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“I’m here.” Her mother’s dulcet, buttery-warm accent sounded a bit garbled through Valentina’ s mobile. “I’m just trying to figure out one, how long it’s been, and two, why you want to comenow.”
“Mama—”
“I don’t think I’m out of order, wondering about these things, baby girl.”
It was the old name from her childhood that brought the tears up, and she snuffled them back. She was so tired of crying. She’d cried more since she’d met Desmond Tesfay than she ever had over Malik, despite what he’d done to her. “I— It’s hard to explain over the phone.”
And where would she start? Her stubborn insistence on marrying Malik? Her husband’s mistreatment of her, and subsequent abandonment? Her time in prison for debt that was not her own? Nearly a decade working as a glorified nanny? And now—and this was her most colossally foolish move so far—falling in love with a man who she would owe for the rest of her life but could never repay?
Nearly forty years of consistently bad decisions, nearly forty years with little to show for it except her terrible taste in men and no idea whatsoever what to do now.
“Mama, I’m so ashamed,” she whispered. “I haven’t done anything right since I left.”
The long silence that followed lasted thirty-seven seconds. She knew because she counted.
“Come home, honey.”
And so, she had. Tired, jet-lagged, haggard, with no more than a single suitcase of belongings. When her Uber dropped her off in the driveway of the two-bedroom house where she’d grown up on North Villere Street, she’d tried her key in the door and found it still worked. And the moment she entered, she smelled the rich creaminess of beans. Fried fish. Honey-and-butter-laced cornbread that was crisp at the edges. Greens, with smoked ham. And there was her mother—a little thinner and looking a little more tired, with a mouth that trembled when she finally laid eyes on her daughter.
“There’s time for us to have it out after this,” the older woman said, her voice low and rich. “But, honey, let me hold you for a minute.”
And when Valentina was enveloped in the softness of her mother’s arms and smelled talcum powder, White Diamonds and the cool cucumber melon scent of the body lotion she’d been using since the nineties, she closed her eyes and lost herself in being loved, although she surely didn’t deserve it.
She’d abandoned her mother as readily as Malik had abandoned her—and for what? Why?
Foolish, foolish pride.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“INEVER LIKEDthat fool husband of yours,” her mother said decidedly two days later, and Valentina smiled inwardly. There was a time when she was younger, and even more foolish than she was now, that she’d have flared up and taken offense.
“You likely were right, Mama.”
“It wasn’t him, per se,” her mother replied. Her words were as slow and deliberate as they’d always been, with a dash of something outside of her Louisiana accent—a confidence and emphasis on what she said. “Although he was as slick as a greased sow. It was you. You…shrank around him. You were shy already, and he was so strong.”
Valentina smiled. “I didn’t want to be shy. I wanted to see the world.”
Her mother harrumphed. “You did, that.”
“It wasn’t all bad.” Especially in the early days, before her husband’s single-minded ambition completely took over. But then again, wasn’t it really? She remembered long, languid meals out at opulent restaurants, designer bags, him nagging her to dress “younger,” whatever that meant. Sex where she counted backward in her head, willing it to be over faster. Him calling her a lazy lay, no matter what she did. The fact that she’d never had an orgasm with a man until—
“It wasn’t about bad and good. It was about his character. Even bad men do good sometimes. I was worried because you hadn’t seen enough of the world to be able to pick a good man yet.”
“If I didn’t, it was because I’d never met one.” Valentina had to swallow hard against a prickling in her throat.
“I know. I think my trying to keep you safe backfired a bit, in that. But there’s no sign of him now. Are you going to tell me what happened?”
“I want to,” Valentina said. “I’m just afraid I’ll break down.”
“You’ve always been scared of crying.” Her mother’s lips lifted at the corners, not quite a smile. “It’s okay, honey. Let’s eat.”
She might cry anyway, Valentina thought ruefully, watching as her mother took a large willowware plate down from the cabinet, the same set she’d been using as long as Val could remember. It’d been passed down from her grandmother to her on her wedding day and would one day be Valentina’s. She decanted a hearty spoonful of jambalaya from the battered steel pot on the stove, then set it in front of her daughter.
“I’ll probably be in the mood to serve you until next week,” she joked, then saw to her own plate. Valentina waited, hands folded in her lap, until her mother was seated, before she picked up her heavy silver spoon.
Flavors exploded on her tongue the moment the first grains of rice touched it: thyme, oregano, pepper—plenty of pepper, just the way she liked it; tender pieces of chicken; rich, spicy sausage; the subtle sweetness of tomato and Vidalia onions. Things she couldn’t even identify, it’d been so long. The Middle East had every cuisine in the world available—she’d eaten cheeseburgers in Dubai, Thai food in Qatar, Nigerian food in Abu Dhabi, and American chain restaurants in all those places. But she hadn’t eaten Louisiana cooking in ten years. Her husband hadn’t cared for it, and after he’d abandoned her, she’d lost heart and hadn’t wanted reminders of the family she’d abandoned for him.
“I’ve got corn, too.” Her mother spoonedmaque chouxonto her plate as well. “Fresh cream, from one of those farmers’ markets all the young people are going on about.”