One Day at a Time
- tlampkin986
- Nov 28, 2021
- 11 min read
Taylor descended from the stage with the rest of her graduating class, a tear in her eye and a lump in her throat. She floated as if in a dream toward her family, who cheered for her again as she got closer to where they were huddled together waiting for her. Micah nearly bowled her over right there in the grassy aisle with a huge tackle hug before Mama and Grandma took turns squeezing her tightly. “You did it, baby girl,” a deep voice came from behind her, rising over the joyous sounds of celebration from the other families and graduates on the field. Taylor turned to see her father, a man she not seen in twelve years.
Her forehead wrinkled in confusion as she processed that the man who had walked out on her and her family was standing before her looking as if nothing ever happened.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, her tone simultaneously cutting yet bewildered. The smile on Larry Broward’s face faltered. “I couldn’t miss your big day, sweetheart,” he explained easily, pushing his hands into his pockets. His voice was deep and silky smooth, just like she remembered from so long ago. Taylor snorted in contempt, tamping down the joy that threatened to creep up into her chest. The idea of him not wanting to miss this milestone after missing virtually every other event in her life was astounding. She shook her head at his audacity, holding back from giving the older man a piece of her mind. He didn’t deserve it. Wasn’t worth it. Instead, she brushed past the man she considered her sperm donor, and left the field, weaving her way through clusters of happy graduates and their families to escape her own.
“Taylor Janelle, you better wait!” Taylor heard her mother’s sharp voice behind her as she traversed the parking lot. Begrudgingly, she slowed her clip to let her family catch up, her breath coming in quick huffs. It was temperate for mid-June, and a light breeze brushed her hair against her face. Yesterday had brought a light rain that threatened outdoor graduation and Taylor’s block heels had dug into the grass as she stamped through it on her way off the field. Now the soles of her shoes were riddled with grass and dirt. Upon hearing footfalls behind her, she turned to see Mama charging toward her, with Micah trailing behind her, and Grandma bringing up the rear. “Now, you know I didn’t raise you like that,” Mama started in, a deep frown etched across her face, pointer finger jabbing in Taylor’s direction. “That was completely disrespectful, and you will apologize to you father; I don’t care how you feel about him,” her mother raged on. Taylor took a deep breath, willing herself to calm down and get her emotions in check.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” she returned. “I just didn’t know he would be here. Why is he here?” Taylor questioned again, her voice going up in pitch. Davina Broward rose to her full five feet two inches. Behind her, Micah shrank back. “He’s here because I allowed him to be here,” she said, her voice low and measured, eyes flashing dangerously. This also did not compute. “Will he be at the party?” Taylor asked calmly, all traces of the contempt she was feeling erased from her tone. “Yes, he is.” Mama answered, attitude enough for the both of them. “Okay,” Taylor nodded. “Okay.”
Taylor had to admit that she did feel guilty for disrespecting her father; she had been raised to respect her elders and she’d just acted in blatant opposition to that. She just really needed time to process Larry showing up in the flesh after so long. The last time she saw him, he had been walking out the door of their two-bedroom apartment. At six, she couldn’t have known that he wasn’t coming back right away, never mind that he was leaving his family behind for what would turn out to be twelve entire years. He never even turned around, she remembered, just walked straight out the door and down the street. With him went her freedom. In his absence, she was the one who helped Mama with Micah, the one who sacrificed her time, and later on, finances, and social life for her family. And this man had the audacity to show up now out of the blue. Where had he been? And why show up now of all times? What had her mother been thinking?
Her father had been so much fun when she was little. The piggyback rides around the family room, the card games he taught her at the dining room table, the bedtime stories he made up for her. She had been a total daddy’s girl. And why wouldn’t she have been? He was her provider, her protector. Until he wasn’t.
For months after his disappearance, she would ask mama where her daddy was. Mama would only say ‘He’s gone for now.’ After a while she stopped asking. She still prayed, though. She asked God every night to bring her Daddy back. Every night turned into every other night, once a week, once a month. Eventually, she realized he wasn’t coming back. As an early teen, she realized that his exit had caused her and her brother to become statistics. Two more black children without present fathers. Kids with voids where their safety and security should be. She grew angry at him. Why did he do this to them? What had been so bad that he couldn’t have stayed and worked it out?
It made her feel unworthy. Like she and her brother were not enough for him. Why hadn’t they been enough?
Taylor slammed her hair brush down a little too hard on her bedroom vanity, startling herself out of her reverie. She studied her face in the mirror. She was frowning — her mother’s frown with the eyebrows knit together. She had gotten practically everything from her mother genetics-wise except for her height and her mouth. She had surpassed her mother in height by age thirteen, standing now at five foot seven. She’d also inherited Andre’s wide mouth that fell easily into a smile that was inviting and reassuring. Her daddy was five foot ten and had been a track star in his earlier days. She’d had no interest in the sport. She hadn’t wanted anything to do with anything that he had been associated with.
A knock sounded at her bedroom door. “Come in,” she said, adjusting the straps of her sundress. Mama walked in and closed the door behind her. “You calmed down yet?” she asked pointedly, perching on the edge of Taylor’s bed, which was made up with a floral spread and matching pillows. Taylor fought the urge to roll her eyes, not wanting her reflection to give her away.
“A little,” she said, turning to face the older woman. “But I don’t understand, Mama. Why would you want him here? Where has he even been?” she inquired, her hands gesturing wildly. Mama quirked her eyebrow but didn’t chastise her. “As parents, it’s our job to take care of our children,” her mother started calmly. “We raise them up to know what they need know and shield them from what they don’t.” Taylor leaned back against her dresser, folding her arms across her chest. She stayed quiet, knowing that Mama had more to say. Her mother studied her hands a while before moving on, head bowed, shoulder length curls falling forward. “I sent your father away,” she continued, her voice smaller than Taylor had ever heard it. Taylor’s head snapped back as though she’d been slapped in spite of the hushed tone of the words. “I had to send him away so that he could get better,” Mama elaborated, her voice gaining strength as she went on. “Your father had a drug problem,” she dropped the bomb, raising her head to look her daughter in the eye. Taylor frowned again. Daddy may have had a beer every once in a while, but drugs? It didn’t track.
“I know you don’t remember anything because he hid it well. It was the money that made me suspicious,” Mama shared. “Between me and your Daddy’s jobs, we’d been able to squirrel away a good bit of savings. We put money in that account every single pay day, religiously. We had agreed when we started out that we would have a ‘just in case’ fund. Just in case one of us lost our jobs, just in case we needed to fix something, or make a big purchase, things like that. When you were born, I had dreams that you could use it for college. Anyhow, one day I went to check on it because we were going to need the heater replaced by the next winter. And I just stared at the bank receipt. I knew there had to be a mistake. Because the total was lower, much lower than the last time I checked it.” Mama’s jaw tightened with contempt at the memory. “I made the teller show me the transactions. Your father had been taking out fifty, then a hundred, then a few hundred dollars at a time for months. I couldn’t believe it. I lit into him when he got home that day. And he confessed.” “How did he get into drugs?” Taylor inquired curiously.
“I found out that he had a coworker who constantly popped pills. That fool offered your father an upper one day when he was tired and dragging and it was all downhill from there. He started taking pills for everything — when he needed to stay up, when he needed to sleep, when he wanted to escape from reality. As much as I was mad at him, I blamed myself, too. I thought the changes I saw in him were his own. But it was the drugs.”
“It was the drugs that made him angry half the time, distracted the other half; the drugs that made him lose his appetite and his weight, and it was the drugs that were slowly taking him away from me. Away from us. And I didn’t see it in time to do anything about it before it really took hold of him.” Mama closed her eyes, a few seconds of silence ticked by as she relived the memories. “He started not coming home for dinner, and even missed your dance recital.” Taylor nodded, remembering the short-lived jazz classes she had taken and the one dance recital she’d performed in before tossing in the towel. “One night, he left Micah in the tub. Your brother was two months old. I asked your daddy to wash him while I cleaned up the kitchen after dinner. To this day I don’t know exactly what happened. I just know that I walked into the bathroom, and your daddy wasn’t there but Micah was. He had slipped down into the baby tub and was inhaling water. That was the day I put your father out.” Taylor’s eyes widened. “I never heard any arguments or fighting,” Taylor said in disbelief that all of this happened in their small apartment and she had no recollection.
“Good,” Mama nodded. “Neither one of us were yellers, but I made sure to shut doors, turn up the tv, turn on the water. Anything to keep you from knowing we were having it out. I told your daddy I couldn’t have him around my children anymore. Not after he had almost drowned our son. I told him that he needed to get clean and not to come back until he was done with that mess.” Taylor saw the pain in her mother’s deep brown eyes, felt her intense sadness from years past. She knew her decision had not been an easy one to make. “So, he went. And the next time I checked the savings, it was all the way down to two thousand dollars. Two thousand dollars in reserve, with two kids and one job,” Mama shook her head. “Can you imagine? Took our money and ran. It was years before I heard from him again.” “Where had he gone?” Taylor questioned. “His coworker connected him with a dealer that sold stronger drugs that the pills. He started doing cocaine. Going on binges. He lost his job when he stopped showing up. His boss had called me when he first started missing days and I couldn’t tell him where my own husband was. Two weeks later he called back saying that if I saw Larry to tell him he was finished.”
“Two years later, out of the clear blue, he called me. I barely recognized his voice. He claimed he was in rehab, and he needed money to stay and continue the program. I didn’t believe him, so I didn’t give it to him. Four more years went by, and he called again. Said he was really going to rehab this time. He wanted to let me know that he was getting better. I checked his story, and it was true. But then he got mixed up with heroin and fell back into the hole. On your fourteenth birthday he called again. Said he was finished with the life. He was trying another rehab upstate. He wanted to see you and your brother and would do whatever it took. I told him he needed to stick to the program and send me regular updates. And he did. He stayed in that rehab for nine months, then went on to a halfway house. He called me every month, letting me know how he was doing. He had started sounding more like his old self. I would tell him how you and your brother were doing. Last year he got himself a job and an apartment. And he’s been doing really well. He asked about your graduation, so I met him last week to see with my own eyes that he was truly okay. I believe he’s been healed for good.”
“How do you know?” Taylor questioned before she could stop herself. “You saw him,” Mama challenged. “He look strung out to you?” Taylor shook her head. “No, he looks like the Daddy I remember, just older,” she answered truthfully. “He’s been through a lot. And he was able to work his way back. To make it to this day. For you,” Mama finished with a nod in her direction.
“But what about what he did to you? You just forgave him for all of it?” Taylor asked, her voice going up a few octaves. Mama nodded slowly. “I forgave your Daddy a long time ago. He’s my husband. and that’s never changed. It wasn’t me that he betrayed. It was himself and God. He was weak and gave into temptation. He chose an easy high over his family and that went against everything he had once stood for. And he’s sorry for it all. He just found a church home. He’s doing all the right things and his heart is in it this time. And he never stopped loving and missing you and your brother. He’s taking things one day at a time and he made it here today.” “But the money, Mama,” Taylor stressed, shaking her head. “And all that time that you’ve had to take care of us by yourself,” Taylor felt herself tearing up as she recalled all of what she knew that her mother had done for them all of these years; now there was a new piece of the puzzle taking shape — her mother’s sacrifices.
She wanted to be upset that Mama had send her father away, wanted to be pissed off and blame her for his absence. But how could she? Her mother had knowingly taken on the work of two parents. She had done it for the safety of her children and the health of her husband. Taylor and her brother may not have had that male influence in their lives, but their mother had pulled double duty and made sure they had everything they needed. And had never complained. Not once. And Taylor had never given her mother the acknowledgement that she deserved.
“Don’t worry about me,” her mother waved a hand as if she had read Taylor’s mind. “I’m not going anywhere. We got all the time in the world to talk. But your daddy’s going back to his own place tonight, and it might be a while before you see him again.” Taylor blew out a breath, her hands on either side of her face. What would she even say to him? Should she apologize right off the bat? Then again, didn’t he owe her an apology? “Where do I even start?” she queried. “You could start with ‘hi’,” Mama offered, rising off bed, and crossing to the door. “Remember that he never stopped loving you,” Mama turned to say before closing the door behind her.
Taylor squeezed her eyes closed, her mind reeling. For years she had imagined what a reunion with her father would be like, even after she had lost faith that it would actually happen. Now here it was, moments from taking place. Because she couldn’t miss this moment. No, she wasn’t ready for this; probably never would be. Nevertheless, she smoothed her hands down the front of her dress and left her room, determined to make things right.
Upbeat music filled the air when she stepped outside. From her position on the deck, Taylor saw him eyeing her warily by a picnic table in the backyard. With one final deep breath, she made her way over to him. She took her time, still formulating what she would say as she crossed the decorated space filled with her friends and relatives. There were so many words to choose from, but the right ones were still not coming to her. Time was running out as she steadily closed the distance between them. “Hey, baby girl,” he said, his smile wide as she approached.
“Hi, Daddy.”
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