Never Say Never (9 page)

I was grateful that LaTonya was with both of her parents, and even though the Millers were grieving the death of one daughter, they were willing to do whatever they had to do to help the child who was still with them. The Millers, though only in their twenties, seemed to be parents who understood their love would save their child.

The Millers were parents who were so different from mine.

I glanced at my cell phone, hesitated, then pressed the Bluetooth before I could change my mind.

“Call Mom,” I said into the speaker quickly.

As the phone rang, I held my breath, praying that the call would be answered. It rang, and rang, and rang. Just when I was sure that my mother would let my call go to voice mail once again, I heard her voice.

“Emily?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Call me at home. He's not here.”

“Okay, I'm going to call you right back. Please pick up.”

“I will, honey.”

I clicked off and then commanded the hands-free unit to call her at home. As she waited for her house phone to ring, I imagined my mother deleting my call from her cell, erasing the evidence that she'd spoken to me.

When my mother picked up on the first ring, I was happy and sad at the same time. Happy to speak to her, sad that I could count the number of times that I had in the last year.

“How are you, sweetheart?”

Those words resonated through the car and then wrapped around me like my mother's arms, making me feel loved and safe for a moment.

“I'm . . . okay.”

“What's the matter?”

It had to be her mother's intuition, another sign that we were still connected, that she still loved me.

I answered, “It's Miriam . . . her husband died.”

She hesitated for a moment. “Miriam?”

“My best friend.” I sighed inside.

“Oh my! What happened?”

“He died in a fire.”

“Oh, goodness. That's so sad. How is she?”

I let a beat or two pass, wondering if my mother would backtrack and ask about Jamal, since I had mentioned that it was a fire. Then I said, “She's not good.”

My mother tsked and moved on. “Well, I'll say a prayer for her.”

I attributed my mother not asking about my husband to her not remembering that Jamal was a firefighter, too.

“Anyway,” I began, deciding to move on as well. “I've been called in to work with the children who were in school at the time.”

“The fire was at a school? Oh, my goodness.”

“It's been pretty tough, and so I just wanted . . . I just needed to speak to you. To hear your voice.”

“I'm glad you called, sweetheart, because you have to be strong. For the children. They need you, and they're lucky, because you're one of the best.”

“Thanks for saying that, Mom. Anyway, how are you?”

“We're doing well here. You know, I'm still very involved with DAR,” my mother said.

That made me smile. My mother had been one of the key women in the Mississippi chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution since I could remember. When I was a little girl, I loved to go with her to the auxiliary meetings. She didn't let me go often, but I lived for the afternoons when I could be with all of those women, wearing their Sunday best, sitting around drinking tea and eating crumpets and tea cakes. It felt so grown-up to me. I always thought I was going to be just like those women, with their demure ways and Southern sensibilities.

But I was so wrong. Maybe it was because I was too much of a tomboy. Or maybe it was because I'd soon grown to be so tall. Or maybe it was because once I was a teenager, I didn't care much about the ways of the women who were lineal bloodline descendants of someone who fought in the American Revolution. I cared more about the present than I did the past.

“This year,” my mother continued, “I'm working with the scholarship committee and the literacy outreach program that we just started.”

“That sounds so good, Mom. I wish I were there—we could work on that together.”

There was a moment of silence as both of us reflected on my words. We both knew that I wouldn't be there with her. Probably never again.

After a moment, I asked the question that I knew would make both of our hearts break. “How's Dad?” My question wasn't perfunctory. I truly wanted to know.

“He's playing golf,” she said, as if I'd asked an ordinary question about an ordinary father.

“Mom . . . do you think . . . if I called him—”

She didn't even let me finish, and I could almost see my mother, sitting in the Victorian-decorated parlor (they never called it a living room) of the six-thousand-square-foot home that I'd grown up in, shaking her head.

My mother answered my question with her own. “Are you still with Jamal?”

“Mom, you say that as if we're just dating. We're married.”

“That is exactly why your father won't speak to you,” she said in a tone that sounded like she was scolding me.

“You don't approve of my marriage and you speak to me. Even when you know Dad's going to be mad if he finds out, you still do it. Why can't he love me the way you do?” I cried.

My mother sighed. “It's different for me,” she said. “Your father's heart is truly broken. He doesn't understand it and in a way, he blames himself.”

“This is so ridiculous. He's blaming himself like I went out and became a stripper or something.”

“And that may have been easier for him to accept!”

Why did I keep doing this to myself? Every time I called, I went there. And every time I went there, I got my feelings hurt.

“Emily,” my mother said, her voice much softer this time. “Your father will never accept your marriage. If you want him to forgive you, you know what you have to do. Until then—”

“I'm not forgiven and I'm disowned,” I said, finishing for her. “Can you at least tell him that I called, and that I asked about him?”

“I'll see. I don't like getting your father upset.”

That meant my mother would never say a word. It was the way she was raised—she was old-school Southern. She lived to please her husband. That was her job and she'd done it well. Growing up, I never once saw my parents disagree in any way about anything. Because my mother always went along.

That's what she was doing now, agreeing with her husband, even though he was wrong.

“Okay,” I finally said. “Well . . .” I didn't want to hang up, but there was nothing else to say. I wanted to add something like, “I'll see you at Thanksgiving,” or “I can't wait till Christmas.” But I hadn't celebrated a single holiday with my parents in the eight years since Jamal had put the ring on my finger.

“You be well, sweetheart.”

“I will.” Then I hung up, wondering why I had made that call. I felt worse than before.

My heart yearned for the old days. The days when I was Daddy's girl, and Mother's princess. The days when I woke up every morning knowing that I was special, knowing that my mother was proud, and I was the apple of my daddy's eye. I longed for the days when I knew both of my parents loved me in all ways and would love me always . . .

May 12, 2000

“This is absolutely
ridiculous,” I said as I came down the stairs, stepping carefully as the graduation gown billowed around my ankles. The smell of white roses had assaulted me from the moment I walked out of my bedroom.

“I already told her that it smelled like a funeral parlor up in here,” Michellelee said, even though she didn't look up from the notepad on her lap.

I figured that was Michellelee's salutatorian speech. She hadn't parted with that pad from the moment she learned that she'd been selected to speak.

“I would prefer to say that it smells like a flower shop,” I said, sitting down next to Michellelee.

Miriam looked over her shoulder, smirked, then went back to smelling one of the bouquets of white roses. “Don't hate 'cause I'm so loved,” she said. “My boo did the dang thing, didn't he? I mean, one hundred flowers? How many did you guys get?” She stopped for a moment. “Oh, wait. Y'all didn't get any.”

She laughed, and I laughed with her.

What Chauncey had done for Miriam was definitely special, but that's how it'd been the four years I'd known him. Every day, Chauncey made sure Miriam knew that she was loved. And that made Chauncey an amazing man to me. He loved the ground that Miriam waddled on, and she deserved it. All the love she'd missed in her childhood, she had now. There was nothing more wonderful than that.

When the bell rang, Miriam tore her nose away from the flowers and dashed to the door. “My boo!” she shouted.

I looked at Michellelee, she looked at me, and we both rolled our eyes. True love was so special, I guessed.

“Miriam, it's just supposed to be the three of us this morning,” I said.

“I guess Chauncey couldn't stay away.” She swung the door open. “Boo,” she began, but then her voice faded.

“Emily!” my mother drawled as she sailed into our townhouse with her arms open wide. She didn't say a word to Miriam, who still
stood at the door, holding it for my father, who had a big old camera in his hand.

I jumped up from the sofa. “Mom, Daddy. I thought you guys were meeting us at the campus. You have to get over there because it's going to be hard to get seats.” That had been my excuse to keep my parents away. I loved my parents dearly, but sometimes they could be a bit over the top. I added, “There're going to be over thirty thousand people there.”

“We don't have to worry about seats,” my mother said. “Your father talked to Michael this morning.”

“Michael?” I asked, having no idea who she was talking about.

“Michael Eisner,” she said in a tone like I should've known. “Didn't you know he's one of the commencement speakers?”

“One of the commencement speakers, yes, one of your friends, no.”

“Of course I know him, Daughter,” my father piped in, calling me by the not-so-original nickname he'd given me when I was born. “He's a member of Delta Upsilon, too, and we've gotten together a few times over the years. I talked to him last night and now we're in the reserved section.”

See what I mean? Whose parents did that?

My father added, “Though with as much money as I paid this school over these years, I should've been sitting on the stage.”

My parents laughed, but my father meant what he said.

“I think you should still get over there as early as you can. The lines are going to be outrageous.”

“Now, why would we go over there when we can be here?” my mother said. “We want to spend some time with you, Emily.”

“That's right, Daughter,” my father said. “Last night you ran off right after dinner.”

“Sorry about that, but we really wanted to get to that party,” I said.

My mother waved her hand. “We forgive you. All I want to do today is focus on your graduation.” She took both of my hands in hers. “I am so proud of you.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Yes, Doctor Harrington. We are very proud,” my dad said before he kissed my cheek.

“I'm not a doctor yet, Daddy.”

“But you will be very soon,” my mother said. “Proudly following in your father's footsteps.”

I grinned, pleased that my parents were happy. I wasn't following in the exact footsteps of my father; he was a pediatric heart surgeon. But with my PhD in psychology that I'd get in the next four years, at least I'd be in the “Doctor” club. That was good enough for my parents.

My father said, “The only thing that would've made me happier is . . .”

Before he could finish, my friends piped in, “If you had gone to Ole Miss!” And then they giggled.

My parents filled up any room they entered, so for these last few minutes, I'd forgotten that Miriam and Michellelee were there. Now, I was horrified. I couldn't believe my friends were making fun of my father like that. It was true that he had said those exact words at least one hundred times last night when my parents had taken us all out to dinner. But to repeat his words back to him this way; my friends didn't know who they were messing with.

It was the mood of the day that saved Miriam and Michellelee. The only thing my mother did was turn her head slightly and say, “Oh, hello, ladies,” as if she was just noticing them. Even though Miriam was the one who had opened the door, and even though
my mother had almost been standing on Michellelee's feet, she truly hadn't seen my friends.

My parents! I had to love them and I believed they really did try. But they lived in such a secluded community. Not just in terms of where our home was, but in terms of where their minds were. My parents came from old money. Both of them. Generations of doctors on my father's side and federal judges on my mother's side. My parents only dealt with people in their class and of their color.