ONE
JABARI SWALLOWED INTO the tightness in his chest. He’d face his mother’s wrath for sure when he got home. He was tired of bringing her stories, each one worse than the previous one. He was sure she’d get sick of him… maybe even pull him out of school.
On one level, that was what he wanted. On another, he had no desire to start over at a new place. What if the same stuff happened. Or worse?
Jabari tucked his shirt in and fixed his collar. He breathed in deeply before entering the mid-sized family home.
I hope she’s not mad. He thought to himself.
His mother, Tammy, waited for him at the door when he arrived. She swung the door open and folded her arms, gazing out at the long driveway with a concerned look on her face. When Tammy saw the look on her son’s face as he walked through the door, she knew it had been another crappy day at school.
Luckily, Jabari wouldn’t have to deal with this for very long. Seeing her son coming home disappointed yet again hit Tammy hard. She’d been making quiet preparations and finally, she was ready to follow through with them.
Tammy was doing everything in her power to protect him and she hated to think of herself as a failure. Tammy had Jabari young, and she was still self-conscious about her parenting. Even if she’d been at this for years, Tammy still felt like she missed out on having some guidance when it came to being a mother.
Most mothers of the child Jabari’s age were in their mid-40s with high six-figure incomes. They had it all and they hadn’t had to worry about anything since the fathers were mostly present. Not to mention, they had nannies to help them out. Most of all, Tammy missed out on the support. She’d grown tough and independent, which made dating very difficult.
Tammy didn’t have to worry about a six figure income or hiring a nanny. She had more than enough money and more than enough time. She’d come from money and recently, a great uncle of hers from Los Angeles had passed away, leaving her as the sole heir to his fortune.
There was still tension between her and the other mothers. They whispered about her often, either judging her for inheriting her fortune or for being such a young mother of an eighth grader.
“Good afternoon mom,” Jabari mumbled.
He was turning into the stereotypical teenager in some ways. The experience of watching her boy grow shocked Tammy daily. She was getting worried that some of these changes were more than the run-of-the-mill issues with puberty.
She could see the familiar exuberant light in his eyes was dimmer. He was always like this after school ever since seventh grade had started. Jabari went to Southwest Middle School in their town. There was no space in most of the cliques for a little black boy who was interested only in mathematics and engineering.
If his teachers weren’t discriminating against him for his dark skin, Jabari’s peers were mocking him and bullying him to no end. Tammy could see that he didn’t want to tell her the truth of what he was going through, but she had found out anyways.
Today, Tammy had great news for Jabari that would hopefully bring back the familiar glint in his eye that she had grown accustomed to in his childhood.
“Get over here Jay, give mama a hug,” Tammy said to her son, reaching her arms out for him.
Jabari bounded over and and reluctantly wrapped his arms around her, giving her a squeeze as she looked down at him. Tammy was still getting used to the way he was growing up. Before, he was a little boy who loved hugs and kisses. Now that he was a teenager, his interest in being affectionate with his mother had dwindled.
He’ll always be my little boy. Tammy thought to herself.
Once Jabari had hugged her, Tammy began to tell him her good news. She hoped that the good news would put a smile on his face.
“Jabari... I have some news for you. I spoke to the headmaster of a Willowcrest Prep and he said that someone got expelled two weeks ago and a seat opened up in the eighth grade class. You can start as soon as you like,” Tammy announced.
Jabari’s eyes lit up. He had heard many tales of Tammy’s time at Willowcrest Prep.Tammy had attended every private school her parents could afford from preschool until high school.
Jabari’s upbringing had been more austere. Tammy knew her money could run out if she were reckless, and while her investments kept her afloat, she skipped luxuries whenever possible. She couldn’t exactly live like her parents as a single mother. She needed to be prepared for everything.
So Jabari had grown up with humility and Tammy wasn’t even sure he knew how much money they had. That was for the best.
Getting him into her alma mater had been previously difficult. The stuffy administration knew about Tammy’s past and how she lived as a single woman with a child. They weren’t afraid to cast judgments on it.
“Really mom? Willowcrest?” Jabari asked.
He ran his hands over his head and looked down, not wanting his mother to see how widely he was grinning. Tammy knew that this is exactly the news that her son had been hoping for. He had begged her to find a way to get him into Willowcrest Prep since the beginning of that school year.
He hadn’t given her many details, but Tammy could tell that her son was having a terrible time at Southwest. Jabari had even been begging Tammy to get in touch with her parents… and beg his grandparents to take him off to some other private school in a different state.
She promised to do everything in her power to get him into Willowcrest, but until the fortuitous gap in admission, she’d been unable to get a shoe in.
Tammy replied, “Yes. I talked to Stan Duffy just this morning on the phone.”
She pulled Jabari in for another hug.
“Thanks mom,” he said.
This time he hugged her the same way he did when he was a child, holding his mother tightly as if he was afraid to let go.
Willowcrest was a fancy school with boarding students and day students alike. Tammy had been privileged to spend 6th grade through 12th grade at the Preparatory School enjoying fall cross country runs along the trails, cold forbidden dips in the icy river nearby, and long afternoons of tennis and squash followed by sipping on lemonade and chowing down chocolate chip cookies.
The Powers’ family had owned mansion only 20 minutes away at the time, so Tammy had attended the school as a day student. As one of four black girls in her year, Tammy had been isolated at first. She was the girl who was into old English literature and Sylvia Plath poetry. She was decidedly a bookworm. Tammy had none of that “black cool” that would have made her a popular figure back in those days.
Cool didn’t matter to Tammy back then; she graduated with honors and made her parents proud. (A pregnancy would change that pride.)
Because the school was small, Tammy knew nearly every teacher and the headmaster as if they were family. Despite Willowcrest’s current opposition to her situation, she held fond memories of her time there and donated annually.
Stanley Duffy, the headmaster, had been Tammy’s Latin teacher when she attended Willowcrest. Now that he had received a promotion to headmaster, he was more than willing to help out one of his brightest students. The recent promotion had curried favor on her end.
“You know I love you, right?”
“Mom, ew,” Jabari grumbled.
But the twinkle in his eye and gentle smile told Tammy he appreciated the sentiment.
They’d been each other’s only source of support for years.
Tammy had given birth to Jabari when she was 18 years old. She found out she was pregnant a month before graduation. At the time, she had been in love with a man named Randall Combs. Randall Combs was far too old to be sniffing around an eighteen year old like Tammy, but he had found a promising target and launched his attack.
Randall had promised her the world and he had delivered absolutely nothing but pain. When he discovered Tammy was rich, his sole goal in life became to impregnate her and eventually marry her so that he could get a piece of the pie.
But Randall didn’t quite understand how money worked in a wealthy family like Tammy’s. When things didn’t go according to plan, he left her high and dry with the baby only five months after Jabari was born. The Powers’ family was not too pleased. They had hopes and dreams for their daughter Tammy.
Not only did they have dreams, they were devout Catholics who didn’t believe in premarital intercourse. When they found out Tammy had a child out of wedlock with a man like Randall Combs, they were furious. They had wanted Tammy to meet someone who “shared her status” and when they found out she was keeping Jabari their rage became even worse. (They didn’t detect the bitter irony there.) Tammy had been cut out of her family’s life entirely and she didn’t receive a red cent… At first.
“Nervous about going there?” Tammy asked.
Jabari grabbed orange juice from the fridge and started to pour it into a glass.
“No,” he mumbled, “Well…maybe a little bit.”
“You don’t have to worry,” Tammy assured him, “You know I always got you right?”
“Yes,” he replied, sipping on the juice. Tammy watched her son, recalling when he was only 2 1/2 years old…
Her father had passed away. Although her parents had cut her off, they hadn’t accounted for the fact that one of them might die soon and Tammy was the sole recipient of his inheritance. Over $6 million had been left to Tammy.
Tammy never had to work again.
While she was grieving the loss of her father, Tammy had received a bizarre blessing. What was the universe trying to tell her? Regardless of the message, Tammy didn’t have to worry about Randall’s true intentions and she didn’t have to worry about where her next meal was coming from.
Lawyers settled everything. Tammy’s mother still refused to speak to her. All that time, Jabari had enrolled in a day care and he had taken an interest in reading and listening to his mother tell him stories about her childhood.
While Tammy had plenty of money, she also carried the shame and stigma of being a single black mother in a town full of wealthy white people who all hated her guts. Tammy didn’t know if the hatred for her, and for her “improper” situation would ever cease.
Tammy whipped up a simple dinner and she sat with her son at the small kitchen table. As Jabari and Tammy ate together, he told her all about what happened at school that day. Tammy understood why he was reluctant to share.
In their English class, the teacher had assigned them to write a poem. Jabari had written one but he didn’t want to be the person to stand up and share his work. Of course, seeing his reluctance the teacher had prodded him even more. Jabari was forced to reveal his deepest insecurities to his class.
All the boys in his class mocked him for being so sensitive.
Karen Crocker’s kid had called him a “little bitch”.
Sasha Turner’s daughter had spat on Jabari’s notebook.
Alyssa Wren’s twin boys had pushed Jabari’s head to the desk and called him a “nappy headed idiot.”
One kid had stolen his backpack and hid it so that Jabari had to spend 30 minutes searching for it before coming home.
His foray into poetry had ended with disaster. This wasn’t the first time Tammy heard stories like this.