In Your Dreams, Chapter 3: Toy

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Chapter 3: Toy

“I’m glad you’re here, Ms. Toy. Hopefully you’ve thought about the question I asked you last week. What do you hope to accomplish through our visits?”

I considered my answer for a moment. I had everything any sane woman would want. I had a great business, a fantastic husband-to-be, and great friends. What else could I want? And what could I possibly want from my new therapist, Dr. Alicia Herbert? Finally, it came to me.

“I want you to fix me before I get married,” I blurted out before giving myself a chance to rethink my response.

“What does being ‘fixed’ look like for you?” she queried.

I hadn’t really expected that follow up question. I thought that was her job.

“Well, even without much experience with men and dating, I somehow snagged the most handsome, eligible, successful guy in the entire free world. And we’re planning a wedding. But I’m already screwing everything up.”

“Explain how you feel you are ‘screwing everything up’?”

I sighed. “Mother still lives in Raleigh and I’m her sole caretaker. So, I spend a lot of time traveling back and forth to take care of her. Since I moved down here to be with him, my obligations to her have been causing problems. She’s really needy and takes up a lot of my time when I’m there, which is easily two to four times a month.”

“I see. Tell me about your mother. Is she ill?”

I scoffed. “Unfortunately, no. She will probably outlive us all.”

Alicia sat back in her chair and pressed the tips of fingers together under her chin. The bun made from her honey blonde dyed locs framed her head like a halo. And her cat eye spectacles were the perfect complement to the mahogany brown eyes from which she watched me squirm in discomfort. I still wasn’t cool with the idea of sharing my innermost secrets with a total stranger. I didn’t talk much about my life. Not even to Ericka, who’d known me longer than anybody. Still, it felt good to unburden my soul with things I’d had bottled up inside me all of my life. Talking made me feel lighter, somehow. And besides, who was she gonna tell? I took a deep breath and let it rip.

“Okay, so Mother hates me because I am a constant reminder of how ‘Staff Sergeant,’ my err…biological, threw her away for ‘that other woman.’ It seems to have never occurred to her that he was apparently already married way before they even met. And I’m not even clear whether she even bothered to ask him if he was from the beginning. Not that it probably would’ve mattered. Oh, yeah. Apparently, it’s my fault too that my younger sister, Doll’s father wouldn’t marry her.”

I couldn’t tell if Alicia was rattled even a little over this shocking revelation about my mother. If she was, she hid it well. Still devoid of any emotion, she asked, “How did she express to you that she hated you?”

“Well, first off, this is not secondhand information I’m giving you. This came straight from the horse’s mouth. That’s certainly something to tell your kid, right? But if you’re asking if she ever actually said the words, ‘I hate you,’ the answer is no. She just rubbed it in my face how much she loved Doll because she was so pretty. Like a baby doll. Hence the name. My sister’s legal name is Baby Doll Johnson.”

I shook my head at the lunacy of it all.

“Interesting,” Alicia murmured and started to write. “Where does your name Toy come from?”

“Get this. I was the “toy” my father left at her house after he finished playing. Imagine your mom giving you that as an explanation for how you would be identified by the world. She didn’t even think enough of me to give me a middle name that might have less of a sting. Doll got it all, the name, the looks, and the love. Even though her dad abandoned Mother, too, she doted on Doll and gave her all her attention. So did everyone else. Her hair was straight like white folks and easy to comb. And people always made a fuss over her when they saw her. Mother was so color struck; she was proud she had a hand in the creation of what she considered to be perfection.”

I paused for a moment to contemplate my own looks. I couldn’t speak for my father’s genes, but I did bear some resemblance to Mother. She couldn’t appreciate her handiwork as far as I was concerned because she saw both herself and my father in me. And since she hated them both, she couldn’t love me. In her mind, I was a mistake she couldn’t erase; like a convicted felon waiting on an employer to complete a background check before he can start work. Even if he rocked the interview, once they see his record, he knows he’s going to get passed over for someone with no convictions. And that’s how she regarded me in Doll’s dad’s decision not to marry her. I was a felony charge that could not be expunged.

Alicia shook her head. “Unfortunately, colorism has been a big problem in our community since the inception of slavery. How well do you and Doll get along now?”

I shrugged. “Fine. We were close as kids. But her dad came and took her from Mother when she was about ten or eleven. You should’ve seen the way Mother carried on when he drove up in his shiny Cadillac to take her to his big fancy house on the other side of town. A scene straight out of Roots. Mother screamed and wailed like they were selling her child to another slave owner. He didn’t even give her time to pack any of her stuff. Said she didn’t need it. Her dad owns one of the largest black funeral homes in the state. I remember watching her, thinking, ‘You still have me.’ Then I remembered, ‘Hell, I wanna go with him, too.”

“How long was it before you saw each other again?” Alicia wanted to know.

“Ten years. Funny thing is, she never even left the city. Went to private school. But she may as well have moved a whole world away. Never even ran into her in the street. I thought I just didn’t have a sister, anymore. Until she looked me up her after her sophomore year in college and asked me if we could be sisters again.”

“So, how does it feel to be a big sister again all these years later?” Alicia inquired.

“It’s nice, I guess. I love Doll. But a lot of times I feel that she just needed a sibling as a cover. She keeps me quite busy with her…shenanigans.”

Alicia laughed. “Such is the life of an older sibling.”

I pursed my lips. “I’ll save her for a future session. We’ll see what you have to say, then.”

Alicia smiled and nodded, pausing to make another note. “I find it interesting that you refer your mother as ‘Mother.’ Most people usually call them ‘Mom’ or “Mama,’ a term of endearment. Since we were discussing names, I’m curious as to what made you call her that instead.”

I had never thought about it that way, but Alicia was right. I did not endear my mother. I didn’t even like her. In fact, I didn’t really allow myself any feelings when it came to her. Because she wasn’t really “my” mother. The word “my” signifies ownership. But she never wanted me. Nor I, her. We were just stuck with one another.

“Moms bake cookies for their kids and tuck them in at night.” I explained. “They make sure they’re safe. They don’t blame their kids for how their lives turned out. Technically, she is the mother I was assigned, if you will. But she was never my “mom.” She was Doll’s.” I stated simply. “Oddly enough though, she likes it that I call her Mother, especially in public. It makes her sound important that she had the only kid in town who called their mom ‘Mother.’ She’s big on pretense. She’s too self-centered to realize that it’s actually an insult.” I paused to take a breath and looked up at the ceiling.

“When I was little, I used to do stuff to try to win her over. I was super obedient for a kid. I tried to get the best grades. But as I got older, good grades only served as a means of escape. Those chores that I did without asking and those weekends I spent in the kitchen at Gram’s only served as practice and preparation for when I was able to finally get out of her house and as far away from her and Doll as I could.”

Alicia had stopped writing completely and set her pad down in her lap.

“Hmm, but you still remain in close contact with her…” her voice trailed off.

Ironically, Mother and I were in much closer contact than I would like to admit.

“Yeah. I take her to doctor appointments, grocery shopping, pretty much wherever she needs to go. She seems to get a kick out of calling me at every inopportune moment to stop what I’m doing and take her where she needs to go. I even help pay her bills. It’s funny. You’d think as much as she hated having me around when I was younger, she’d be glad to have gotten rid of me. But now it appears that she likes to have me around.” I chuckled to myself at the ridiculous irony of it all.

“And how are these trips affecting your relationship with Germaine?”

“Well, we don’t openly fight about it. But everything we argue about is related to the trips I make to go see about her. For example, he coaches a youth basketball team. He’s really dedicated to those kids and proud. I have missed most of the games this season. I get home really late sometimes because she usually finds a way to fill up my entire day. Germaine gets worried about me being on the road coming that far late at night. And I kind of think he may think I have someone else. He has alluded to it a few times. He also worries that starting out like this will cause us to drift apart because our careers keep us away from each other enough as it is.”

“So, why do you do it?” she asked.

“Why do I do what?” I had surprisingly shared so much in that one session; I had lost track of exactly what we had been discussing.

“If she was so terrible to you and she didn’t even really raise you when you were a child, how do you rationalize continuing to take care of her and allowing her to monopolize your time?”

I smiled.

“That’s easy,” I said, cheerfully. “I do it for the smug satisfaction of her having to ask me for things and to take her places after having never done anything for me my whole life. I know it sounds petty, but it makes me feel empowered to hear the discomfort in her voice when she has to humble herself to me and ask for stuff. I can almost hear the words souring in her mouth when she calls to ask. And she can barely look me in the eye to accept it, much less muster enough humility to mumble a thank-you. I live for those moments.”

I gave her a wicked smile of self-satisfaction and continued. “The bible says to ‘Honor thy mother and father so that my days shall be longer,’ but I prefer Proverbs 25 where it talks about giving your enemy bread if they’re hungry to heap hot coals over their head.”

Alicia laughed. “I’m no Bible scholar, but I think there may be another way to interpret that particular scripture.”

I shrugged indifferently. “Maybe, but I think I’d be willing to give up a couple of days to hear Mother scream from having hot coals dumped over her head.”

“But here is something to think about. Why is it necessary for you to have a ring side seat to her misery and discomfort at the expense of your own? You said you wanted me to ‘fix you’ before you got married. I’m not sure if ‘fix’ is a proper word, but I can help you gain a different perspective of your situation and provide some guidance with changing some habits that may not be serving you right now.”

I thought for a moment.

“Germaine’s perspective is that there’s a little girl on the inside of me still trying to prove to her that I am worthy of her love.”

“What do you think?”

“I think it’s hogwash,” I answered, adamantly. “I don’t want or need her love. That ship has long sailed. And besides, my grandmother used to say, ‘You can’t miss what you can’t measure.’”

Alicia smiled.

“Quite the contrary, Ms. Toy. It is, indeed, very possible

© 2024 by Evelyn Outlaw

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