face changed. She got defensive, her voice raisin’ just a little, her words comin’ out sharp and shaky. She started makin’ excuses for him; sayin’ he was locked up because “those people lied on him,” sayin’ he was “a saved man,” sayin’ he was “anointed in the name of God.”

I just stared at her, lettin’ her talk, lettin’ her expose exactly who she still was.

Then I leaned forward, my voice low and steady, and asked her the question that had been sittin’ in my chest since I was fifteen:

“If Darnell, a man that beat you, humiliated you, dragged your name through the dirt, is a man of God you would stick besides, then what did you consider Daddy to be?”

She froze.

I kept goin’, my words slow, deliberate, heavy like the truth they carried.

“My daddy gave you everything you wanted. Worked two jobs at the start of y’all marriage just so you could finish school. Paid the bills. Took care of the house. Loved you the best way he knew how. What was he, Marlene? What did you call a man like that?”

She didn’t have a single word to offer. Not one.

Her mouth opened, then closed. Her eyes dropped. Her shoulders sank.

And right then, I knew there wasn’t anything left for me to get from her. No closure, no healing, no understanding. She was still the same woman she had always been, trapped in her own beliefs, her own pride, her own brokenness. She still couldn’t see how wrong she was, how twisted her views had become, how much damage she had done.

So I stood up.

I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t cry. I didn’t shake.

I just looked at her, really looked, and said the words I had carried in my heart for years.

“I forgave you a long time ago. I prayed over you. I wish you the best. But this gon’ be the last time you hear from me.”

Her face crumpled just a little, like she didn’t expect me to be that calm, that final, that free.

I picked up my bag, pushed my chair in, and walked out of that café with my head high and my spirit steady. And the wildest part?

I didn’t feel bad. Not even a little.

I felt light. I felt clean. I felt done.

I left Marlene sittin’ there with her coffee and her excuses, and for the first time in my life, I walked away without carryin’ any of her weight with me.

I walked away whole.