Authors: Niobia Bryant

Mistress No More (22 page)

BOOK: Mistress No More

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“I’m not hungry, Ma,” she said, her appetite lost as she looked out the window at Renee’s empty home. “I’m worried about my friend.”

Heather wiped her hands with a dish towel. “I bet. But she’ll be okay.”

As soon as Aria had gotten back from the police station checking on Renee she had called her mother and Jaime, trying to find solace after the collapse of Renee’s world. And trying not to feel guilty because her friend had turned to alcohol to deal. “I pulled away from our friendship and I didn’t have a clue she was drinking like that.”

“Yes, but this isn’t about you, Aria,” Heather said simply.

“Huh?” Aria picked up her fork and stirred the square of margarine into her grits. She side-eyed Uncle One-Eye with his face buried in the plate, but he raised his head to lock his one good eye with her mama’s.

Aria frowned.

“Well, baby girl, you can be a little critical of folks, you know,” Heather said gently.

What the hell?

“
And
. . . you tend to relate everything back to you. Sometimes it’s good, most times it’s not.”

“I thought you came to comfort me through all this ish I’m going through,” Aria grumbled. “I’m already in therapy. I don’t need the ghetto Oprah analyzing me.”

“What’s that saying Mama used to tell us about truth?” Heather asked One-Eye as he chewed away on the hard rind of a slice of bacon.

“ ‘Truth is the light, don’t live in darkness,’ ” he said, smacking between each word.

Oh, shut up, Uncle One-Eye
, Aria thought—thinking it but not daring to say it out loud.

“Amen,” Heather said, before scooping a spoonful of grits and egg into her mouth.

“Oh, Lord, so now we in church?” Aria snapped sarcastically.

Her mother and uncle laughed.

“Steppin’ on dem toes, Heather. You steppin’ on dem toes,” Uncle One-Eye warned.

“Time for some mommy-daughter time. Take your plate in the den and watch TV,” Heather said.

“Re-up my plate first.” He handed the plate to his sister.

Heather quickly gave him a second helping and then guided him by the elbow off his stool and out of the kitchen.

Aria just shook her head at them.

“Now let’s get to the really real, baby,” Heather said, sliding onto the stool she’d just helped her brother out of.

Aria turned on her own stool to face her mother and the truth.

“You got angry with Renee for her affair. What that had to do with you? You’re not Jackson? It wasn’t your pussy or your business. Right? Right.”

Aria drummed her fingertips against the marble top of the island.

Her mother shifted her eyes to Aria’s hand. Hard. Aria flattened her hand against the marble.

“You’ve always ridden Kingston so hard when you knew you had secrets of your own.”

Aria felt like she was gut punched.

“You were so busy judging him and living life waiting for the other shoe to drop your life wasn’t even as good as it could’ve been.” Heather reached over and squeezed her daughter’s hands. “Sometimes life is half full.”

“It’s hard to believe that when I can’t have children, Mama,” Aria admitted in a husky whisper.

Heather nodded. “I figured that’s what it was. You love kids too much not to have one. No career, no goal, or nothing would’ve stopped my baby from having a baby.”

Aria looked upward and blinked her long lashes for what seemed a million times.

“I remember you playing with your dolls and you would mix baby powder and water together and feed them. Bless your heart.”

Aria nodded, clearly picturing the doll and the little red and white outfit. “And I’d sew clothes by hand. And take them with me everywhere. And name them. And rock them. And love them,” she admitted, with a teary smile.

“And
mother
them,” Heather added.

“Oh, Mama, I wanted to be a mother so bad,” she admitted out loud for the first time ever. Before, she’d been too busy regretting that she couldn’t be a mother to claim what she wanted.

Heather leaned forward to wipe away a tear. “All these beautiful black babies in foster care and waiting to be adopted? You can be a mother anytime you get ready, Aria.”

We could have gone through fertility treatments or just adopted, Aria.

Kingston’s words haunted her.

“Madonna and Sandra Bullock and Angelina doing what black folks don’t want to do,” Heather spouted, waving her hand. “All of you wealthy educated black folks letting white people out-do you. Y’all better get up off it.”

Aria laughed a little as she looked down at the floor.

“And I’ll say this. Doing it with Kingston is beautiful. Real Cosbylike. But I raised you to be strong enough and smart enough to do it alone.” She reached for her plate. No nonsense = Heather Goines.

Aria tilted her head to cast her eyes on her mother. “You did damn good without help.”

Heather winked as she bit into a slice of bacon. “You’re a testament to the
damn
good job I did.”

“Are y’all done?” Uncle One-Eye asked, walking back into the kitchen with his empty plate and glass in his hand.

“I guess so since you don’t have the patience God gave a gnat.” Heather took the plate and walked to the sink to slide it into the sudsy dishwater she’d made.

Aria tried to finish her food but her appetite was gone and her thoughts filled. Adoption. The journalist in her wanted to know more and she felt that familiar nudge from her muse.

“Well, tell me where there’s a bathroom in this big ole house,” Uncle One-Eye said, already unbuckling his belt. “Grits run right through me.”

Aria dropped her fork and made a face of horror. “Why don’t you carry that upstairs. First door on the left,” she said, pushing away her plate.

He laughed as he walked back out of the kitchen.

“And remember,” Heather hollered behind him over her shoulder. “Drop one, flush one!”

Aria couldn’t do shit but laugh.

“Forgiveness, Aria. What does it mean for you, Aria?”

Aria looked across at Dr. Kellee as she wrote notes. Dr. Matheson had set up a consult for her with the therapist and even scheduled a Saturday appointment. “Forgiveness ?” she asked, wanting to make the therapist look up at her.

She did, leveling hazel green eyes on her that contrasted sharply with her deep chocolate complexion. It made Aria feel like the older woman was looking directly into her soul.

“Yes. What does it mean to you?”

“It’s an ability to pardon someone for something they did wrong . . . for a mistake,” Aria answered, settling into the chair and crossing her legs in the fuchsia ruffled dress she wore.

Dr. Kellee jotted something down again.

Aria released a heavy breath.

“What’s irritating you, Aria?” Dr. Kellee asked, just the slightest tinge of her Jamaican accent around the edges of her voice.

“I hate the note-taking during therapy sessions, just throwing that out there,” she said.

Dr. Kellee nodded as she closed her journal. “Okay, so let’s
refocus
on our purpose here today. What does forgiveness mean to you?” she asked again.

Aria’s bronzed face became incredulous. “See, I answered that, but you were so busy jotting down notes that you didn’t even hear me.”

Dr. Kellee laughed softly as she crossed her healthy legs in the navy pantsuit she wore. “I heard you give me the dictionary definition, Aria. My question is what does it mean to
you
?”

“Oh.” Aria looked out the window. “It means letting God. It means moving on and moving past. It means accepting an apology and accepting that people do things that they think is best or in hindsight know is wrong.”

Dr. Kellee nodded. “And can you think of anyone whom you need to forgive?”

“I will never forgive Jessa if Dr. Matheson filled you in on that drama,” Aria said in a hard voice.

“We can discuss the topic of Jessa Bell another time. Let’s refocus.”

Aria nodded and scratched her scalp before she shook her head. “No, I cannot think of anyone that I should forgive.

Dr. Kellee leaned forward. “I’m going to say that in time you will need to forgive your abusers.”

Aria looked confused. “I wasn’t abused?”

“You were a fifteen-year-old child having sex with grown men who didn’t care that you were a child. Who didn’t care that you were misguided. Who didn’t care that it was a crime to have sex with a minor. Aria. Aria, you were abused.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m the one who needs to ask those men for their forgiveness. I stole from them. I seduced them. I wasn’t a victim, Dr. Kellee. I was far from a victim,” she finished softly.

“You were a child, Aria,” she stressed again. “A babe in the woods.”

“
I’m
the one who needs to be forgiven.”

“Okay, then forgiveness like anything else can go both ways, but I feel it’s very important for you to take another look with mature eyes and sensibilities at your past, Aria.”

Aria frowned as she continued to shake her head. “No. No, Dr. Kellee, I don’t agree at all.”

“So if you heard about a man of thirty sleeping with a child of fifteen would you call the police, Aria?” she asked, those eyes seeing through her.

“Of course I would,” Aria stressed.

Dr. Kellee widened her eyes as she stared at Aria and nodded as if to say, “Exactly, Aria. Exactly.”

Aria released a heavy breath and leaned back in her chair to hold her head in her hand with her elbow pressed into the arm of the chair.

“It’s time to take a new look at your past, Aria, because the guilt, shame, and pain you carry with you has built this boundary around you that affects everything you see, you hear, how you react, how you feel. Everything.
Everything.
”

“But I’m not the type to hold other people responsible for what I did,” Aria balked, feeling her irritation rise. “I’m a grown-ass woman—”

“Who is stuck in her past. Who is still the sixteen-year-old crying after her second abortion. Who is still in so much pain,” she finished with emphasis and compassion.

Aria had never felt so confused in her life. She’d thought therapy clarified things?
Bullshit.

Dr. Kellee rose and walked over to a full-length mirror in the corner of her stylish and comfortable office. “Come on over, Aria,” she prompted with a wave of her hand.

Between Dr. Matheson, Dr. Kellee, and her mother’s ghetto psych 101, Aria felt all “therapied” the hell out. Truly. Still she rose and walked over to the mirror.

Dr. Kellee pressed a marker into her hand and then stepped to the side of Aria. “How many men do you think you have slept with?”

Aria shifted her eyes away from her reflection. “I don’t know,” she admitted, shaking her head.

“Ten? Twenty? Fifty?”

Aria closed her eyes as shame coursed over her body in waves. “More.”

“I want you to draw a line for each man, Aria. Each one you can remember.”

Still raw with emotions, Aria raised her hand and began drawing lines of four and then drawing a line across them representing five. And she did it again. And again. And again. Until nearly the entire full length mirror was covered. She had to squat to finish her task. Each line lowered what was left of her self-esteem inch by inch.
Whore. Ho. Slut. Trick. You ain’t shit, Aria. Just a big fucking front.

“What was the scheme your cousin and you did? What did you call it?” Dr. Kellee asked.

“Fuck and pluck.”

Dr. Kellee nodded. “Was it right that you robbed those men?”

Aria shook her head, barely seeing her reflection past the thick black lines covering the mirror.

BOOK: Mistress No More

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