When It’s All Said and Done, Chapter 7
by Poetic

Chap 7 “From Mother to Son”
 

The box held so many memories. She never thought the day would come when she would reunite with a son whom she though dies 22 years ago. She spent years wondering what could have been. Silently she remembered his birthday, imagining what he would look like, what he would become? She cringed as she remembered the way she had treated him in the beginning. She looked down on him as she was better than he. She pulled out the poem she read him while he was still in the womb.

Flashback

Eve layed on her bed rubbing her swollen stomach smiling.

“You are a strong one aren’t you and hyper. Easy there.” She sighed.

“I wish your father could be as happy as I am. He is such the coward but I don’t care. I have struggled before and I can do it again. We will make it little one you and me. Your life will be better than mine. Everything is for you. My mother gave me this poem when I was five before she died. I did not understand it then but I do now.” She wiped away a stray tear as she thought of her mother.
 

“I am saving this very poem for you. It’s by Langston Hughes. I love him so much as a poet that I am naming you Langston. What’s that? You like that name. It has a distinguished quality to it. That’s tight.
Here it is from me to you.
 

Mother to Son

Well, son, I’ll tell you
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair
It’s had tacks in it
And splinters
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor
Bare
But all the time
I’se been a climbin’ on,
And reachin’ Landin’s
And turnin’ corners
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light
So boy, don’t turn back
Don’t you set down on the steps
Cause you find it’s kinder hard
Don’t you fall now
For I’se still goin’, honey
I’se still climbin,
And life for me
Ain’t been no crystal stair”

Eve wiped the tears from her face as she reflected on her life. Her life was never a crystal stair. While she had climbed may flights but she was still climbing, always climbing. She could see the top and was sure she would make it far but there would always be more stairs to climb. Making it would take a little longer a sa single mother but she would make it. Julian had offered to pay her to keep her pregnancy silent. He hd her holed up in some apartment so no one could tell. He agreed to be a small part of their child’s life but could not do so in the open. Eve wanted more than that. Langston deserved more than that but what could she expect he is a married man.

It was 1979 and interracial relationships were still taboo. Maybe if she accepted Julian’s offer it would make the climb a little easier. On one hand she could consider it child support and on the other what would that make her? She had to finish school though, or her and her baby. With that in mind she figured she would just have to do what ever she had to. She sighed.

“You have settled down. I want you to cheer up. I should not have said those things about your father. He is not quite himself and honey he doesn’t even know who that is. I think he loves us but he just doesn’t know how. He never learned much about love. He never learned to stand up for himelf.”

She turned off the light. “Goodnight Langston.”

End flashback
 

The tears flowed. All the aspirations she had for her son, were they all in vain? She looked down on him when it was her fault the life he had to lead. Things she never wanted for him are the things he had to live. How was she suppose to make that up to him now? He is a grown man who doesn’t need her. She wiped her tears and put the cover on the box.

“But I need him.” She whispered.

Eve knocked on Chad’s door. He answered thinking it was Theresa. He stopped cold in his tracks. He was not ready for this. He was not ready to face this woman. She looked at the boxes he was packing.

“May I come in Chad?” Her voice low evident of fear and sadness.

“It’s your spot.” He stepped aside.

“Are you going out of town.” She stepped over one of the boxes.

“Ain;t no need in me staying here anymore. I found out what I needed to know so…” His voice dropped and he focused his attention on packing.

“are you going to run out of anger after all the searching you did.” Eve feared losing him without ever having the chance to talk to him to tell him how she felt.

“Dr Russell that’s real funny” He chuckled “I guess it runs in the family. You ran. I do not know why you are vene here. I am not the son you want. The only reason you ever began to tolerate me was because I saved your precious daughter’s life.” He turned to look at her.

“Chad I know I was rough on you at first and I misjudged you but I only..”

“You only wanted to protect them from becoming you.” He interrupted.

“Moms I have a question for you though.” The sarcasm dripped from his lips.

“Why?” his voice almost broke.

“Chad I was told you were dead. I even saw your death certificate. Your lifeless body.” She covered her mouth shivering at the thought.

“Julian paid for a small service. Just myself and Crystal attended. I was willing to do anything for you. Yes I was young and in school but I would have sacrificed anything so that we would make it.”

She handed him the box. He took it from her glancing up at her curiously.

“Open it. There is a poem inside and some of your other belongings.”

He unfolded the paper and began to read the words. The sound of the word matched her voice. The voice he had dreamed of hearing for many years. Hs eyes began to tear.

“When I was 13 I had this one foster family. A woman by the name of Carlotta gave me this poem and others by Langston, She always encouraged me to read and she was obsessed with the Harlem renaissance. I was taken from her three months later due to controversy at her school about her being militant. She had lost her job as a guidance counselor and was said to be unstable. She was the best foster parent I had.”

He looked at the poem again. His fingers tracing the old bark that was worn on the ends.

“I was going to name you Langston. He was one of my favorites. I ....I would not have given you up had I known Chad.” Eve searched his eyes but they were so full of many different emotions she could not tell exactly what he was thinking.

Chad wanted to believe her but the place in his heart that was filled with anger and bitterness did not allow him to forgive so easily. He could sense her sincerity but was at a loss.

“What would make you think that people as ruthless as the Cranes would not do anything to keep my birth a secret. That they had nothing to do with my so called death.”

“Julian assured me no harm would come to us. I was young then. I was grasping at straws trying to figure out how we would survive with out him..”

“And you believed him. A man who could not and would not be seen with you. That would ket you raise your child alone. It reminds me of the massa, the slave, the wench, and the bastard son.” He chuckled.

“I do not believe he was ashamed. He had Crane duties that he could not turn his back on.” Eve tried to explain. Though at times she did loathe Julian Chad would need to make his own decision on how he felt about him. She would not influence that decision.
 

“I can’t believe you are defending his white biggoted ass and for what. Did he have you brainwashed? Did his house nigga wench. The point is you gave up. When Simone had that accident your mother’s instince kicked in. If you loved and wanted me why did your instincts not tell you I was alive? How could you see my face and not wonder? Look into my eyes and not know? You did not want to know that’s why. God you were even a match when I needed blood. You already had your perfect family. You were willing to sacrifice whatever to keep it that way. Even me knowing.” He sighed trying to keep his anger in check.

“You made sacrifices alright. You sacrificed our relationship to save your life. I am just an inconvenience with your blood running through his veins.” He wiped a single tear that had managed to break through the wall of refusal escaping down his cheek.

Resentment clawed at his heart begging to come in. All the things he missed out on as a child. All the foster homes he had been in. The fact that he had to be a man before he was ready. The fact that he remember ever being innocent in his short life. Being homeless at the age of fifteen. All those things may have been avoided had she just tried. She thought he was dead. What was that? Some soap opera bull golly that he was just suppose to believe. Just crumple in her arms like he was still a child making up for lost time.
There was a small part of him that wanted her to hold him, that part that is still five years old praying at night for god to send him his mommy. He just could not do it, he couldn’t.

So many emotions ran through his mind at that moment. He was still feeling like he could not move. Like a calmness of a mountain before the red molten rock shot out, up and over its peak rushing down the sides. Chad was always encouraging others to express themselves but where he was concerned in this situation he could not be. He had refused to let himself cry.

“Chad you were not an inconvenience. I never thought of you that way. I spent years mourning. Listen to the tape read the letters. You do not know what I felt. Feeling your child grow inside of you. Actually giving birth and then someone tells you your child is gone. Dead. Chad it nearly killed me.” Eve cried.

“You do not know what it is like. What my life was like. Being homeless and hungry.” Chad shot back.

“To not know what your next family would be like. Most of them were losers in it for the monthly check. To hold on to faith in something you prayed to everyday for your family, an identity, something or someone familiar. To resist the call of the cold side of the streets day in and day it. It was hard to see people eating off easy money and to continue to starve you don’t” He covered his face stifling his tears. He turned away.

“I want you gone.” He sniffed.

“I can not do that.” She put her hand on his shoulder.

“I need you to understand that I did not just leave you on some door step. I did want you and I want you to know how much you were loved and are loved.” She hugged him.
 

Chad began to break down. He wanted this for so long in his life but that was the fairytale part of it. The first year he was homeless was the year he wanted to find his family just to confront them. He pulled away from her. Eve knew he needed time. She did not want to force his acceptance. She let him go.

“Chad I will be at the house when ever you need me. When you are ready to talk to me I would really like that. I did not expect you to jump into my arms but we have got to start some where.” She squeezed his shoulder gently and left him alone.

He put in the tape listening to the beautiful melody of the jazz singer’s voice fill the room and then he realized it was Eve. He wondered if his passion for music came from her. He chuckled to himself thinking it had to. He thought of his father and hate crept in his heart. He knew the Cranes are slimy and they had to have something to do with his so called death. They did not like to associate with “common people” imagine having a black child. He was not ready to deal with Julian yet. He did however, promise to make his father pay for the way he treated his mother. He is a man of his word.