Page 8 of Cuffed By Your Love

This wasn’t the woman who filled the kitchen with laughter loud enough to drown out boiling pots, who sang off-key to Al Green while pressing our hair straight, who could silence a room with one raised eyebrow and heal it again with one smile. This wasn’t the Mama who smelled like cocoa butter and fried catfish, who wore her Sunday hats like crowns, and carried her grief and her joy the same way—loud, unapologetic, and with her back straight.

No. The woman in front of me was bruised, bandaged, broken. Her beautiful, cinnamon-brown skin was blotched with shades of purple and gray, her lips split, her eyes swollen halfway shut. Gauze wrapped her head and ribs; IV lines pierced the veins that once held nothing but rhythm and strength; and an oxygen mask fogged with every shaky inhale, each rise of her chest a jagged fight behind fractured ribs. Machines beeped steadily like borrowed heartbeats, their glow too cold against the warmth that was always Mama.

Her body was still, too still. But her spirit refused to be silent. It pulled me toward her like gravity, like blood, like a voice straight from heaven whispering,“Go. Be her strength now.”

I stepped inside slowly, one hand pressed to my chest as if I could hold together the ache clawing its way out. My knees wanted to give, but love carried me forward.

And then, against all odds, Mama’s eyes fluttered open.

“Hey, baby girl.” Her raspy voice sounded like regret in a blender.

Tears welled up in my eyes before I could pretend they didn’t. “Mama…”

“I didn’t mean for you to see me like this,” she said, trying to straighten up but wincing instead.

“Don’t move. Just… breathe.”

She nodded and briefly closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she whispered, “I’m sorry I scared you.”

That was when I lost it. My knees buckled, and I collapsed on the side of her bed like my soul had clocked out. “Don’t do that. Don’t apologize. You’re still here. That’s all I care about right now.”

She stroked my hand with her bruised knuckles and whispered, “I was just trying to go for a drive and silence the noise, baby. I wasn’t even the one drinking.”

I nodded, my eyes blurred with tears. “I know. I’ve been trying to do the same.”

We sat in silence, a soft, broken silence stitched together by the unspoken language only mothers and daughters shared.

But grief had a funny way of flipping through memories like photo albums on fire. I didn’t know what triggered it, her saying sorry or just the weight of it all, but my mind drifted right back to Kam and how he’d plant seeds of doubt in my head, making love feel like a manipulation.

*Two months ago*

I was sitting on the edge of the bed, rubbing shea butter on my thighs, when Kam leaned against the doorway wearing that fake concerned look that always came with conditions.

“You’re still on that birth control, right?” he asked.

I looked up. “Yeah. You know I am.”

He clicked his tongue. “You ever think maybe that’s what’s messing with your mood lately?”

“My mood?” I paused mid-rub. “You mean the mood I get into after you disappear for three hours and come back smelling like weed and Bath & Body Works?”

His jaw clenched. “Ain’t nobody disappearing. You’re just paranoid. You always accusing me of something.”

“I’m accusing you of being inconsistent, not a criminal.”

He stepped forward and sat beside me, his voice syrupy soft but still sour. “You keep pushing me away and then wonder why I don’t open up.”

I crossed my arms. “I’m scared to have a baby with someone I can’t even emotionally reach half the damn time.”

That was when his tone shifted. The icy, detached voice came out, the one that always made me feel like a burden dressed in lingerie.

“Maybe if you acted like you wanted to build a life instead of picking fights, we’d already have one.”

I blinked.

He always did that—weaponized my worries and loaded them like bullets in an argument.

“You want a baby, Kam? Or do you just want something to trap me with to make sure I don’t leave when the lies start smelling like yesterday’s clothes?”