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My father hadn’t been bullshitting when he said my mom was excited to meet Atlas. Since becoming a man, I’d had to listen to her guilt trips over never becoming a grandmother when it became clear her only child hadn’t been interested in marriage and babies.
“Sit down, baby.” I pulled out her chair before copping a squat beside her.
My beaming mother entered a moment later, carrying a pitcher of orange juice in her lap. My father was behind her with his hands around the handles of her wheelchair as he pushed her toward the table.
I took a sip from the glass of water already waiting for me as I watched for Atlas’s reaction out of the corner of my eye.
To someone who didn’t know what to look for, her soft smile would have been the only thing she gave away, but I could see the wheels turning in her head as she slowly pieced together everything I’d shared with her about my parents and upbringing.
Back when my Pops and I were beefing heavily over how I was getting money, my mom had gotten hurt in a hit-and-run that left her paralyzed from the waist down. Everyone assumed the accident was the reason my father and I had set our differences aside, but it was only part of the truth.
The other half was scattered six feet deep around the mountains of Hilltop. It was where my father and I had left the motherfucker who had ran my mother off the road.
“Oh, my word, Michael,” my mom gushed as she stared at Atlas. “You didn’t tell me how pretty she was!”
“I might have taken a few hits to the head during my fighting days, but that didn’t make me a fool, woman.” My mother playfully hit my Pops on the arm before giving her full attention back to my baby.
Like Atlas, if my mom was shocked by her age, she didn’t show it, meaning my father had already warned her before they came in.
“Hello, Mrs. Wray. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Oh, please, child. Call me Heidi.”
“Okay, Ms. Heidi.”
The four of us cracked up over Atlas’s insistence on being respectful, no doubt an influence of being raised by Black parents. We never called our elders by their first name; it was always Ms., Mr., Aunt, or Uncle, according to whatever role they parroted in our lives.
“You are beautiful,” my mother said again.
True.
“Owen has told me so much about you that I couldn’t wait anymore. I told him if he didn’t bring you over soon, I was going to pay a visit myself.”
Also true.
I had been planning to anyway, but fear of spooking Atlas had made me hesitant. Since I’d never been in a relationship before, I’d found myself second-guessing if it was too soon.
My mom had essentially taken the choice out of my hands when she tried to come to the hospital after I told them about Atlas’s accident.
It had only been my reminder that the stress of meeting her boyfriend’s parents for the first time was the last thing someone with a fresh head injury needed that had kept my mother away. My father had been no damn help since his soft ass couldn’t seem to ever say no to my mom. I knew he was firmly on her side for whatever she chose to do.
I could still hear my mother’s threat ringing in my head.
“As soon as she’s healed, I want you to bring her by the house. Don’t make me have to get your father involved, Owen Rashaad.”
Like me, my mom never issued a promise she didn’t mean, so I’d given her a date and time as soon as the doctor cleared Atlas. I made sure to schedule it before the reopening so that if things went south, we’d have an excuse to leave as soon as possible.
Kareena’s panic had been easier to manage since she was too weak to travel. I’d been sneaking down to Ossella these past few months to check on Atlas’s mom and make sure she was seeing a doctor as agreed. I also tried to talk some sense into her about telling Atlas the truth to no avail.
I had almost broken my promise after Atlas’s accident.
I hadn’t believed that Atlas was telling the full truth about hitting her head and losing consciousness. The doctor and the cut on her head had already confirmed she’d hit her head, but I wondered if it had occurredaftershe’d passed out.
The underwater current had been strong enough when I dove in to save her that anything was possible.
“Thank you. And I’m sorry about earlier,” Atlas apologized. “Owen didn’t tell me we were coming, so I was caught off guard and reacted badly. I hope I didn’t disrespect your home or make you think less of me.”
My mother waved her off. “Don’t worry about it. While I love my son more than any mother could, I’m under no impression that he’s an angel. I’m sure you were right to feel cornered.”
