Ayanna put her hands over her eyes. Another breath, another. When she looked up, Jane and Stephen were clearly so uncomfortable that Ayanna longed to run from the room, never go to classes again, and start over somewhere else. There was a spirit she refused to look directly at behind Stephen’s head. She focused on his face. He was mouthing something, but Ayanna could not tell whether he was trying to comfort her or express fear.

16

Ayanna’s mother had not invited her to the memorial service she’d had for Olivia. Ayanna had found out from the texts and messages from old friends in common, and from family members, that her mother had told everyone she was “unfortunately too sick to attend.” Some people took Opal’s words at face value, and some people sent Ayanna well-meaning messages about taking care of herself and said things like just because funerals helped some people, didn’t mean they were always the right thing for grief. It was irrational, but she was furious that no one seemed to see the truth, her mother just didn’t want her there. It had happened a year after Olivia’s “accident.”

She typed out so many texts in responses that ranged from I wasn’t even invited to it to she blames me to I don’t think I have a family anymore, then deleted each message before sending. Ayanna was used to asking Olivia what to do about their mother. If Olivia said the sky was artichoke green, her mother would be willing to say, “Okay, baby, tell me how you see it.” If Ayanna said, No, Ma, the sky is blue, her mother would most likely say, “Well, how do you know.”

Oh, the way Ayanna’s mother could say “you” with so much incredulousness. Sometimes, Ayanna wished she had recorded the way her mother said it so she could play it for her therapist or for the few friends who knew what was going on and sometimes said, “Don’t worry, the two of you will be family again.”

It’s not unnatural to be selfish. There have been times throughout history when for humanity to survive, let alone thrive, selfishness was necessary. People had to eat as well as they could, they had to not see other people as people, had to view the world with a hardened heart and not risk their own health just to keep the species going. That type of animal fear, it was probably evolving inside humans alongside genes developing immunities and other environmental adaptations. But Ayanna felt at heart, most adults she met had never truly reckoned with this part of human nature, and how much it developed a comorbidity of self-absorption. So many people who just because they felt an intense feeling—good or bad—who weren’t able to hold both the weight of that emotion and to consider how their actions as a result of that emotion impacted other people.