Before taking off from John F. Kennedy airport, Dad gave me a call. I thought he was ringing to let me know the flight was on time. If only. Fitzroy was calling to tell me to breathe deep, swallow my thoughts, and brace myself. The last thing he reminded me: “You are a lady and a mother, and Xandra is a child of God. I’ll see you soon.” He made it clear that the Xandra I last saw organizing her dorm room with supplies from Target was not the Xandra coming home for Christmas. All I could envision was a cheap tattoo running down her arm like Marisol predicted. It better say I LOVE MY MOM.
I knew from his tone of voice Graham was serious about his threat to tell Xandra about my pregnancy if I didn’t get to it first, and in this rare instance he was right. The hard needed to happen now. After hanging up from that conversation, I called Leo to come over immediately for emotional support. With reinforcements on the way, I drove home and made myself a PB and J to carbo-load for the FaceTime with Xandra that would certainly drain both our energies.
I left Leo pacing in the living room and stepped into my bedroom to make the call. I appreciated that even in his new-dad delirium, Leo respected that I’m Xandra’s mother and having this conversation was all on me. Fortunately, I caught Xandra in her room, alone. Dash was at a group session reviewing for her herstory women’s studies final. Xandra claimed she was suffering from writer’s block on a paper she was working on, so she was happy for the distraction. It felt good to hear Xandra sound upbeat and chatty about which of her friends was doing what over the winter break, the movies she wanted to see when she got home, and a quick mention about the gift she and Dash went in on for their faculty dorm parent. I could think of nothing more I wanted to do over the holidays than share a box of Sour Patch Kids and an hours-long shopping spree with Xandra.
I was going to mention how thrilled I was to hear her sounding so positive after a fall semester of conversations laced with accusations about Pemberley faculty, but I decided if Xandra wasn’t going to go there on this call, I wasn’t going to go there either. I knew in that moment a break from boarding school to rest, spend quality time with me, and get to know Leo would be what Xandra needed to head into the second half of the school year with a reset in attitude.
I told Xandra there were a few things I wanted to share with her now, and then we could talk more about them once she got home. That I was an open book.
“Is this about that pale dude you’re dating?” Xandra asked out the gate while I was still stretching my brain for the right words.
“Yes. His name is Leo and he’s White. Pale is not a color.”
“So, what do you want to tell me about the White dude?” Xandra’s voice was blanketed with sarcasm.
Not calling Leo by his name was pointedly disrespectful, but I gave her some room for error since this would be a difficult conversation. “When you get here, Leo’s going to be spending some time with us over Christmas because recently, we’ve grown close.” I waited for a response. Nothing came. All my years teaching high school science, dead air is a teenage tactic I know well, so I pushed on. “And we’re having a baby together.”
“I guess you have gotten close, huh? Sex before marriage, I thought that was a no-no in our family.” I was about to explain to Xandra that she was not getting a new stepfather along with a sibling when she cut me off. “So what, time running out on your clock? When you planning on doing the pregnancy thing?” Xandra said with the impatient tone of a teen interested only in information as it affects her life.
“No, sweetheart, I’m trying to tell you I’m already pregnant,” I said softly, looking directly at my girl, wanting the news to land as delicately as possible. Xandra’s eyes rolled so far back that any farther and she could read her own mind.
“Wait, what? A baby? God, Mom, that’s so gross! Nobody asked me!” Xandra yelled and put the phone facedown on her bed to block me out. I could still hear her screaming in the background.
Uh yeah. Nobody asked me either, but here we all are.
Dad found me first in baggage claim and reminded me, without so much as a hello, that a parent’s love for their child is unconditional and can weather any storm. I wasn’t sure if his cryptic message was because I was about to get Xandra’s report card and her first semester grades were not up to expectations, or if she spent the whole plane ride tearing me to shreds with her grandfather. I couldn’t believe Fitzroy would go soft on the grade front with his granddaughter. Growing up, my mother would put her version of love notes in Clive’s and my lunch boxes on test days, notes that said things like, Your father and I say an A today is the only way. I’m pretty sure Fitzroy’s message was to remind me I had no idea what was coming for me from my daughter, so I better focus up.
The only thing I recognized on Xandra was the navy four-wheel suitcase she was rolling, a bon voyage and birthday present I gave her when she turned fourteen, shortly before she headed to Pemberley for her freshman year. The navy suitcase was precisely chosen to send Xandra the subtle message to come home often and that young women shouldn’t accessorize with black—it’s depressing.
The suitcase was being pulled by a leather-clad, shaved-headed young woman with so many piercings in her ears I could have sworn I heard the wind whistling through the few holes that were not filled with mismatched studs. With her newly shorn head, I was actually grateful for the enormous size ten feet clad in heinous combat boots serving as weights to ground my lithe daughter to the earth. How was it my angel had come home looking like an angry White girl from Calabasas, sullenly posing on a street corner in Venice, opposing the patriarchy that’s paying for the Benz that drove her there? All I could think was that I should have had Leo come with me so he could get a front-row seat to what it’s like when your child causes your stomach to drop like the Times Square New Year’s Eve ball. The hooker-red matte lipstick, that will be the first thing to go, Xandra, you can count on that. Taking it all in, I concluded that in the week since we FaceTimed my once demure, sweet Xandra looked rough. Rough and tough and tragically without her baby Afro-puffs.
I had to look away. The shock of my daughter looking more butch than baby was too much for me to linger. I pretended to fumble in my purse for something, and then I walked over to the baggage claim to help Dad pull his luggage off the conveyor belt before he gave himself a double hernia. Dad grabbed my arm to hold me back from laying into Xandra, and it felt just like my mom used to do: putting a hand on me, telling me to pump my brakes when she could sense my anger was about to let loose.
“You want a hat, so your head doesn’t catch a cold when we step outside?” I ask Xandra after giving her a hug. I waited a moment, I really did.
“Nice job, Nina, took you a whole minute to get into it,” Dad said, striding up to take hold of Xandra’s hand and walk her toward short-term parking.
Just that quick, the two against one dynamic was in action. Did Fitzroy not spy the safety pin in one of his granddaughter’s earholes?
“Hey, Jasmine,” I say, giving a big hug to one of my favorite seniors before I head up the bleachers to where I see Roan and Marisol have already claimed spots. With R-H letters in kelly green and rose red adorning her cheeks, and a pile of ribbons holding her high pony, Jasmine has exuded school spirit since her first day in kindergarten. When her teacher asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, she hopped to the center of the sharing circle, kicked her leg in the air, and roared, A CHEERLEADER! I never did tell her parents that their school tuition was paying for such five-year-old aspirations. Turns out, thirteen years later, Jasmine also wants to be the next RBG. “I saw your mom last week hobbling around the upper school on crutches. Is her ankle doing any better?”