He looks at her with a shocked look now realizing she knows way more than he realized. “She told you why I broke up with Lisa?”
She doesn’t say anything. She just shakes her head to acknowledge. He then knows she has probably been holding this concern about him for a while just as he would be about any of them had they gone through so much so quickly. “Life is crazy,” he says. “It’s crazy how you can lose everything that made your life normal from day to day in two months and you’re supposed to just keep it moving. Relationships suck. Life is too short. But I've been through shit before. I’ll get through this.”
He pauses for a second in thought. Then it crosses his mind that maybe his mother knows more than he realizes and that’s why she wants to talk. He asks in fear, “Is this why Ma wants to talk to me so badly? Since you know everyone’s business.” Shaking her head quickly back and forth she says, “No. Oh nah. But you gotta talk to her about that. That’s for y’all to talk about.”
He’s dumbfounded now. He was sure it was about Ovaughn passing away and the drama he’s been going through this semester. Whether his mom knows the full stories or not. Now he has no idea what her reason could be for wanting to have this discussion with him. He only ponders it for a second before Duc finally pops back up and sits at the table immediately changing the subject to Jairus staying in Atlanta for the summer, since he is still very much excited about everyone being there this year.
They enjoy the rest of the cookout without any more in-depth conversations. It doesn’t stop Jairus from wondering about the one he knows is to come in the next couple of weeks. But in the meantime, he will just enjoy his time at home. After a couple of days Duc leaves and returns to Atlanta and Jairus devotes all his time to his family, which he always wishes he can see more often. He makes sure to spend time with Papa Tom and Aunt Theresa as well as hanging out with Tammy and Russell.
Once Jairus has been home for almost a week and his mother still hasn’t tried to talk to him, he begins to get restless waiting for it to happen. He finds himself hinting to her about opportunities to catch up or chat, but he begins to think he is crazy because his mother seems to be holding off on talking to him. This makes him wonder even more what she wants and why Damaris feels it is only something they can talk to each other about. His birthday eventually comes, and they celebrate that weekend after his first week home. His entire family goes out to dinner to celebrate him turning 21 years old and Papa Tom gives him the biggest surprise he can imagine and tells him he is going to finance him getting a used car to drive now that he is about to live off campus. He couldn’t ask for more. It means he will no longer have to rely on his friends and can now be the one to drive everyone and share the load. As far as he is concerned this is the best visit home since he started college.
As the second week of his time home started to pass, he decided to stop worrying about the mysterious conversation with his mother. Maybe she saw how he was acting and thought he was okay and no longer felt she needed to talk to him. Maybe it’s not as important as Damaris tried to make it. That’s what he started to tell himself until a couple of days before he was going to be leaving. He and Damaris got dropped off at home by Tammy, who had to drop off Russell next. They had all ridden out to a mall in Maryland just to get a ton of these cookies Jairus always tries to take back with him to Atlanta. But when they walked into the house in the middle of the day everything was dark and dim. They found Bernice sitting at the kitchen table in deep thought with no lights, music, or television on. They are both looking around wondering why she was sitting in the dark and Damaris asks, “Ma, you okay?” Bernice calmly responds, “Baby, can you let me and your brother talk?” Damaris doesn’t say another word. She already knows what’s coming next and she immediately grabs her personal bag of cookies and heads back to her bedroom, closing the door behind her. Jairus feels stuck in place. He had been waiting for her to initiate them talking but now it felt very ominous. He started to think something was wrong and his mind started racing, thinking about what it could be.
Bernice opens her hand towards the chair next to her. “Sit down Jerry.”
He slowly sits, still holding one of the bags of cookies he had been eating from. “So, what did you wanna talk about?”
Bernice is still trying to figure out how to put together the proper words to tell her son what she has to say. Because of what happened with Ovaughn she has been waiting a few months and still doesn’t find it any easier to talk to him about his father. “What do you remember about what I told you about your father when you were little?”
He replies with a look of confusion on his face. “I mean, I remember when I bugged you to tell me his name was Lucas. But you didn’t really talk much about him and there wasn’t much to ask about someone I have never seen except was he dead. And you told me you didn’t know.” At this point Jairus is caught completely off guard. The last thing he thought he’d be talking about in a million years was his biological father. Once again, his mind starts to wander. What was so important about someone that was pretty much nonexistent that they had to talk about it? What didn’t she tell him that he should have known all this time?
“If you had the opportunity to talk to or possibly meet your father…would you want to?”
Jairus sits there in silence for what felt like an eternity to Bernice. She could see his mind processing it through the look in his eyes. She didn’t want to force this. She wants to give him his space to think it through, but she couldn’t help but want to help him with something so emotional. “Tell me how you’re feeling…you can say whatever it is.”
“Why now? Were you waiting for me to be 21 before you let me meet him?”
She quickly interjects. “I would never keep you from your father. Even if I hated him. He recently found me and contacted me…when he found out I had his child.”
He quickly looks at his mother in surprise saying “How the f..” before catching himself and stopping short of cursing. He is now full of questions for his mother. None of this makes sense and he needs answers more than he cares about meeting some mystery man. “What do you mean, found out you had his child? How does that make sense? Why do you believe that? Didn’t you tell him?”
Bernice’s eyes begin to gloss over but she holds back any tears. She knows this is not easy for Jairus and it’s just as hard for her. But she is willing to tell him anything he needs to know to help him through this situation. She goes back to the beginning and tells him the entire story about how she met his father and started to fall in love with him. She wants him to know he was conceived in love. She explains how Lucas’ mother made efforts to keep him away from her and kept the secret about a possible child. When she passed Lucas' uncle told him her secret and he immediately started trying to find her to see if he in fact had a child he never knew. And how he has been waiting months for the time to be right and for Jairus to decide if he wants to know him. She tries to comfort him through his confusion saying, “Baby, there is no pressure on you. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. If you aren’t prepared to do anything like this, I completely understand. I just want you to know you have an opportunity that wasn’t there before. The decision is yours to make when you are ready.”
He has one more question for his mother. “Why didn’t you tell me it was possible that he didn’t know about me?” Hearing the question, his mother must question the decision she made so long ago, and it brings a tear to her eye that she quickly wipes away.
“Jerry,” she pauses taking a deep breath before she continues, “trying to find that man…your father…was one of the most difficult and disappointing times of my life. No matter what I couldn’t reach him. I tried everything I could think of but there wasn’t any way to find him back then. I spent almost a year getting my hopes up when I had another idea just to be disappointed. I was so sad and felt so helpless. I just didn’t want my son to have to carry on that same burden…that same heartbreak for years that I had for all those months. I was trying to protect you. I’m sorry if it was the wrong thing.”
Jairus stands up from the table and says, “I need to get some air” and urgently walks out of the apartment looking deep in thought. He goes outside and starts walking aimlessly down the street along the sidewalk in his apartment complex. He doesn’t know what to think. He wants to be mad at Lucas, but his mother basically took that away from him since it feels illogical to hate someone for not knowing you exist. A part of him is pissed at his mother but he doesn’t want to be. She is all he had growing up. He wishes Uncle Marvin was still alive to talk about it. He would know exactly how a man should handle this situation. He still looks up to him even though he’s been gone for so long. Did Grandma Miriam know about everything when she was helping to raise him as a child? Why hadn’t Aunt Theresa told him about this? She sneaks and tells him everything. Did Papa Tom feel the same as them as well? He wants someone to blame. Someone to direct his hurt towards other than his mother. One thing is for sure. His sister was right that only his mother could talk to him about this.
After circling back towards their apartment building Jairus approaches to see someone exiting the building. Someone he knows. An old friend who isn’t really a friend any longer. An ex-friend who is also the father of Tammy’s son. Someone that he has no problem being angry with. He sees Jairus approaching and stops in front of his car and turns to face him. When Jairus is close enough to hear the acquaintance says, “What’s up Jairus?” Before he can get anything else out Jairus sharply replies “The fuck you want, Brandon?”
“I was hoping to talk to you. Hoping we didn’t still have to carry it like this anymore.”
Jairus is very contemptuous towards him, but Brandon expects as much even though he hoped for better. It may have been a possibility had he not caught him at the wrong time. Jairus says “I ain’t got shit to talk to you about. Just make sure you take care of your kid.”
Brandon is trying to give Jairus some grace since he feels responsible for their friendship dissolving but he can only take so much. He decides he needs to leave but not before saying, “I’m sorry to hear about your friend, man. You shouldn’t have to go through that again at 21.”
Jairus now with an angry look on his face says, “If you done you can leave.”
Brandon just looks at him for a second and shakes his head wondering how they got to this point. He gets into his car and drives off.
Now feeling like he was able to get a bit of his anger off his chest Jairus goes back into the apartment to see his sister and mother sitting together talking.
“You just missed Brandon,” Damaris says when he walks in. “He came by to try and talk to you.”
“I saw him outside. I told him to keep it moving.”
“Jairus, eventually you are going to have to make peace with that situation,” Bernice says. “I don’t think Brandon is going anywhere for a while.” She says it as if she knows something he doesn’t. But he isn’t putting much thought into that right now. He has one thing on his mind. “I thought about it and I need some time.”
“I understand that, and you should take as much as you need. Do you want me to tell Lucas anything in the meantime?”
Hearing her use his name feels so foreign to Jairus. They don’t talk about him anymore. He let out an angry sigh. “I’ve waited 21 years. Let that nigga wait.” And then he walks back to his bedroom and shuts the door behind himself. His mother never brings up talking to his father again during the remainder of his visit home, but she does keep urging him to find a church to start attending services again once he gets back to school.
18
“You’re Just Gonna Act Like Everything Is Normal”
The last couple of days of Jairus’ visit passed quickly. His mother and aunt find him a cheap flight back to Atlanta, so he won’t have to spend a day on the bus or train. He hasn’t been on many flights, but he is more than happy to change that if it means an hour back to Atlanta as opposed to 14 hours on a bus or train. Luckily school is out, and Duc doesn’t have a conventional job, so he is always available to come pick him up at the airport. Once Duc hears just how cheap the one-way flight is for him it asserts that flying is the way he will travel home from now on. He feels like he can pay someone to pick him up from the airport and it will still be worth the time he will save. Jairus flies back the Saturday before having to start his internship at the beginning of the week and doesn’t give himself much time to settle into his new apartment. Once they get home from the airport, one of the first thoughts he has is that maybe he should have asked his grandfather to buy him a bed instead of helping him get a car. He can probably make it until the school year without the car, with the help of Mike. He is going to be sleeping on Duc’s couch until he makes money to get a bed for his room. Since he doesn’t have much to get together in the apartment, he spends that late afternoon putting all his packed-up clothes into his closet and the small dresser that Mike’s mother let him have that she has been wanting to get rid of.
That evening Mike comes over to the apartment and he and Jairus decide to go out to the party Duc is hosting at one of the Atlanta clubs. They spend the entire time out talking and having drinks instead of dancing. They are actually excited about starting work and make plans to go clothes shopping the next day for more work clothing to have for the internships. They both had interesting internships the year before and were looking forward to having one of their best friends there to come along on the journey this time around. Even though they tried to downplay it. In talking about their plans for the summer once again they also realized that this is the first time since their freshman year that they were both single. Even though neither of them admitted that they aren’t happy about it.
The start of the week came, and the internship begins for both of them. As the first week progresses, they can’t help but notice some of the differences in their situations. They were both located in the corporate building, which allowed Mike to swing by and pick up Jairus on the way from his mother’s house to work. However, Jairus’ internship is with the IT and the technology departments, which are located on the two basement levels in the building. There were no windows and no social acumen to be found anywhere down there. Almost every room was freezing or burning up due to all the equipment and the cooling systems used for the equipment. His coworkers were very cut and dry and all about the technical work and he was the only intern. It is completely different from his previous internship although it does seem like he will be able to learn a lot. Mike on the other hand is on the third floor from the top with windows along every outside wall with a different view of downtown Atlanta. To Mike, it seems like all they do is sit around and talk. He is completely shocked when he notices how they have wine and champagne stored in the small break room area. When he asked about it, his coworkers openly discussed how they will have drinks in celebration at times. Mike was one of four business interns and he felt like they were there to just do busy work and may not actually do anything substantial in that environment. Neither of them was complaining but neither was crazy about their respective situations. By the end of the first week, they are already starting to meet each other for lunch every day and swap stories about their experiences. This would become the daily practice as the summer progresses.
A couple of days into the second week of the internship Mike gets a call on his cell phone one evening from a phone number he doesn’t know. All he knows is that his caller ID is saying it’s a New Orleans number, which makes him think it might be Ovaughn’s family. He cautiously answers the call to find that it isn’t Ovaughn’s parents at all. It’s Anthony, the friend he made at his internship in Baton Rouge the year before. He instantly recognizes his voice with the distinct New Orleans accent. They planned to stay in touch but haven’t heard from one another since the previous summer. Mike is surprised to hear Anthony say “I’m in Atlanta, baaaby! I been here for months.” Mike’s only response is a shocked, “Say what, now!” Anthony continues saying “Ya know I graduated back in December. Eventually I found my first job in Atlanta. Just started back at the end a March.” He is calling Mike because he has been meaning to try to catch up with him since then and never got around to it.
“I know you off somewhere else on another grand internship, but I just wanted to holla atcha while I was thinkin’ bout it.”
