*
In her second week, Dr. Fairland asked her, had something happened? Lydia picked up the pillow and sat it on her lap. She picked at the corners; the seams weren’t reinforced. In a year, maybe less, the stuffing would start to come out.
“My parents, they had to get married,” Lydia said. “Because of me. My mama got pregnant in college. She had wanted to be an English professor. She was supposed to get her master’s and then her doctorate.”
“Okay.” Dr. Fairland’s hair was a mess, a wild brown perm that went everywhere. Her eyes were pretty, even though Lydia rarely liked light eyes, even her own.
“And my mama was headed to Columbia,” Lydia said. “But then she couldn’t go. So she couldn’t get her doctorate and be a professor. It was even a long time before she started teaching elementary school. And when I was little, she was mad a lot. Like constantly.”
“What about your father?”
“He’s a doctor. And he’s gone all the time, working. I know he had to work to support us. I know that’s what a man is supposed to do, but when I was little, I felt like I was all by myself. Except for my baby sister.”
“Did you think that was your fault, Lydia? That your mother was mad?”
“Yeah, it is.” Lydia sat up. She corrected her diction. “I mean, yes, of course, it’s my fault. If it hadn’t been for me, Mama would be a professor right now. And now, here I am. In here.” Lydia waved her hand. “Her whole life was ruined because of me. She married Daddy because of me.”
“But you didn’t ask to be born. Your parents were adults when they conceived you. All right, yes, they didn’t plan you, but they knew that having sex might result in a baby. And how can a baby be responsible for her parents?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Essentially you did, Lydia. You said it was your fault they had to get married. Why do you think you feel so protective of your parents, especially your mother?”
“I mean . . . you know . . . the Bible says, honor thy mother and father and all that.”
Dr. Fairland smiled. “Uh-oh! I’m not stepping into that minefield.”
“I’m not trying be religious. I’m talking about how I was reared.”
“And how was that?”
How to explain what it was like to be Black to this white woman who wasn’t even southern? That a Black child didn’t have a right to hate their Black mama? Hatred was not allowed against your parents, no matter what had happened. You had to forgive your parents for whatever they had done even if they’d never apologized, because everybody had to stay together. So much had been lost already to Black folks.
*
In her third week, Lydia told Dr. Fairland what Gandee had done, the things he had made her do. She didn’t want to—she couldn’t even understand why she’d told—but she began weeping, and Dr. Fairland let her cry it out, her face sympathetic.
Gently, she asked, had Lydia ever told her parents?
“Oh, no. I could never.”
“Why not, Lydia? Why do you think that is?”
“I don’t know. I just couldn’t.”
“Do you think you’ve never told because you feel responsible for them, especially your mother?”
Lydia wiped her face. “I don’t want to hurt Mama even more. How am I supposed to tell her, that man molested me, when I’m already here? That’s bad enough.”
“So instead, you have to carry all this by yourself? That’s a lot for somebody who’s only twenty-one years old. Doesn’t that get heavy for you?”
New tears surged. “It does! I’m so tired, Dr. Fairland.”
“I bet. And you have a right to be. You have a right to be sad, too. Do you know that? You have every right to every feeling that you have. You don’t have to feel guilty or apologize.”
They talked some more, until the sixty minutes were up, but still, Lydia didn’t confess that her husband was dead.
*
The rehab facility let Mama visit in the fourth week, and Lydia confessed she’d lied about Dante being in college, because she’d been sure he’d enroll in college at some point. She came clean that she hadn’t transferred to Spelman, though her mother already knew that. They sat on the couch in Dr. Fairland’s office, half facing each other. Lydia with the pillow on her lap, and her mother hugging her pocketbook. Dr. Fairland was quiet, waiting for them to begin.
“I’m sorry. I know I’m supposed to talk this whole thing through, but I don’t even like hearing that boy’s name.” Mama used her schoolteacher’s tone. Proper, faultless. “It’s his fault my child is on drugs. Was on drugs.”