At fifteen, I saw Mama for the first time since the divorce, six long years of silence, unanswered letters, and birthdays spent hopin’ for a phone call that never came. By then, Daddy had settled back into himself. He was doin’ well; better than well. He’d started dating, nothin’ too serious, but there was one woman he brought around who I actually liked.
Nylah Baptiste.
Lord, she was beautiful with dark chocolate skin, curls soft as river moss, eyes warm and kind. She didn’t treat me like baggage or an inconvenience. She’d take me shopping, out to eat in the Quarter, even when Daddy wasn’t around. She respected Grandma Odette, listened to her stories, laughed at her jokes. Nylah was a good woman; the kind Mama could never stand to be.
It was right before school ended when Mama had Uncle Ronnie call Daddy, askin’ if I could come to Mississippi for the summer.
Daddy didn’t jump to say yes. He never did when it came to Mama.
“I won’t make no promises, Ronnie. I’ll see if babygirl wants to go. Her mama ain’t talked to her in years, and Anaïs been doin’ just fine without her. If I send her and Marlene starts actin’ up, my baby better be sent back to me.“
At first, I didn’t want to go. Why go back to someone who didn’t want me?
But eventually, I told Daddy I’d try. If it worked out, fine. If not, at least I could say I tried.
Mississippi
The moment I stepped off that plane and Uncle James drove me to Mama’s house, regret hit me like a brick. The second I walked through her door, I felt it; that stiflin’, oppressive heaviness. Every corner of the house was covered in religious paraphernalia. Crosses, scripture plaques, framed Bible verses, candles, prayer cloths like she was tryin’ to drown the walls in holiness.
I almost told Uncle James to take me right back to his house. Or straight back to Louisiana.
Mama greeted me with a fake smile and a hug that felt like cold plastic.
“Hey, Anaïs baby,” she said, like it’d only been a few months instead of six years.
She even had the nerve to tell me she’d gotten all my letters.
I wanted to ask why she never wrote back. Why she never called. Why she let me cry myself to sleep thinkin’ she forgot me.
But I kept my mouth shut. She wasn’t worth the hurt anymore.
After I got settled, Mama told me she was engaged to a preacher named Pastor Darnell Evans. I met him the next day. The moment he shook my hand, I knew I didn’t like him. Somethin’ about him felt slimy, wrong, like a snake wearin’ a suit.
I kept quiet and watched.
Two weeks in, I figured out exactly why I didn’t like him.
Darnell was a liar. A cheater. A manipulator.
Mama knew it. She pretended she didn’t.
There was a woman at their church he was rumored to be sleepin’ with. Mama caught them together twice, twice you hear, and still acted like the woman didn’t exist.
I didn’t understand Mama. Not one bit.
If Daddy had done what Darnell was doin’, Mama would’ve had his head on a platter.
The Fight
Things came to a head one night. I heard yellin’, then crashin’, then Mama cryin’. When I ran into the room, Darnell had his hands on her. I didn’t think, I just moved. I fought him. Hard. My knuckles split, my cheek bruised, but I gave as good as I got.
Mama didn’t thank me. She didn’t protect me. She didn’t even look at me.
Instead, she screamed at me; told me to get out of her house, called me every name she could think of. She chose that man over me. Her own daughter.
That’s when it hit me clear as day:
There was no need to hold onto somethin’ that was never there. Mama never saw me as her daughter. Never wanted me. Never loved me the way a mother should.
Uncle Terry picked me up. He tried to talk me into forgivin’ her, makin’ excuses, sayin’ she was “goin’ through things.” I nodded, but inside, I’d already buried her.
I stayed with Terry and his family for two days. Mama tried callin’. I didn’t answer.
Daddy booked the earliest flight back to Louisiana.
Home
Daddy and Nylah were waitin’ for me at the airport. Daddy didn’t say a word; just pulled me into a hug so tight it felt like home.
He didn’t tell me to forgive Mama. He didn’t tell me to give her another chance.
“You don’t ever have to go back, baby. Whatever your mama got goin’ on, don’t blame yourself.“
Nylah handed me a drink, and I smiled for the first time in days.
Daddy grinned. “Your uncle told me you knocked that fool upside his head with a cast‑iron skillet.“
I shrugged. “He slapped me, so I grabbed the closest thing I could.“
Daddy laughed. “That’s my baby.“
Nylah shook her head, laughin’. “He lucky you didn’t pull a knife.“
As we drove home, I thought about everything. What I didn’t tell Daddy was that Mama didn’t take kindly to hearin’ he was seein’ someone. I suspected she stayed with Darnell to prove somethin’; to herself, to the church, to the world that she hadn’t made a mistake leavin’ her marriage. That she could find someone better than Elias Sinclair.
Foolishness, as Odette would say.
Mama traded a good man for a false prophet. And that was gonna bite her later.
But that wasn’t my business anymore.
Mama; I wash my hands of you. No longer will I let your beliefs or your judgment define my worth.
I will carry on as I have these last years, without you. I close my eyes in prayer over the mama I had before everything started to go astray: Lord, I lift my mama up to You, even when she could not lift me. I ask You to touch the places in her heart that fear has hardened, the places where anger took root, the places where love could not grow.
I ask You to give her peace, the kind she tried to force on me, the kind she never found for herself.
I ask You to soften her spirit, to quiet the voices that tell her she must judge to be righteous, to silence the pride that keeps her from seein’ her own reflection clearly.
Lord, heal her from the wounds she carries, and from the wounds she gave. Let her see truth without runnin’, let her feel love without fearin’, let her walk forward without draggin’ the past behind her like chains.
I forgive her, even if she never asks. I release her, even if she never lets go. I bless her, even if she never blessed me.
Lord, keep her safe. Keep her steady. Keep her whole.
And keep me strong enough to love her from a distance without losin’ myself again.
Amen.
