Sweep Me Off My Feet

“You want me to give up our child? My child?” she asked. “After all those stories I have told you about my own life? How much being in the foster system can fu*k you up?”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Angie, but if you have this baby, then we will be over.”

His words cut her deeper than any blade ever could, but even then, she could not let him get away with it. She was not going to give up an innocent baby into a wild system that she only knew too well even if it meant losing him.

It was hard to believe that someone she had entrusted her life and heart to could ever be capable of those words. Such cruelty coming from the same person who had promised her the world, it was hard to believe that he could be this heartless.

He had told her over and over that she was his queen, but when the rubber met the road, he walked out on her leaving a timid seventeen-year-old pregnant with no idea how she would move forward. For Angela, she only had one choice, really: to grow up and grow up she did. She got a job at a retail store and got a cheap one bedroom in a good neighborhood. She might have paid a whole lot less in some other parts of town, but security was important to her. And even though the apartment was smaller than she would have wanted, she took pride in the fact that it was more than she or most kids had growing up. Her son had the bedroom and she slept in the pullout couch in the living room. Well, more often than not, she shared the bed with Brandon, especially when he was younger, but again, she did not mind it.

She had just poured the cooked oatmeal into two bowls when Brandon came running in excitedly.

“Slow down, mister,” she said as she picked him up and set him in his chair. “Someone gets a big star for brushing his teeth all by himself!”

“Will you stick it on the fridge?” he asked excitedly and she nodded.

“Of course I will but after you have cleared your bowl.”

She topped up his oatmeal with some fruit and then handed him a spoon before she grabbed herself a spoon and took a bite of her own oatmeal as she looked at him. She could not believe how big he was getting. Sometimes, she felt like she blinked and he was suddenly all grown up. She might have had a hard time raising him all by herself, but she was doing everything she could to give him a normal childhood.

“Mama?” Brandon said, making her snap back into reality.

“Yes, baby?”

“Where is my daddy?” he asked, and she felt her heart sink.

She had tried keeping the truth from him for as long as she could, but she always knew that this day would come. The day her son would ask about his father.

“Well, sweetie, your daddy…” she started before her voice trailed off. She might have thought about the day Brandon would bring this up, but she had always hoped it was going to be much later in life because at that moment, she had no idea how she was supposed to answer him. “Baby, families are different,” she started again. “Some kids have a mummy and a daddy. Some have two daddies, others have two mummies, and some very special kids have just one mummy like you, and others have just one daddy.”

She looked into his eyes hoping that her long explanation had helped, but all she could see was just more and more confusion.

“Why?” he suddenly asked, and she shrugged.

“What do you mean why?”

“Why do some kids have just one daddy? Or just one mummy?” he pressed, and she sighed loudly.

Her son was just too inquisitive for his own good. This was a quality that was going to help him once he started school, but at that particular moment, all his questions did was upset her. She knew that there was nothing she could tell him that would make him understand. He was too young to wrap his little mind around the dynamics of life. He had a long way to go before he ever understood the concept of deadbeat dads.

“Well, Brandon,” Angela started again, praying to God that she would find the right words to explain herself to him. “Some mummies have to work a lot more than daddies and some daddies have to work a lot too. So, if they have a lot of work to do, then they can’t come home.”

“So, that is why I have not seen my daddy, Mama? Because he is working?”

Angela forced a smile and nodded. She hated having to lie to him, but this was the only way she knew how to protect his innocence.

“When is he going to finish the work so I can play with him?” Brandon was relentless.

Angela shook her head.

“I don’t know, baby. Now eat up.”

She took a bite of her own oatmeal as she watched him. She could not help but wonder what had brought that conversation on. She had tried everything to make sure he never had to handle that topic for a long time. If it were up to her, she would never have wanted him to know about his father. About what a disappointment he was. Every time she thought of how she had to sometimes choose between being late with the rent or keeping the apartment warm while Deshawn was probably somewhere throwing money at a strip club, she felt sick to her stomach. Sick that she had allowed him to take advantage of her. Sick that she had been too blind to see who he really was and what he was really like.

“Don’t think about that right now,” she thought to herself. “Nothing good can come of rehashing the past.” It had been almost five years since she last spoke to Deshawn and though it had been a bit of a struggle, she had been all right so far.

After breakfast, she spent some time with Brandon on the floor playing doctor. As usual, he was Dr. Brandon Carter and she was his ever suffering patient. She might have been having a good time with her son, but the unpaid bills she had seen on the counter earlier wondering if picking up some extra shifts was going to cut it. She then cleaned up the apartment before she got ready for work and then got Brandon ready to drop him to a daycare around the corner. It was not the best, but it was all she could afford on what she got from the retail store.

“It does get better,” she thought as she made her way down the stairs with Brandon’s small hand in hers. This was the mantra she chanted to herself every time she felt like she was about to give up. For some reason, reminding herself that everything would get better always seemed to work for her.