She looks at me like I’m crazy. I guess she would be referring to Nathan.

“You can’t fool me, Paris. I brought you into this world. I can see right through you. What you need to do is drop your guard and let somebody find the latch that opens the gate to your heart. You’ll feel a whole lot better.”

“What makes you think it’s not open?”

“ ’Cause you shooting out radar that screams: ‘Don’t talk to me, don’t bother me, I’m fine, I can manage all by myself. I don’t need nobody!’ ”

“I think you’re overstating the point, Mama. But what’s bad about managing on my own?”

“Nothing, Paris. But stop focusing so much on Dingus. That boy’s already on his way. You’ve done a good job raising him, and he’s gon’ be all right. Now put some of that energy into you.”

“How?”

“Go out. Do something stupid sometime. Something silly, something that tickle you—hell, something that don’t make no damn sense.”

“Could you be more specific, Oprah?”

“Join a club.”

“What kind of club?”

“Hell, I don’t know! They got clubs for everything.”

“What about you, Mama?”

“We ain’t talking about me now, is we, or are we?”

“No. So let’s make this a two-way session. Try this on: I’m not the one who’s fifty-four and seven-eighths years old with a husband who has moved in with some welfare hoochie and left me in a tacky little house by myself that from what I gather the IRS has a lien against, and I didn’t just get out of the hospital after having a severe asthma attack, and I’m not the one who doesn’t have a major source of income except Social Security. So—what kind of changes do you have in store, Miss V?”

“Well, first of all, if you gon’ tell it, get the shit right. This house got more than a lien against it, baby. They gon’ take this hellhole in a hot minute.”

I get a lump in my throat. “Take it?”

“You heard me.”

“Well, what do we need to do to stop it?”

“We ain’t doing nothing. I don’t wanna live in this dump no more.”

“But what about Daddy, Mama? Are you sure he’s not coming back?”

“I don’t want him back.”

“We’ve heard this before.”

“Anyway, do you wanna hear some of the things I wanna do or not?”

“Yes I do.”

“Okay,” she says, her tone softening. “I would love to go on that cruise with Loretta.”

“Sounds good.”

“I wanna get some decent dentures. A tight fit, so they don’t click when I talk.”

“You should have only the best teeth, Mama.”

“I’m serious, Paris! I hate these damn things. They make my gums sore.”

“Sorry,” I say, smirking and glad it’s dark in here.

“And I’m gon’ lose some weight. At Jenny Craig.”

I want to laugh when I think of Mama doing a commercial for Jenny or starving on those miniature meals, but I know she’s serious, so I just say, “Uh-huh.”