Chapter 1
Emma
Libreville was the small town where I grew up. Where a lot of people —certainly a lot of the ones I knew back in high school—cleared out of as soon as they were of legal age.
I was one in that crowd, clearing out of town the evening of high school graduation, looking for something better in the closest city without much to my name. Most of that crowd didn’t come back, and the few that did visit did so rarely it would be a miracle if I met up with anyone, certainly not this weekend.
I'd even called ahead and none of the friends I knew would be around for the weekend.
Like plenty of the smart kids from back then, I could have gone away and stayed away. But here I was, back in town, late and feeling exhausted, practically falling out of my car. Only to end up, standing on the front lawn, feeling like I was about to face the firing squad.
"You're late, “said a woman’s voice out of the darkness.
Should I get back in the car and drive away? I thought it, but I didn’t say it. I was too tired to get far, anyway, after the day I'd had, but I was seriously tempted to.
I felt like she should have been more grateful. She was the reason I still came back here, after all.
Every two months, I made a point to drive out to Libreville to visit my mom. The time was significant, but I felt it was still too frequent. She didn’t seem to appreciate it either. Not for the first time, I wondered why I still bothered.
"I'm sorry, Mom." The apology grated, but I knew she expected it. I wanted to get inside, out of the cold, and away from possible peeping neighbors. I wanted to lie down and rest.
"You said you'd be here at six—"
I cut her off. "Yes, and it’s eight, now, I know. I had some problem with the car on the way."
Why did I even bother to visit her? Sharon never visited me, not once since I'd moved out. Even when it was phone calls, I was the one to reach out. Like it was all so far beneath her; Sharon Davis would never deign to contact her daughter because she thought as her daughter I was obligated to, or something.
Sometimes, I wondered, if I just stayed away, gave her complete radio silence, if she would remember I still existed. Plenty of times, I felt sure she wouldn’t.
"Look, Mom. I've been driving for hours, and then there was the issue with the car breaking down. I haven't had anything to eat since this morning, and I would really like a shower."
To start with. I didn’t feel hungry, but I probably needed to eat. Then I needed to sleep.
"Is that all you can think of? If you're hungry, then maybe you should have thought of that before getting here this late. Or bought something for yourself on the way. I knew you were coming at six, so I prepared dinner at six. I ate at seven, still waiting for you to get here, and I gave the leftovers to Mrs. Wright from across the street to give to her cats thirty minutes later. You could have made it here at least half an hour earlier."
I stared at her. I didn’t think she was kidding. I knew the woman that lived across the street, she had half a dozen cats and about as many great-grandchildren. Those cats of hers were always hungry.
"You couldn’t have held it for me? I would have eaten it cold."
She just shrugged, folding her arms over her chest and sticking her chin up. "I figured if you were that late, you weren’t going to show at all. You could have called at or before six to tell me you would be late."
I could have, but by that point, I was back on the road, and I didn’t call and drive. Stopping along the highway just to tell her I was going to be late so she could hold dinner for me would have been stupid.
What if I never made it back, would she not have wondered something could have happened to me on the way? Or would her assumption be that I lied and stayed home?
Or would she not have cared.
I didn’t look too closely at that, though it worried me that I didn’t have a definite answer.
Mom hadn't changed much from her old tyrannical ways. I hated it in high school, and even more now when I didn’t have to take shit from her because I was no longer living under her roof. Well, except for the weekend I'd be in town. But I didn’t have to stay at home.
"I'm sorry I'm late but I couldn’t predict that something would happen with my car."
It wasn’t old, and usually, it was dependable. My stop wouldn’t have taken so long, except I didn’t know much about cars. Luckily, I'd only had to walk a bit to the nearest town and look for help there. It could have been longer than two hours.
Mom didn’t seem to care about the details.
"Next time, come earlier. If something happens with your car, tell me so I know you're on the way, not back at home or in a club somewhere, doing who knows what, with only Lord knows who. If you're gonna bother to come out here anyway, at least make it when you say you will, would you?"
More staring. Like she had no idea what I did when I was at home. I called and updated her more frequently than I made face-to-face visits. I didn’t have time to go out to clubs, still studying for exams, and with my internship underway. I worked odd hours at the hospital, got maybe six hours of sleep on a good night—sometimes day when I had a night shift.
Did she really think all I did was waste my time?
I rolled my eyes and turned away. I didn’t have to stand there and listen to this bull. I ignored her calling my name, after a short pause. Usually, I would just stand there and take it, I'd been doing it all my life so I had the practice. But I was on a short fuse already. After the day I'd had, my patience was shot, not enough of it left to handle my mother.
Had mom always been this unbearable, or did she grow worse? I couldn’t remember.
It was a long time in coming, though. I'd been working up to it for years; twenty-six and I was finally having my teenage rebellion.
Though, if I thought about it, it was probably more that mom was the same she had always been, and I'd just grown out of the needy little girl that thought the only thing that mattered in the world was for her mother to love her. I had a life away from home, a life that didn’t revolve around her. That wasn’t going to change just because I came for a visit.
I reached into my car for my purse, then locked the doors and dropped the key into my purse. My luggage was still in the trunk, but it wasn’t like I would be staying long, so it wasn’t much. I left it there and continued walking.
There was a bar close by. Technically, in Libreville, you could walk just about anywhere, but the place was less than five minutes away on foot. I'd passed it plenty of times during previous visits, but I'd never stopped there for a drink before. It was a wonder why.
I'd spend the weekend drunk to deal with Sharon's antics. This would be the last time I came to visit.
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