We’ve Got It

My mother and I went to Cheesecake Factory on June 18th, 2022. That same night, she told me a secret that she’s been waiting eighteen long years to tell me. My mom and I are very close. 

My mom had a gift card from one of her students and said to me “Let’s make it a mommy-daughter dinner!” My brother, who would have normally come with us, was busy doing whatever he was doing, probably out with his friends. I can’t remember. I can only remember saying yes and hopping into the car to go to the Topanga Mall Cheesecake Factory—the closest one to our cozy little home in the valley. I sit in her Ford Escape, the leather of the seats burning my exposed thighs, leaning my head against the cool window. 

The car fills with the bouncing sound of Brenton Wood’s voice, he insists that I’ve got it, that I’ve got too much soul, foxy clothes, the cutest nose—you get it. My mom loves oldies, she likes freestyle, and she likes funk. She bops along to Mr. Wood as the cross hanging from her rearview mirror dances with her. She looks at me as she sings, she points, you’ve got it. 

We park. She holds my hand as we hike for approximately three minutes to the front of the chiseled restaurant. I’m eighteen, and she still insists on holding my hand. I insist on holding her hand too. If she doesn’t grab hold of mine, I grab hold of her ringed one. That’s what it’s like growing up with a single mom. As soon as we enter, our hands drop. My mother takes charge, telling the hostess “a table for two.” The lights are low in the fancy restaurant for middle-class people. The hostess guides us, I fall into step behind my mom. We sit in a tiny half-booth, half-chair situation—I automatically take the chair as my mom sits down, I know booths are her favorite. 

~

At this point, we’ve already ordered our food and our drink. We get to chatting. My mom is sipping on a cucumber margarita, and myself a cucumber lemonade because I’m underage. We talk and eat at the table. I pick at her pasta, and she picks at mine because we “don’t waste goodness” and share. 

“I miss my mama,” my mom whispers, a lump in her throat. 

“I know,” I reply. 

“Grandma and I never talked like you and I do. I wish we did—I wish I was brave like you. I wish she talked to me more about everything. I could never go to her about anything—I don’t want to do that to you.” 

For context, my bravery includes the following: telling her that I want therapy, that her body issues have caused my body issues, telling her that I want anxiety medication, coming out to her, telling her about my girlfriend of three years, telling her that I don’t need her to talk to me about God when I’m anxious, I just need her to be my mother, just trusting her with my emotions in general. 

“I want you to know me. I want you to talk to me. Ask me anything, tell me anything. I’m here for you. I love you. I wish my mama talked to me,” she tells me, her voice quivering. That’s how the night started. That’s how we escalated. It started off simple at first. I told her about how I never asked for help when I was struggling in my high school math classes because I saw how hard she worked with my brothers when they were struggling—I didn’t want to burden her like that. I had to be self-sufficient, I had to learn from them to be an easier child. I didn’t say the latter part to her, but I thought it—I still think it to this day. 

“Baby, you’re my baby. You wouldn’t be bothering me at all, you could have told me. We would have figured it out—I know you’re not that good at math. I would have helped you, you’re my baby. I love you no matter what, and I will help you no matter what. You’re my baby. I’ve always got my baby’s back.”

She holds my hand. 

~ 

The drive back is interesting. My mother, now buzzed, drives us home. 

“Will you drink with me?” She asks. “We’re gonna need to if we do this tonight.” 

Oh. 

Oh shit, okay. 

I don’t remember what led us to go deep after I told her about my math issues, but I remember exactly how the rest of the night went from the car ride home. My heart thumped faster as my chest grew heavy. Is tonight the night I reiterate that I cannot see myself with a man? Is tonight the night I tell her about my girlfriend that I’ve been with for three years now? I ask myself all these questions while I just nod. I want my mother to know me. 

In our twenty-minute drive home, I ask her about her most “iconic” boyfriends—the ones that got away. She always told me about them, but never specified—never why or what happened. The tech man she fell in love with, the one who is married but still contacts her occasionally. They were in love, they danced all night and spent many a new year together. He wanted to get married and she wasn’t ready. By the time she was ready, he wasn’t. Then there was the divorced policeman—the Vegas trip of a lifetime, a dance, a hotel. But he had to be a good father. He couldn’t be with her anymore—he had to try for his family. My mom was a casualty in his path. 

She takes the long way home, and we stop at the elementary school intersection near our house. The headlights reflect off the stop sign, creating a harsh yellow light over my mother's face in the night. I stare at her as she tells me about the policeman, and how they didn’t go any farther. Her hands on the wheel, looking straight ahead, away from me. I know she misses both of them sometimes, thinking of what could have been. My mom deserves the world.

~ 

“Ask me anything. Anything you want to know about, I’ve gone through just about everything.” I stare at my mother, who’s changed into a pair of shorts and a sleeping shirt. In her hand is a half-full Modelo, her other hand in her hair, lounged on our two-year-old gray couch. I’m armed with a mixed berry Truly, which she shoved in my hand as soon as we got home. She stares right back with the same brown eyes I have. 

“Have you been…what exactly happened with [my brothers' father?]” I ask her, shaking the can in my hand. 

For some more context, I am the youngest of five siblings. All of my siblings are half-siblings—I am the bastard child, and I’m perfectly okay with that. My oldest brothers are from my mother and her previous marriage with her high school sweetheart. My sisters and my other brother are from my Dad’s previous marriage. “I know you don’t remember a lot from when Matty was a baby because of the divorce, but—“ I ramble. 

She interrupts me. “When I was pregnant with Mikey, Grandma and Grandpa were upset that I was pregnant before marriage,” My grandparents are Catholic. “Grandpa wouldn’t talk to me. I think he was upset with me, your grandpa is a very different man from when I grew up with him. There was a time when I threw up and [your brothers' father] was watching TV while I was vomiting. Grandma came into the room—I heard her—and then he came in and rubbed my back. Grandma wouldn’t comfort me once throughout the entire pregnancy…she was upset with me too.” She sips from her beer.

“When I got married to [your brothers' father] she told me to never complain to her about my husband or else she would hate him, the man I chose to marry. She didn’t want to hear it.” “Oh,” I say simply. We sigh together. 

“So when [your brothers’ father] came home after late nights, drunk and angry, when he yelled at me, when he almost choked me out, I didn’t go running to my mom. I ran to his mom, sobbing... She asked me why I wasn’t talking to my own mother. I told her I didn’t want my mom to hate my husband.” 

I cannot imagine being my mom, a twenty-something who cannot reach out to her own mother. That was my grandma. How could her mom be so mean, to make her feel like she had to do everything on her own? It is here I realize my mother is a woman, she was a girl. She was me and she is my future. She’s Lisa who experienced so much that she couldn’t go to her own mother. No matter what. This is why she always told me, so I wouldn’t feel like her. I tell her about my girlfriend planning to come to America for me, I tell her how I can never see myself with a man—and no it isn’t her fault—there is a lot of crying. She wants to meet my girlfriend. She holds me in her arms as I hiccup and sniffle into her chest. 

“There’s one more thing I’ve been scared to tell you. You remember how I said you might think differently of me?—this might explain why your Dad treats you the way he does.” She speaks this into my hair, and my eyes snap open. My dad is a character…a financially supportive, emotionally absent character who lives an hour south away from me in Whittier. A six-foot-tall black man who rarely sees me, who throws money at our relationship, who pays my rent—a man who barely comes to events that matter to me. My dad is a moody man, my mom told me it never worked out between the two of them because of that.

“Stay here. I have to go look for it.” She rises off the gray couch and wanders off to her room and locks the door. Rustling and cabinets opening and closing bleed through the door and I’m left panicking. I text my girlfriend, “my mom is about to tell me this deep dark secret she’s been alluding to since i was 14 and now i have to wait for her.” After about five minutes of panicking on the couch, thinking about every single possible thing she could have done, my mom returns empty-handed. 

“I didn’t know who your dad was for about a month,” she blurts out. 

I laugh. 

“What?” she asks, very confused. 

This wasn’t that big of a surprise to me. It seemed so underwhelming compared to what my anxious brain was concocting (I thought they got in a big fight or something that scared my dad off). “I’m not that surprised. So who…who else did you think it could be?” 

“Guess.” I shrug. There were a lot of boyfriends—my mom is a single, independent woman, she’s allowed to do what she wants. I’m not upset at her for anything, I understand. I tell her I’ve got nothing. 
Then she says, “[Smart & Final Man].” I laugh again. I did not expect this man in particular, but it made sense. I always liked him when I was younger. Whenever I went to his house with my mom, he’d show me his pet turtles and give me candy. He’d always make me laugh. He had a HUGE pet fish that I was always excited to see in his home. Smart & Final Man was really nice to me. I liked him the best out of all of my mom’s boyfriends. My mom didn’t like how much he talked or the fact that he’s worked at Smart & Final for as long as I’ve been alive.

Apparently, my mother and my father split in December 2002. My mom got together with Smart & Final Man in early January 2003. Then she was pregnant. Herein lies the dilemma of who is my father? My mom is honest with my father, “I told him everything and he shrugged. I think he knew that you were his, but he didn’t really care.” She goes up to Smart & Final Man, “and he really, really wanted you to be his. He was willing to do anything for you if you were his.” My mom sends in the paternity test. All three of them wait with bated breath. The envelope arrived in the mail. “I opened it on the phone with [Smart & Final Man.] We sobbed, he was heartbroken. So was I. We were both hoping it’d be him, but now I’m…I’m glad he wasn’t the father. But then, I just...he wanted you so bad. He loved you when he met you.” 

I teared up then. I tear up now. My mom asks me what’s wrong. I could have had a dad who wanted me. My dad didn’t want me, but I’m able to come to college because of him. Financial stability or emotional support is what it came down to. I’d take financial stability if it meant being able to afford college and having a wonderful relationship with my mother. My mother is a woman that made choices that led to my brothers and me. 

~ 

My mom texted Smart & Final Man after she told me about the whole paternity situation. He invited us to dinner. All three of us. We’ve yet to have that dinner, that conversation. I did go to dinner with my father and my mom last Christmas. I had terrible shrimp tacos. He got me terrible gifts. That man doesn’t know me. Not like my mother does.