Evening, September 4th

I sat, sprawled really, on my bed and stared at the TV blankly. The sound was off and the pictures were selling detergents and beer and such. I wasn’t so much watching the TV though. It was there and it was on but I was on the phone. Mind you I wasn’t talking either, sometimes I wondered if my mother has to breathe at all. I picked out the useful bits. My sister was doing well; she’d made cheer leading captain in her senior year. Mom was proud and I rolled my eyes, I’ve known too many cheerleaders to be enthusiastic, but I was happy that she was happy. My uncle Bob was doing alright in New Orleans but said that in many ways he’d wished he taken the hint provided by Katrina and gotten out as well.

Mom continued for what seemed like forever giving me updates on relatives or comments about how the church was doing or how the work at the hospital was going. I tuned her just far enough out to still pick up the key points but not so far as to just be ignoring her. At least that’s what I thought. Lost in my own thoughts I missed it completely when she asked if I was coming to the parish cookout on Saturday. When she asked a second time it was clear she knew I hadn’t been paying full attention.

“Antoine Pierre LaSalle! You pay attention to me when I’m talking to you!” Like I said, she knew, and she wasn’t exactly happy to be ignored.

“Ma! Sorry, I… I’ve got a lot going on I …”

She knew I was full of shit, “Antoine, turn off that TV! I swear boy, I know I brought you up better than that!” I cringed, not much you can do when she pulls out that old chestnut.

“Ok ok, turning it off. Geeze ma, how can you always tell?”

“I can tell because you’re just like your father was, he spent so much time ignoring me for that TV that I had to wear an antenna just to get a little attention from him!” I laughed, the image alone was funny, but the fact was that my dad had been able to lose himself in just about any sport on TV. He told me once before he died that it was a defense mechanism; he said, “Son, when you get older you’ll realize that if you give them a chance a woman will keep you busy with one damn thing or another until you fall over from exhaustion. The only way I get any respite from your mother is to tell her I got money on the game on TV!” I know he was just kidding but there was truth in there as well, I’d found that out with my last steady girlfriend.

“Ok Mom, it’s off, sorry.”

“You bet you are young man. Now tell me why you can’t come to the parish cookout Saturday?”

Uh, oh. I gulped, I stammered, I stalled for every second I could but my brain just didn’t come up with anything. “Well Ma, I’ve got another cookout I’m going to already.” It was lame, hell as excuses go it was DOA. I knew it, and I knew she knew it but I didn’t offer more.

“Antoine, that’s a poor excuse and you know it. Now unless you have a better reason than that …”

“OK fine …” I interrupted which was not a good idea when the person on the other end was your mother and also used to genuine Southern manners. “I’ve got to go, my uh … girlfreindaskedmetogo.” I rushed it out, hoping for no reason that it would prevent me from getting dragged into a MUCH longer conversation.

No such luck. “What did you … your girlfriend?!” Ugh, I was hoping to avoid this. “Did you finally make up with Susan?”

“What? No. No, Ma, I did not get back with Susan. She’s back east, you know that.”

“She was so good for you hone, why’d you let her go?”

“Mom, we’ve gone over this before. She broke up with me, Ma, not the other way around. She wanted to go to law school back home. I asked her to reconsider, you know that, but she had her mind set. We both know how stubborn she could be …” It hurt thinking about Susan, but sometimes you had to pick at that scab, expose the wound beneath and let it scar. Susan was pre-law at UCLA and two years ahead of me. When she graduated she was accepted to Harvard Law. She made up her mind that her education was more important that us. There was nothing I could do, she left me. It hurt like hell and a year and a half later it still hurt

“I’m sorry honey, I know it hurts. It’s just that she was so beautiful and kind and smart and …”

“I know, but she ended it, not me. And besides, I’ve moved on.” I’ve tried to move on anyway.

“I’m sorry for bringing it up. Tell me about this new girl, what’s her name?”

“Her name is Amber.” I hesitated, “She’s white mom.”

She interrupted me, “You know I don’t care about that. What does she study? Is she in your class? Come on honey, don’t make me ask for every little thing. When are you going to bring her by the house?”

Yeah, like I said, I’d really hoped to avoid this conversation. “Mom, it’s … it’s complicated.” Silence, she didn’t need to say anything because the silence did it for her. I could hear the words, Complicated? You’d better explain what you mean by that young man, I’m your momma and I want to know who my son is seeing. I took a deep breath, “First of all she’s not in school.” As soon as I said it like that I realized it was a massive mistake.

“First of all? First of all? Antoine, this woman better be older than you!”

“Not exactly mom,” I sighed, was knee deep in the shit now, “She never went to college. She umm … she kinda had a kid.” I winced in anticipation for the tirade.

Quiet from the other end and then, “Was she married?” No. More silence. “Have you lost you mind boy?” No Mom. “Is it yours?!”

“What? No. Jesus Mom, no I’m not stupid.” Oops, mistake.

“Don’t you take the Lord’s name in vain Antoine! What am I to think? I have to assume that either you stupidly got some girl pregnant or you chose, for reasons that I cannot comprehend, to date a girl who couldn’t keep her legs together or at least use a dammed condom!” This certainly could have gone better, hell it certainly couldn’t have gone worse.

I pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and index finger as I tried to summon up the right words. “Everybody makes mistakes mom. He’s made hers and is trying to move on with her life. It’s not like she waited until we were serious before telling me.”

“So she’s up front with you and you still chose to see her? Antoine, I don’t want you getting involved with some girl who’s got such obviously poor judgement…”

“Ma! You can’t … I can’t believe you’d say that Mom. I did the math you know; I figured out that you had to have been pregnant with me before your wedding. Grammy always used to say that you and Dad got married quick, it just took me a while to realize what that meant.”

Silence on the other end, I may have pushed the wrong button. My mother meant well but she forgot or chose to ignore the facts of real life at times. As an ER nurse I could understand why, even if it was inconvenient at the moment. To my surprise when she spoke it was without anger in her voice. “You’re right. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that happened. Antoine, I’m sorry that we never told you, but your father and I didn’t want you to ever think you weren’t wanted or loved.”

“I never did Ma …”

“Your father and I may not have been ready but we never even thought about anything but raising you, and we both loved you …”

“I know.” It was a quiet reply and for a moment the line hung silent, I could picture my mother trying to compose herself. I felt bad for having had to bring that up but it was relevant. Still it was a relief when she spoke again.

“You’re right, I should trust you. You’ve never given me reason to think you’d make a choice like this lightly. You’ve got such a good head on your shoulders.”

Would you say that if you knew she had been a drug addict? What if you knew she was a werewolf? “Thanks … I hope I don’t give you reason to change your mind about that.”

“When can I meet her? You should bring her by for dinner.” Her voice was hopeful, she'd gotten over the other issues enough to want to check out this woman her son was dating, to size up a potential daughter-in-law. Mom's were like that, always looking way ahead.

“Soon, but I want to get to know her better myself, we’ve only just started dating.”

“Of course. You let me know when you want to bring her by.” She sounded a little disappointed but I think she understood.

“I will, and I hope you’ll like her. Ma, can I let you go, I need to get to my homework.”

“Of course, I’ve got to go myself, I’m taking a late shift for one of the other women at work. Goodnight Antoine, I love you.”

“Love you too Mom.” I hung up the phone and back onto the bed. Staring at the ceiling I said, “Well, that went better than I would have expected.”