“He’d better,” her husband replies, once again adopting the tenor of a completely different conversation. “A good headhunter has to grant access to more than what’s already in somebody’s backyard; otherwise what good are they?”
That’s Jerry Whitman’s gift. It always comes across as charm, but today I can see the moving parts. It’s an ability to assume authority over the narrative and the tone, shifting it right under the congregation’s feet in a way that compels them to acquiesce. It’ll either diffuse my mother’s inquiry or require her to be more overtly confrontational.
Which is, admittedly, a somewhat despicable position to put a Black woman in, for a man who is as conscious and invested in our liberation as Jerry Whitman is.
“It just so happens that the people most convinced of Ben’s talents were farther away than I guessed,” he finishes, and it means my mother doesn’t have to ask.
But it also means my dad might’ve been telling the truth.
Maybe it was a whirlwind connection, and maybe the Whitmans didn’t pass along my dad’s name until the situation was clearly untenable. Until the Turners’ daughter was living under their roof.
Maybe there was no secrecy or betrayal on my parents’ part—but the Whitmans still saved the day.
Maybe the fact that my mom’s still looking at them like she’s come to fully understand something just means she’s a sore loser.
“Can I stay?” I ask her, quietly so that even though everyone can hear me, it seems like I’m trying not to put her on the spot. “Just until the vacation?”
I watch her jaw clench while she rubs my arm. Only I can hear the way her breathing is labored, the effort she’s putting in to keeping it steady.
I squeeze her and smile up at her.
She’s lost. She must know that.
Whatever she thought Jerry Whitman’s misstep was going to expose, it’s already forgotten. Everything, easily explained.
“Just until we get back from vacation?” I ask again, because I can push back one step at a time. I can ask permission as many times as I need to.
The Whitmans don’t insist. I can get away with it as her teenage daughter; they are patient, smiles reestablished, and ready to accept whatever my mother decides.
“Just until after the vacation,” she says. Her breath hitches before she’s done, but all that matters is that I’ve won. “And then Dad and I want you to make the drive with us.”
“Well, that sounds like fun,” Brianne says, and smiles at me. “A summer road trip with the whole family.”
I kiss my mother’s cheek, while Jerry launches into a new conversation with my dad about the golf courses closest to our future home.
“Nicki, you and Ben’ll stay for a bit, won’t you?” Brianne comes close now, trading sides with her husband, so the couples split and pair off again the way they’ve always done. “You two can use a day, I insist. Let’s just relax and make some dinner later, and have wine, how does that sound?”
“That sounds great, Brianne,” my mother says, and there’s a pause before she says her name. It interrupts Brianne Whitman’s smile—but only for a moment.
* * *
—
WHEN MY MOTHER weaves her arm through mine and says she wants to talk, I lead her out to the gazebo. I bring her right to the spot where Kelly collapsed, even though there’s no place marker or evidence that he was here. I just remember. I know exactly where his body fell, where his head pressed into the soft grass while he was struggling to breathe. I can put him there, in my mind, and I only have to make slight adjustments so that we’re standing on his back.
She studies me while I perfect our position. She knows I’m doing something, but she can’t know why, and when I’m finished, I look at her and smile.
“What’s the matter?” she asks me, soberly. My amusement isn’t contagious. It doesn’t catch on the corners of her lips, snag an uncertain smile, the way it’s supposed to. The way it would on anyone but the two of us, who are capable of control.
“I smile, and you think something’s the matter?” I don’t tame my expression. I could, if I had to, but no one hears the sound of Kelly’s body rustling against the ground, the noises he makes that for anyone else would be so difficult to place.
Nichole Turner only stares, and in a moment I realize she’s not here, either. She’s standing beside me, our arms still entangled, but like me, she’s somewhere else. A different time, and—for her—a different place, too.
“You know, you never cried,” she tells me. “When I brought you home from the hospital.”
“Lucky you,” I say, and nudge her with my shoulder.
“No.” And the way her breath escapes with the word pulls some of the lift from my lips. “It terrified me. I never knew when you were hungry. When you wanted to be held. Nobody told me how important it is to hear your baby cry, especially when you’re a new mom, and you don’t know what you’re doing. The crying tells you there’s a need. And you didn’t.”
I should say something. I should interrupt wherever this is going before my mother’s seriousness quiets Kelly for good—only I can’t decide what. I filter through a series of sentence fragments, but I can’t see the outcome for any of them. I can’t tell what reaction they’d elicit, and what comes out falls flat.
“So I was a peaceful baby.” My eyes hop around involuntarily.
“I said you were quiet.” My mother brings them back to center.
This is a criticism, and she knows that I know now. She lost in the sitting room, so she brought me out here to confront me one-on-one.
“I’m sorry I didn’t cry more,” I say, but there’s no affect.
“You cried,” she says, like I’m following the script perfectly, leading her where she already planned to go. “Eventually. But not until you decided to.”
I clamp my lips shut when she leaves space for my reply. I refuse to speak, letting my gaze fall to the grass at my feet. Willing myself to hear the clipped breathing of a boy I brought down in the middle of the night.
I step to the side, and my mother has to follow because we’re still arm in arm. When I slip free of her, it’s so I can place both hands on her arms and turn to face her. Make sure she’s exactly where he was. Turn her around so that my back can face the gazebo like it did when he was here.
She doesn’t ask what I’m doing, not even when my smile returns. She just keeps looking at me like she knows. Like she’s always known.
“I worry about you, Farrah,” she says, when I’ve put her in exactly the right place. “I always have.”