Should I have volunteered to go with him? Would that have been the responsible thing for the girlfriend to do? Thankfully, there hasn’t been many ‘should be by his side’ moments to consider. This is probably the first emergency situation we’ve encountered. I probably should’ve gone with him to help him from worrying too much. I hope my mother is right. I hope Ollie is just overreacting and there’s nothing wrong with their baby.
“We are very disappointed with you,” my mother’s voice invades my thoughts adding to the other reason I wish I would’ve followed him. “What are you thinking?”
“She’s obviously not,” my father supports.
The waitress arrives and is sent away again before she has a chance to speak.
I fold my hands into my lap yet remain silent.
They don’t actually want me to reply. They want to drown me in their disapproval and unfortunately my lifesaver just walked out of the building.
“Mable, are you having a midlife crisis?”
“Thirty, mother,” I quietly correct. “I’m only thirty.”
She waves off my correction. “How the hell did you even meet someone like him? Does he even have a real job? He said he works for his brother. Doing what? Shoveling mesquite?”
The sneer at one of my favorite things about him stirs the urge to cringe. “Just because he has an accent, mother, doesn’t mean he’s ignorant or low class.”
“He is both,” my father argues forcefully. “Did you hear how he spoke? Where were the ends of many of those words? My guess is his vocabulary is on par with that of a twelve-year-old and his greatest achievement is finishing college.”
“Oh God, tell me he at least finished his bachelor’s program, Mable, and didn’t attend some second-rate community college for an associates,” Mother groans.
“He did-”
“Not with honors,” Father jabs and the two of them chuckle shamelessly.
I shake my head slowly and lower my eyes to the table.
This is why I didn’t want them to meet him. If he isn’t well educated academically, financially well off, and from some prestigious family, they weren’t going to even entertain the thought we might be a good match.
“You know the worse part isn’t even that,” Father speaks again lifting my eyes back up.
My eyebrows lift in question.
“It’s the simple fact his race is always doing this to ours.”
The remark startles me. “Excuse me?”
“Throughout history, time and time again, the white race tries to eliminate those of our race who are well educated and successful by tearing them out of their chosen fields, turning them into housewives they aren’t faithful to, and removing the competition from the equation. Every time a person of color gets a high-ranking achievement or position there is a play made to remove them. You think you’re the first black woman to have been seduced by a white man so she would give up her position to allow another white face to take her place?”
His tangent drops my jaw.
“Do not look so stunned, Mable,” my mother scolds from beside him. “This is how the world works. Equality is an illusion they’re still hiding behind. It’s nothing more than a word we are still fighting to give meaning and power to. And we do not approve of you being part of the problem.”
“Absolutely not.”
“There are enough talented, successful, black men who will understand the trials and tribulations your people have gone through that you will choose from when you’re actually ready to start dating. We know several,” Mother assures.
“We are pillars in the black community and you will follow in those footsteps. You will not become another embarrassment by chasing some hillbilly around and throwing away decades of cultivated talent.”
The combination of racist remarks and vile beliefs sends my mind reeling.
This can’t be real…My parents can’t be these people? How could I not know before now that they were? That they felt this way? Maybe because there was no reason for me to. I didn’t date. I didn’t even look at the opposite sex throughout grade school. I barely acknowledged those not in an ensemble with me. This topic never came up. They had us attend private schools, which were predominately white, but they never implied they had an issue with it. Or maybe it was something I just never had to deal with being such a loner. Have there been red flags I have missed along the way? Is this the reason they push me so hard to be better than everyone else? It wasn’t in fact that they wanted me to be better, just better than my white counter parts? How much deeper does their detest go? Is this why they’re always insisting on me attending those seminars and lectures? Does it really have nothing to do with my father’s work, but their bigoted beliefs?
After a lunch in which I am lectured on my choice of steak rather than chicken, praised for my weight loss then immediately scolded for it when I explain it was because of Blake’s encouragement, and offered countless alternatives to playing in a second-rate orchestra, I find myself staring desultory at the cello in my hands. Every time I lift the bow, my arm immediately tumbles back to the ground in defeat.
The sound of Blake’s voice calling my name barely breaks through.
When he moves into my view, the look of irritation on his face deepens. “Are you ignorin’ me?”
I try to shake away the weight of the thoughts plaguing my mind. “No. Sorry. Just…distracted.” Rather than go down the road I’m in no way prepared to, I ask, “How is Ollie? Is everything alright?”
He drops down onto the edge of the couch directly across from where me and my cello are stationed in my practice chair. “Yes and no. She did need to go the hospital. She was dangerously dehydrated. They’re going to keep her for a couple hours to get her vitals back to something respectable, but she should be released tonight.”
There’s a small ache in my chest. “I’m glad he took her. I’m glad he didn’t ignore it.”
“Yeah, me too.” Blake offers me a small smile.
Silence begins to settle and my brain returns to racing.
Are we okay? How horrible did they treat him when I wasn’t around? Will it be too much for him to put up with? Am I already too much for him to put up with?
“How was the rest of lunch, Angel?”
My eyes briefly cut away from his. I do everything I can to swallow the dread of having to answer his question. “How was the event? Everything go okay there?”
He angles his head at me in curiosity. “Yeah. Traffic was a bit slower while I was there, but Runt said it was steady at the beginning.” Blake doesn’t take the presented opportunity for our conversation to be derailed twice. “How was the rest of lunch?”
I subconsciously begin fidgeting with my bow.
“What don’t you wanna tell me?”
The fidgeting gets faster.
“Abby.”
“It was awful.”
My confession doesn’t seem to stun him. At least not yet.
“They were…as they always are.”
“Cold and callous? The exact opposite things good parents should be?”
No argument here. They’ve never been warm or fuzzy, but their constant chastising reached extreme levels today and cut much deeper than I was prepared for.
“They don’t like me,” Blake announces with certainty.
“No.”
“’Cause they don’t think I’m good enough for you, right? ‘Cause I haven’t been playin’ the oboe since I was two? ‘Cause I didn’t go to Harvard or Yale? Because I don’t drink wine that has six goddamn names to it?”
His own annoyance over the situation grips me by the neck.
“What is it they hate most about me, Angel?”
I force my mouth to answer despite my brain’s demand we avoid continuing. “That you’re white.”
Horror and appall shakes his entire body. “What?!”
The death grip I have on my bow tightens to the point of breaking. “They…They basically think you’re toxic for me-”
“Because I’m white?”
“They think you’re purposely trying to have a negative effect on my playing, so that one of the white cellist can have my chair.”
“That’s fucking insane!”
If only he heard the rest of the hate filled lecture…
“If anything it’s them who have the negative effect on your playin’! They’re overly critical!”
Instinctively, I defend, “They only want me at my best.”
“They want to be the only ones who get to decide what that is!”
“Stop yelling at me.”
“Did they tell you to end things between us?” He bypasses my command. “Did they offer to set you up with someone they thought would be a better match?”
My teeth gnash into my tongue.
“They did, didn’t they?!” Blake flies to his feet as more outrage pours from him. “Fuckin’ ridiculous, Abby! What kind of parents treat their daughter like shit, constantly, then have the balls to demand she breaks up with the man who not only loves her devotedly, but wants to marry her?” He shakes his head and meets my gaze. “Did you tell them to go to hell?”
“Of course not, they’re my parents,” I weakly reply.
“Did you tell them they were out of line?” His body swiftly approaches closer and my vocals tighten. “Did you tell them it’s none of their goddamn business?” Blake’s large body constricts under his own consternation. “Did you say anything?! Did you defend us at all?!”
Truthfully, no. I was so blindsided by the entire thing, I didn’t know what to say or when. It was like being gut punched with a string bass then repeatedly beaten with it until you’re on the ground a shaking mess and all you can hear are out of tune echoes bouncing around your brain. I know I need to say something to them. I just…I don’t know what.
“Abby!”
The attempt to explain comes out in a jumble and the only thing I successfully manage to say is, “…they’re my parents.”
He doesn’t hesitate to bite back. “And you’re a grown fucking adult. Act like it.”
Disbelief darts my eyebrows down. “Excuse me?”
“You’re a grown ass woman, Abby. You’re not some little sixteen-year-old girl who needs her parents’ approval to date or fuck whoever it is she wants. You don’t need them to sign off on your date to prom or for them to hand you a cookie because they think you did a job well done during your performance. You are old enough to make your own choices! And I shouldn’t have to fucking remind you of that!”
I shove down every possible combination of responses festering in hopes of being spoken. “Get out of my house.”
“What?”
Without hesitation, I repeat, “Get. Out.”
The magnitude of his response finally slaps him. “Angel I’m-”
“Out!” My voice screeches louder than it ever has before. “As a grown ass woman, who pays her grown ass bills including the very grown ass mortgage on this goddamn house, I am telling you to get. Out.”
Like a puppy who has been turned away for the first time, he sulks his head, turns around, and exits the living room. I keep my eyes glared and pasted onto his actions. Blake grabs his keys from the island, but stops to plead once more. His mouth cracks open, which is when I use the bow to point the direction of the front door. He accepts his punishment with a nod and proceeds to leave.
As soon as the front door shuts, the objects in my hand fumble to the ground, and my throat clogs with tears.
I expected this situation to be difficult, but I never saw it going this direction.