I was shocked by her youthfulness. She was fifteen when Albert was born; that meant she still wasn’t thirty years old. I knew that as fact. Seeing with my own eyes her smooth creamy brown skin, her girlish figure, and the dignity of her high cheekbones and long nose, did not match an expectation of meeting a mother, much less the most monstrously abusive mother in my experience, and as bad as any in the literature for that matter.
I was also taken aback that they had allowed Clara to dress this way to meet Albert. Involuntarily, I looked to our escort for an answer. She was a young and beautiful African-American woman, but she was wearing a dowdy blue dress that dropped to her sandaled feet. I had no idea what authority she had, and I realized my questioning look to her was absurd. Obviously, someone felt it was up to Clara how to present herself to Albert and up to him how to react. All in all, I had to agree. If she persisted in sexualizing her relationship with him, then he should know it.
Albert went no farther than the brick sitting area. “Hi,” he said shyly and lowered his head when his mother didn’t answer, uncross her arms, or move in any way. She seemed to stare through us; not angrily, in a trance.
“I’ll be right inside,” our escort said. “You want to join me?” she asked me in a low tone.
I shook my head. Albert had asked me to stay with him the whole time. He was afraid of Clara; and was afraid of himself. He had vivid fantasies of cutting her open, her stomach in particular; sometimes he longed to strangle her while she begged to be forgiven. Often, while in the midst of a pleasant and innocuous activity, he could feel the grip of her hand as she kept his head between her legs, pushing his lips to her sex; sometimes, the recollection was so vivid Albert jerked his shoulders to free himself from her insistent fingers. The memories were clearer and more immediate with each passing day. Recently, his ability to masturbate had returned and, although that was relief in one way, sexual feeling also brought with it images of torment and vengeance. I had worked with him to keep it specific to Clara, not to fight the memories or fantasies about her, not to generalize them in an effort to forgive her. “She did it,” I said more than once. “Not anybody, not any woman. This woman. Remember it was her face, her body, not anyone else’s.” Of course, when I gave him that advice, I had no way of understanding just how vital and beautiful was the person who tortured him.
“Lets sit down,” I said after some time passed and Clara remained in a sentinel’s pose. I pulled one of the green chairs away from the bench and sat. Albert copied me, moving his seat as close to mine as possible.
I wondered how I would feel if, after my therapy with Susan, I had the chance to see and talk with my mother. Clara unfolded her arms. She moved at us with a slow, long-limbed walk, eyes on the flower beds she passed. Her attitude was so casual it seemed insulting. I reminded myself that Albert was facing a very different woman than my mother, that his scars were not only deeper, his injuries more severe, but they were also visible forever, wounds anyone who tried to cherish him would see and touch in the very act of love. The closer she got, the angrier I felt. My body tensed as if I were threatened — or perhaps, more accurately, as if I were restraining myself from attacking her.
“Hey Al,” she said with a little wave of her fingers, not raising her hand. She sat on the step up from the bricks to the grass, legs together, knees reaching her chin. She smiled at him regretfully. “You look good.”
I watched him react, mostly to take my eyes off the unfathomable mystery of her appearance, a pretty young woman who seemed to know nothing about life, who appeared untouched. Albert is darker than his mother; he shares her dignified features, however. His wide eyes showed a lot of white as he took her in. He didn’t say anything.
She nodded as if he had spoken, and as if she agreed with his comment. “You going to school?”
Albert nodded. Barely.
“Where’s it at?”
“North Carolina,” Albert mumbled.
“Your Grandmas from North Carolina,” she said, looking up at a passing jet. She watched it trail off. “I think,” she added, returning her eyes to Albert.
“I hate you,” he said, gulping on the last word as if he were choking with tears. His eyes were clear, however, head stiff on his long neck.
Clara seemed not to have heard. She looked him up and down, checking his outfit. The survey was leisurely. Abruptly, her eyes came to me. She said, fast, like an ambush, “You gotta be here?”
I didn’t answer, startled by the suddenness.
“They say you gotta be here, that it? I can’t be alone with my boy?” Clara nodded at the house behind us. “She’s there. You gotta be here?”
I turned to see. Our escort stood just inside the glass door, watching.
“She won’t let me do nothing to him,” Clara was saying as I shifted back to face her. “I make a move — I kiss him, I try to shake his fucking hand, she’ll talk me to death. Shit, I’d rather die than have her talk at me. I ain’t gonna touch him.”
Albert said gruffly, “You heard me? I hate you.”
Clara dropped her head, arms drooping, a puppet whose master had let go. She hung there, lifeless. From the street, summer sounds washed over the garden wall. A water pistol fight, the ping of a basketball dribbled fast on pavement, a radio playing rap music. A man shouted, “Hey Tony! Hey Tony! You fuck face. We have to go.” The music shut off. A girl screamed with glee. The basketball rattled on something metallic. Clara came to life. She sat up, stretched, elongating her skinny arms and neck. Under her arms, there were faint white circles, maybe from a deodorant. She slid off the steps onto her knees.
“You’re my baby,” she whispered passionately, arms forward now, fingers calling to Albert. “You always gonna be my sweet baby.”
Involuntarily, I pushed my chair back. I thought I heard the glass doors open, but our escort didn’t appear. Albert, on the other hand, hadn’t moved. His dignified face was set, cheeks puffed, eyes in a rageful stare.
Clara gushed on, low and intense, like a lover. “I know I hurt you, baby, but that was crack, that was the life, that was all the shit happening to me. I love you, baby. That wasn’t me hurt you. I’m your Mama, baby.” She moved herself: eyes brimmed with tears. I noticed her wide full lips, painted vermilion — they were luscious and innocent.
“Who you think you talking to?” Albert said. The words were tough; the sound he made wasn’t.
“I’m talking to my son. You always gonna be my son—”
“You talking trash for the Man?” Albert nodded at me. They both glanced my way, but only briefly. They locked eyes again. “You won’t fool him,” Al continued. “You’ll fool me sooner than you fool him. And that’s hopeless, ’cause you ain’t never gonna get a lie past me.”
Clara’s wide mouth was open, hands extended, fingers calling for him to come to her, tears streaming, “I’m not saying I did nothing. I’m not lying about it. I know what I did. Everybody knows what I did. There’s nothing for me to get out of lying.” Clara seemed to notice she was on her knees and that appeared to surprise her. She reached back to the step, and pulled herself on it. She gave us her profile as she confessed, “I know I’m bad. I know there’s no excuse—”