Heartbreak



Mom

 Mom had been to Africa before the trip we took together, before she had me. Right before she met my father. She had started out in Nigeria also, but made her way further west on that trip, to Accra and then Cape Coast, where bats hung from trees and the soil was mineral-rich-red.  

The first time was a very different story than our trip; it took her a long time to tell me about it. I was twenty when she first mentioned it, about to leave Doddie's house on my way to South America for a while, I hadn't decided how long, when she caught me packing and snuggled onto my bed, taking my pillow between her arms and chest. I watched her from above, peripherally, as I slowly gathered everything I thought I might need. It was going to be the longest trip I'd ever taken alone. I wanted to be prepared.  "You and your Siamese eyes," she said, giggling. "You excited?"

"Sort of nervous," I told her. My hands had started to sweat in bed the night before when I imagined myself alone, in a new place, lost, without mom, without Doddie. I knew what could happen in new places. But I had to do it, I had to leave and go somewhere on my own, know that I could lose my fear of landing on distant shores, and not so distant shores. I hadn't left Key West in nearly 10 years and I thought I might be ready. In fact, I felt a little like I was drowning, sinking slowly with the Florida Keys. But I was scared. I was scared shitless. Imagine being that scared. No matter how many prunes you eat, you just can't shit, not for days. Your stomach hollow like a taught drum, spasms cricketing along the lines of your intestines with no release.

"I was twenty-two when I took my first real trip," mom said. "You've already been places, Mo, but this is going to mean something for you, it always does when you're your age. I was so awake, so wide-eyed."

"Where did you go?" I asked her, folding boxers and socks into the corners of my single bag, "You've never told me this."

"That was the first time I went to Africa; my first heartbreak. It's funny, both times I went to Africa, I was heartbroken. Well, not really "funny." But, well, appropriate, I guess," she said.

I knew what she meant -- it was a place you could seep into, bleed into it's beautiful chaos; feel a sudden bust in the gut, a deep pulling of muscle; and impending rupture -- and all of it was appropriate.

That first time she went because of L. Who also, she said, had eyes like the Siamese slants of cats.  

L, who broke her heart, who made her curl up in a squeaky bed near Cape Coast where slaves had once been shackled and shipped off; where America had begun its strange journey into its own heart of darkness, and where later cocaine and heroin seeped through porous ports, inflicting the population on its way to Europe.

Mom was L's protégé. I guess that's what you would call it -- she never said that, but that's what it sounded like. She also loved him.