“Oh yeah? Have you ever been cheated on?”
“Well…no…not to my knowledge.”
“Have you ever been married?”
I tilted my head to one side. “Now, come on, you know I haven’t.”
“Alright then. So, you have no idea what any of that feels like,” she said. “Furthermore, you can’t tell her how to feel. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t know what feelings she may or may not still carry for that man. But at the end of the day, she has a right to feel something. She was married to him. I don’t think you should give her a hard time because of it.”
Dropping my head back, I let out a deep sigh.
Okay, so maybe I didn’t handle things as well as I could have. And maybe I let some of the things her cousin said get into my head a little bit. But that still doesn’t explain her reasoning for not wanting to have a conversation with him of some sort. The air needed to be cleared and closure needed to happen. That was something I knew for a fact.
“So, you think I should apologize for the way I handled things?”
“Most definitely,” she replied. “But just so we’re clear, I’m not saying that your personal feelings should be ignored. I just think you should try a different approach. Have a little more compassion for what she’s going through.”
“For the most part, I’ve felt like I’ve done that. But what if we did get into this thing too soon? Maybe I should’ve given her more time. I mean, she is still married.”
Waving me off, my mother said, “Nah, I just think some closure needs to happen. Maybe if you handle the situation better, you can convince her to talk to him.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah, I do.”
I nodded in understanding and then checked my phone to see if I had any missed calls or texts. A part of me was hoping that she’d felt as bad about what went down as I did. But even if she did, I was probably more in the wrong than she was, which meant I needed to be the one to make the first move.
“Hey, so how’s Dakota doing?”
“She’s doing fine. She’s at Kierra’s mother’s house. I’m going to pick her up in a few hours.”
Nodding slowly, my mother said, “Speaking of which, how does she feel about you no longer allowing Aunie to see her?”
“She’s not too thrilled about it, but she respects my wishes.”
“And how doyoufeel about it? I know you and Aunie don’t see eye to eye. But I also know that you feel strongly about Dakota having family in her life.”
“Yeah, I do. But what am I supposed to do with someone that does whatever the hell they want when it comes to my daughter? Did you know that she’d been smoking weed in the car while Dakota was in there?”
“Wait, what?”
“Yep. I found that out the same day we got into it. Nova told me after she left.”
“Oh, wow.”
“Yeah, so excuse me if I don’t feel too bad about my decision.”
My mother lifted her hands. “You know what? I’m just going to stay out of it.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against what people do on their personal time. Especially, when it comes to that. But you shouldn’t drive around with someone else’s child while doing it. Anything could happen, and then what? Bottom line, she doesn’t think, and I don’t have time for her careless actions.”
“Understood.”
“Thank you.”
“Well, I hate that all of this happened. Dakota lost an aunt, Nova was put in an awkward position by her family, and you’re just confused as hell.”
Letting out a chuckle, I shook my head. “Damn, Ma, thanks.”
