Single Mom (28 page)

Walter looked up at me for a second and asked, “How come … he’s so mean?”

He didn’t even know how to refer to my father, and I couldn’t blame him. I had ignored my parents’ messages all that night, and had only called home to talk to Beverly briefly. She knew how important bonding with my son had become to me. I was going to allow no one to get in the way of that.

I said, “Sometimes, son, people get ideas about what they would like to have for themselves and for their children, and they kind of lose their way in the chase. I think that’s what happened to my father.”

Walter frowned with his lips still covering his straw. “He looks successful to me. You do too. So what is he mad about?”

My son had a good point. However, he did not see the struggles that I had along the way, including my dealings with him and his mother. Nor could he imagine the struggles and drive that his grandfather had.

“I wasn’t always successful, son. And there were a lot of
wrong
decisions that I made along the way.”

Walter took it all in and asked, “Did you ever want to marry my mother?”

The power of innocence can conquer mountains sometimes. I made sure that I used the right words, or the politically correct words, so to speak, so that my son would not hate me.

“You know, you’re going to find out in life that everything doesn’t work as planned, and your mother and me were one of those things that was not going to work.”

Walter put two and two together. “He doesn’t like my mother, does he?”

I took a deep breath, wishing that I could avoid the question. “Unfortunately, not,” I answered.

“Why? Because she wasn’t successful enough? She is now. What about now? You think he’d like her now?”

I said, “With some people it just doesn’t matter. They form an opinion of someone else, and they try their hardest to go to the grave with it.”

My son nodded and said, “Like white people. They always think that we’re doing something wrong.”

I didn’t want to admit it, especially while we were smack in the middle of being served by them, but again, my son had a valid point. “Not all of them,” I told him. “Some of them
have
made changes concerning their feelings toward African-Americans.”

“Yeah, as long as you make a lot of money,” he snapped. Maybe he could be a politician after all. He surely knew the name of the game; money, power, and race.

My son was throwing out his full deck of cards at me, and I wasn’t sure how long I would be able to match him.

I said, “Well, you can’t worry about how others feel about you, you just have to go ahead and be the best person that
you
can be. That means that you have to stop worrying about the streets so much. Because there’s nothing wrong with being a good student and getting ahead in life.”

He nodded. “I know,” he said. “My mom talked to me about that after I got stabbed at school.” Then he asked, “You think that … my grandfather’s a good person?” He was forcing himself to think as a family. I considered that to be progress, but his question was another tough one.

Damn!
I thought to myself. I needed some fresh air. I said, “Sometimes people can be very selfish, and in their selfishness, they don’t see that they’re actually hurting others with their words and actions.”

As soon as I finished my sentence, I thought about myself. Was
I
a good person? Hadn’t
I
made assumptions about Denise’s character and discarded her because she wasn’t “successful enough” for
me? Like father like son
, I thought. Suddenly I felt nauseous, as if I had too many drinks that evening with not enough food to hold it down.

I said, “Let me ask you a question, Walter. Do you, ah, think that
I’m
mean, like my father?”

My son looked at me and slowly nodded his head. “You used to be,” he leveled with me. “That’s why I never liked being with you. But now, you know, since this summertime, it’s been fun.”

I had to take a long sip of my drink to calm my nerves at the table. I hadn’t felt such strong emotions since Denise first told me she was pregnant with Walter, thirteen years ago. I didn’t even feel as emotional when my wife told me that she was pregnant, because we were both expecting it. To hear my son tell me that he was finally beginning to have a good time with me was the best news in a long time, and all the love that I should have felt for him years ago wanted to pour out of me all at once.

Before I could gather my composure, I told my son that I was sorry and that I would never be mean to him or his mother again, and basically went on to promise him the world. When I realized it, Walter was holding my hands and telling me that it was okay, while he looked around the room at who might have been watching us. My son was actually embarrassed at my overflow of emotions. It was funny how quickly the tables had turned.

The next thing I knew, I broke out laughing and wiped my face off as if I had been crying. It wasn’t
me
who had cried. It was some other guy. It was some deep spirit inside of me that jumped out and was taking over. It was love.

My son said, “Do you want to play some pool now? Those other guys just left the pool table.”

I nodded. Walter wanted to get me back to being a normal dad as quickly as possible. I told him, “Yeah. Why not?” I asked our waitress for the bill, while Walter scrambled to grab the pool table.

My son and I went to bed after one o’clock in the morning that night. Afterward, I woke up to use the bathroom. When I came back out, I stood at the side of the bed staring at my son in the dark. He was curled up under the sheets like a human snail. I sat down on the long, pinewood dresser and thought about him. He was a hell of a kid! And it didn’t seem to take much for him to love me. All I had to do was love him, spend time with him, and respect him as a young, maturing human being with dreams, aspirations, and emotions of his own.

Before I knew it, that sobbing, tear-running spirit called love had jumped up and taken control of my body again. The second time, however, there was no one there to be embarrassed about it, so I let it take control of me as I cried in the dark.

Walter Perry III was my first, and so far only, son, and I loved him. It was just sad that it had taken me so many long years to come to the point of accepting it, and wanting to be a real part of his life instead of just a monthly paycheck.

FTER
the incident at Walter’s school, I had the boy on academic lockdown. He was not allowed to watch videos, nor play any video games. I wanted him at home, doing his homework and reading good books, period, end of story. Jimmy needed to be concerned about tightening up his grades, too, if he wanted to play basketball his freshman year of high school. So he drew some of the heat as well. And I didn’t want to hear a damn thing about being unfair! He was in school to learn what he needed
first
, and if he was doing what he was supposed to do in the books, then I had no problem with him playing basketball.

Before wrapping up my things at work, I gave my attorney, Melvin Fields, a call for an update on the possible lawsuit with Walter’s junior high school. I was leaning strongly toward telling him to drop the lawsuit and settle with the school out of court for Walter’s medical bills, personal damages, my loss of pay, and his attorney’s fees. But to my surprise, Melvin had some other news for me.

“Remember you were asking me about the possibility of a custody battle for your son?” he asked me. He sounded overexcited for some reason, and that was unusual for him. Melvin was one of those show-me-the-money lawyers who only got excited for major cases. I guess he wanted to be the next Johnnie Cochran. He was only working for me because he respected my career and dedication to the community. I really thought that he liked me in another way, but I wasn’t trying to go there
with him. The man had enough women in tow already, and I was far from being a groupie.

Anyway, I said, “He still doesn’t have a case, right?” I was a little concerned. I wondered why Melvin was bringing it back up. It was already settled that we would win the case in court, hands down.

He said, “Well, I was going over everything with the lawsuit and all, and a friend of mine brought it to my attention that Walter Perry
Senior
was a major realtor during the sixties and seventies. And we’re talking about
major
major! But he’s pretty much kept things under wraps. Did you know anything about that?”

I thought about Walter being from Barrington, Illinois. “I didn’t know exactly what his father did, but I knew that he had some money,” I answered.

“Yeah, well, you just don’t know how
much
money,” he informed me. “We’re talking multimillions here! How much was Walter giving you a month again?”

I could see where Melvin was going with the case already, and I didn’t like it. As much as I would have
loved
to stick it to Walter and his family, I just wasn’t that kind of woman. I didn’t need their damn money anyway! That was why I never bothered to pursue finding out more about his family in the first place. If I
really
cared, I could have asked around, or even taken a drive up to Barrington to find out for myself.

Melvin had been digging himself up a high-profile case, but I was
not
the one to give it to him. He had just helped me to make up my mind; I wanted to settle with the school out of court. I just didn’t need the extra stress or attention of a court case of any kind. I had enough things going on in my life as it was, and more money was
not
the solution.

Melvin went on and said, “I have to look into things a little further, but this is
definitely
something that we need to look into. Inheritance is serious business!”

I said, “Okay, well, I hate to cut you off, but I’ll need to talk to you about this a little later, because I have some runs to make.” I didn’t even want to think like Melvin. That was exactly why I wouldn’t date him. He wanted to go after Walter and his family’s money, and all the while, he was just like them, pretentious and very much into classism.

“Well, I’ll be back in touch, sister. I’ll be working out all of the particulars for you.”

I hung up the phone with Melvin and immediately called my sons at the house to check up on them. I was going to my monthly SMO meeting,
and I told them I would be back home around nine. Leftovers were in the refrigerator from the night before, and they knew my pager number. I basically wiped the entire conversation with Melvin from my mind. He was starting to remind me of a snake, which was exactly why I had so many problems respecting Walter Jr.

I packed up my things, said good-bye to Elmira, locked up my office, and headed for my car in a parking lot around the corner. I had to pick up Nikita for the SMO meeting. Our October meeting was actually being held in the last week of September. For the first week of October, Camellia informed us that she would be going out of town for a few days to help organize a family wedding in Memphis, Tennessee. So we decided to have our October meeting a week in advance, rather than a week after. We were going to discuss the issue of education, testing, college grants, and scholarships for our children. Since the new school year had already begun, no one wanted to wait to have that important a conversation.

When I arrived at my mother’s, Nikita was just starting to get herself together.

“I thought you said you were going to be ready?” I asked her.

Her hair was still undone, and she was just beginning to brush her teeth and put on her clothes.

My mother looked up at me from the couch and shook her head. My niece Cheron had fallen asleep in her lap. “She was born late, and I guess she’s always gonna be late, Denise,” my mother commented.

I looked over and felt sorry for her. I always felt sorry for my mother. She had put on a lot of weight over the years while dealing with my sister and me without our father. My mother knew a few nice older men, but she never got too involved with any of them. It just seemed that she had gotten satisfied with life just above the poverty line and having no partner to share her experiences with. I guess my success was too little and too late for her to regain her exuberance for life. My mother just seemed to sag down low and take it all, like a helpless mule.

I calmed my nerves for a second and took a seat next to her on the couch. “Are you okay, Mom?” I asked her with a hug.

As usual, she nudged me away. “Would you stop worrying about me. I’m fine,” she fussed.

I came up with anything I could to try and cheer her up anyway. “Would you like to fly to Florida for Christmas, Mom?” I asked her. I wasn’t planning on taking another no for her answer.

Nikita stuck her nappy head out the hallway bathroom and said, “I wanna go to Florida.”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” I told her. I was tired of her damn freeloading! Knowing my mother, she would have tried to take Nikita and Cheron to Florida with her. Nikita didn’t deserve a vacation. She needed to
earn
a vacation first! But my mother treated them as if they were the last family she had in her life. It was almost as if
I
wasn’t related anymore. She made me feel like I was some damn wealthy cousin or something, and that bothered me.