The Realest Ever

Chapter FOUR

MAMA’S BOY

The next day was Sunday, August 17. Donovan picked up his mother for church at ten a.m. sharp. This was usually the only day of the week he could spend time with her.

Donovan’s father, Darrell Mitchell, used to be the one to escort Beverly to services at Greater Missionary Baptist on Seminary. But he passed away when Donovan was in college. Coming home for that funeral was one of the hardest things Donovan ever had to do. Going back to school afterwards and leaving his mother alone in the home she shared with Darrell for nearly 30 years was just as tough.

When he graduated, Donovan never considered staying in Ohio or moving to any of the other states he was fond of. His mother wasn’t needy, but she loved him dearly. It would break Miss Beverly’s heart if Donovan had to get on a plane each time he visited her.

Plus Donovan loved Overbrook Meadows, so he didn’t feel like he was passing up on any opportunities when he returned. It wasn’t like he moved back into his mother’s home and was still driving her car. Donovan had his own everything. So despite what Kyra said yesterday, he knew he wasn’t a mama’s boy.

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That morning Pastor Ricky Williams spoke to the congregation about volunteering more for the many church activities they had going on – and doing it with a grateful heart. He stressed that good deeds alone would not guarantee anyone a spot in the kingdom of heaven, but not offering any good deeds at all was just as bad.

After service Donovan waited while his mother spoke to the pastor and a few women at the church she’d grown close to over the years. When Miss Beverly was done with her goodbyes, Donovan led her into the bright sunlight outside and helped her into his new F-150. Beverly was a small woman, totally dwarfed by her tall and stout son. She was thin enough for Donovan to hoist into the truck like a child, but she only needed to hold his hand while she climbed into the cabin.

“Was Brianna busy this morning?” Beverly asked when Donovan got settled behind the steering wheel. He started the truck and rolled slowly out of the parking spot.

“I didn’t talk to her,” he told his mother.

“Was she out partying last night?”

Donovan grinned.

Brianna came to church with him and his mother only twice this year. Last year she tagged along once. Donovan thought that was a clear indication that Brianna wasn’t the church-going type, but Beverly felt the need to bring it up again each week.

Donovan’s mother was fifty-eight years old. She wore her hair short; it was more salt than peppery. She was spry and quick-witted. She wore wire-rimmed glasses and preferred slacks over skirts or dresses. Her skin was smooth and dark. Donovan had never seen her put on any makeup – not even a thin coat of lipstick. Beverly was retired from the DMV, but she maintained a lot of the impatience and sarcasm she perfected after more than three decades on the job.

Donovan loved his mother dearly. His only complaint was that she wouldn’t take another man or even make room in her heart for a lonely puppy after her husband died. Donovan knew she had a lot more love to give. But Beverly was stubborn when she made up her mind about something. She knew no man could ever measure up to Darrell, and she cherished her home too much to let some mangy dog chew it up. Donovan offered to find her a cat, declawed. Beverly was not interested.

“Why don’t you give me a grandbaby?” she’d asked instead. “If I got more love to give, I’ll save it for my grandbaby.”

Donovan made a left on Seminary.

“Brianna didn’t go out partying last night,” he said. “She just doesn’t like to wake up early on Sunday.”

“That’s part of the sacrifice,” Beverly preached. “Sometimes you have to do things your body doesn’t want, if you want to follow Jesus.”

“Why you telling me?” Donovan asked. “I got up this morning.”

“I was thinking maybe you could pass the word along to your girlfriend,” Beverly suggested.

“But I don’t care if she goes to church,” Donovan said honestly. “I thought you liked Brianna.”

“I do,” Beverly said. “She’s beautiful, and she’s smart. But if she was a heavy-praying woman, too…” She held a finger in the air. “That would seal the deal for me. I’d be proud to give you away at your wedding.”

Donovan chuckled. He told her countless times that a mom does not give her son away at a wedding, but Beverly wouldn’t give up the dream.

“You’re my only child,” she had replied. “I got to have some role in your wedding – besides just sitting there. Why does the bride’s family get to do everything?”

Donovan drove past the Golden Corral they usually stopped at after church.

“Where you going?” Beverly asked.

“I forgot to tell you, I can’t have lunch with you today, Mama. I’m meeting someone.”

Beverly frowned. “Someone like who?”

Donovan smiled. “Kyra.”

Beverly frowned some more. “Kyra who?”

Donovan fought hard to keep from cracking up. “You know which Kyra.”

Beverly’s eyes widened. She removed her glasses and fixed a serious look on him. “Kyra who?”

“Reynolds, Mama. Kyra Reynolds.”

Beverly’s mouth fell open. “Aw hell.”

Donovan laughed. “We just left church, Mama.”

Beverly didn’t give a damn. “Don’t tell me that girl is back in this city.”

“She is,” Donovan said. “And she’s not a girl anymore, Mama. Kyra’s a grown woman.”

Beverly stared at her son like his nose just fell off. “Donovan, don’t play with me.”

“I’m not,” he said. He couldn’t wipe the smirk off his face. “She moved back last week. And she found me on Facebook. I talked to her yesterday.”

Beverly stared in silence for a moment, and then she brought a hand to her face and rubbed her forehead. “Jesus,” she muttered.

“It’s been fifteen years,” Donovan said. “I know you’re not still mad at her.”

“Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” Beverly asked. “Do you want to send me to an early grave?”

“No, Mama. Of course not.”

“What the hell is Kyra doing back in this city?”

“She can live wherever she wants to, Mama.”

“Did she come back for you?”

Donovan frowned. “No.”

“Then why she look you up?”

“She was my best friend,” Donovan reminded. “Why wouldn’t she look me up? I’ve been looking for her, too.”

“Looking for her when?”

“All the time,” Donovan said. “Tell me you’re not still mad at her.”

“I’m not mad. I just can’t stand her,” Beverly said matter-of-factly.

“Mama, that’s cold.”

“Donovan, don’t sit there and act like this is brand new. You know I can’t stand that girl. Never could. She ain’t never brought nothing but trouble.”

“She never caused me any trouble, Mama. You’re exaggerating.”

“I remember when she used to follow you home,” Beverly said. She was staring at the traffic, but what she saw was a memory tucked deep inside a recess of her mind. “When y’all were kids, I remember thinking, Aw, look at my baby trying to help that poor, homeless girl. But I made the mistake of feeding her ass, and she wouldn’t go away. She was like a bad fungus infection, just, just always there! Always knocking on my damned door: Is, is Donovan here?” Beverly scrunched up her face and mocked Kyra with a childish voice. “I wanted to tell her Hell no! Not for you! Not never!”

“Wow.” Donovan watched his mother in amazement. It was hard to believe they had totally different recollections of the same person. “Kyra never did anything to harm you,” he said. “Why you acting like that?”

“It’s not what she did to me. It’s what she almost did to you! Had you in all types of trouble over there.”

“No, Mama. Kyra never got me in trouble.”

“What about when you called the police over to her mama’s house? Got yourself in all that mess! You were in the 8 grade then.”

“You just said it,” Donovan noted. “I called the police over there. Kyra didn’t tell me to do that. And I didn’t get in trouble for calling the police.”

“And what about when you got in a fight with that man over there?”

“Again that was something I chose to do, Mama. You can’t blame Kyra for that.”

“How come I can’t? Your name wouldn’t have been in no police reports if it wasn’t for her. Her whole family was all messed up, and you was right in the middle of it. Wasn’t nothing I could tell you to get you to leave that girl alone.”

“I always wondered why you weren’t proud of me for trying to help somebody.”

“How can a little boy help somebody?” Beverly wanted to know. “That’s what I was trying to tell you, way back then. The only thing that can happen is you get pulled down right along with her.”

“But I didn’t get pulled down, Mama. As you can see, I’m not on drugs or in prison.”

“Did you tell Brianna about her?” Beverly asked.

“Of course I did,” Donovan said. “You think I’d go see another woman without telling my girlfriend?”

“And she’s okay with it?”

“Well, she ain’t great,” Donovan admitted. “But she does trust me.”

“Did you tell her why I put Kyra out my house?”

Donovan’s smile slipped. “I, uh…”

“Yeah.” Beverly nodded fiercely. “That’s what I thought.”

“I told her everything else, though.”

“If you didn’t tell her you was fixing to have sex with that girl, then you lied,” Beverly accused.

“All we did was kiss,” Donovan said.

His mother’s mouth fell open, and she got upset all over again. “Boy, don’t sit there and tell me that bull! I saw it, Donovan! Did you forget that? I saw it with my own eyes!”

Donovan pulled into the driveway of his childhood home. He didn’t kill the engine right away. He turned and looked at his mother.

“You saw us kissing,” he said. “Not getting ready to–”

“In my house,” Beverly nearly shouted. “Y’all played me like a fool. Whew!” She fanned herself. “I don’t know why you got me thinking about that girl again. Gon’ have my blood pressure up.”

“We didn’t play you, Mama.”

“Yes you did. Told me y’all was just friends. She’s like my little sister,” she mocked. “I knew it wasn’t no way a boy and a girl could live together like that, but I believed you. And y’all stabbed me in the back! Both of you!”

“It was just one kiss,” Donovan reasoned. “That was the first time we ever did that. And it wasn’t planned. We didn’t lie to you. I didn’t know that was gonna happen.”

“It wasn’t just a kiss,” Beverly growled. “Y’all were touching on each other, tongue all in each other’s mouths!” She grimaced. “If I didn’t come home from work early that day, I’d have my grandbaby by now. She’d be fourteen years old already.”

Beverly leaned back in her seat and fanned herself. It was already chilly in the vehicle, but Donovan reached to turn his AC up more.

“I swear I feel my pressure rising,” Beverly said.

Donovan shook his head, not sure how to respond to her. He knew the kiss was bad, but he didn’t think his mother would harbor this much resentment after so much time.



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The incident occurred on October 7, 1999. Donovan was a junior at Finley High. Kyra was in the 10 grade at the same school. She’d been living with Donovan’s family for five months, since the day her mother went to prison for her 4 forgery conviction. At school Donovan and Kyra referred to each other as brother and sister or cousins. The other students didn’t know what to make of them. They knew Donovan and Kyra lived together, and they never saw the best buds hugging or holding hands or showing any sexual interest whatsoever. Whatever they were, boyfriend and girlfriend wasn’t it.

At that point, Kyra and Donovan had been friends for seven years. They were both on cloud nine, since Beverly trusted them enough to take Kyra in. She didn’t have to move all the way to Arkansas, and Kyra was now safe from her neglectful and sometimes dangerous home environment. With Donovan’s family, Kyra was happier than she had ever been.

When they got home from school that day, nothing was out of the ordinary. Kyra had developed most of her womanly features by then. But Donovan seemed uninterested. His mother warned them that Kyra would have to go if they started any funny business. Donovan knew was at stake. But it didn’t matter because he didn’t have those kinds of eyes for Kyra. When some of his friends at school asked if he noticed Kyra’s steadily bulging breasts, Donovan responded, “Yo, that’s nasty. That’s like me looking at my mama’s chest!”

Donovan still felt that way on October 7. But that was the day he learned that you can go from having zero interest in somebody to having a blinding yearning for them in the blink of an eye – depending on the situation. The situation for them was the family den, with dark curtains on the windows, and a new music video on BET. The feature was “We Can’t be Friends,” by R.L. and Deborah Cox.

The song was about a couple who broke up and realized they couldn’t remain friends afterwards because they were still in love. The video matched the lyrics precisely. When it went off, Donovan was surprised to see tears in Kyra’s eyes.

“What’s wrong with you?”

The teenagers sat next to each other on a long sofa. They weren’t supposed to have any alone time together, but Donovan’s father went to help a friend with a flat tire. Kyra had her legs tucked under her. Her stretchy Capris put her supple thighs on display. Beverly took Kyra to get her hair done last weekend, and she had managed to keep her ’do in place since then. She was very attractive, even as she wiped her tears.

“That’s a sad song,” she said. “You didn’t think it was sad?”

Donovan grinned. “He got with her in the end. They’re both happy now, right?”

Kyra shook her head. “I don’t think they got back together. They’re just saying they can’t be friends. It sounds like they have to break up and not talk to each other at all.”

Donovan thought about that. Both singers were crying at the end of the video, so maybe Kyra was right.

“Do you think that could ever happen to us?” Kyra asked. “Do you ever think about us not being friends anymore?”

Donovan shook his head. “How could that happen? You were never my girlfriend, or nothing like that.”

“But what if I was?” Kyra proposed. “What if we did decide to be boyfriend and girlfriend, and then we broke up and couldn’t be friends?”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Donovan said, not sure where she was going with this.

“Why?” Kyra asked. “Why couldn’t it happen?”

Donovan stared at her. He chuckled nervously. But Kyra wasn’t smiling. Donovan’s head tilted in confusion. “You mean why we couldn’t be boyfriend and girlfriend or why we couldn’t be friends anymore if we broke up?”

“Both,” Kyra said, then, “boyfriend and girlfriend.”

Donovan forced a grin. Kyra remained very serious. Her bottom lip was red from a Now & Later candy she had earlier. Donovan found himself staring at it. At that lip.

“Well, first of all my mom would kill us,” he said.

“But do you ever think about me, like that?” Kyra asked.

Donovan knew they were wading into dangerous waters, but there was nothing he and Kyra couldn’t talk about. “Wh, why? Do you ever think about me like that?”

Kyra nodded. “Since I was little.”

Donovan was stunned by that. His whole body went numb. But he was also a little relieved. For years, ever since Kyra’s lovely lady lumps began to sprout in the 7 grade, he’d been mesmerized by her journey into womanhood. Given the nature of their relationship, he knew he had to repress those feelings. But lately he’d been listening more and more to the little devil on his other shoulder, the one reminding him that Kyra was not his relative. There was no blood between them. So it was okay for her to give him a boner.

Up until October 7 discretion won out because Donovan knew Kyra didn’t feel the same way about him. But her admission opened a floodgate of emotions and opportunities that Donovan could not put the lid back on.

Even as he told her, “I think like that sometimes, too,” Donovan’s eyes rolled down to Kyra’s breasts. He’d been sneaking glances at those big humps of mystery for months. He longed to stare at them openly.

When Kyra saw his change in demeanor and the direction of his gaze, her nipples hardened like pebbles. At their ages, they had more hormones than good sense. They were both virgins, too. Right then and there Kyra decided that she wanted Donovan to be her first. It made perfect sense. She loved him more than anyone in her life – even her family, and she knew that Donovan loved her, too. Not brother-sister love. It was full grown adult love.

And it was a beautiful thing.

Neither remembered who leaned in first. They met eagerly in the middle. The moment their lips touched, a fire ignited in both of their souls. They knew this is what their relationship was meant to be all along.

Kyra’s bottom lip tasted like cherry Now & Later’s. Donovan would never forget that taste. It was so sweet. He hummed as he sucked it. Kyra emitted a breathy moan. Donovan stole the opportunity to explore her mouth with his tongue. Kyra had never been kissed like that before. She had no idea Donovan was so skillful. Or maybe his prowess was all in her mind. Either way, she was in bliss.

When he felt her breast beneath his hand, Donovan was surprised because he didn’t remember reaching for it. Kyra arched her back in appreciation, and Donovan didn’t slow up at all. He gripped her flesh softly, like he wanted to so many times. Kyra moaned again. Donovan left her mouth and sucked her fiery neck as his hand snaked under her shirt and under her bra.

The feel of her bare flesh and hard nipple was overpowering. Donovan’s manhood jumped in his pants. He felt the moistness of his pre cum. He was harder than he had ever been in his entire life.

Kyra began to lie back on the couch. Donovan was obliged to follow. Kyra’s legs spread on their own accord. Donovan fit so nicely between them. They kissed again, this time with an animalistic urging that begged to be quenched. Donovan grinded his hips, and Kyra felt his hardness trying to get in. There were two layers of denim between them; his and hers. Donovan reached down, maybe to unbutton his jeans, maybe hers, maybe neither. They would never know because the next sound they heard was a horrified scream that changed both of their lives forever.

“What the hell is going on?!”

Donovan jumped off of Kyra, and she yanked her shirt down. They tried their best to look normal with their hair messed and their breathing ragged. But Beverly had seen the dirty deed. She stood in the doorway with shock and fury battling for dominance of her expression. Her chest began to heave up and down.

The next five minutes were very unchristian, to say the least. Beverly called Kyra horrible things, things a teenage girl shouldn’t know the definition of – let alone have directed at her. Beverly also accused her only son of betraying her. She said both of them played her like a fool.

Donovan tried to plead their case. Kyra really was like a sister to him. This was the first and last time something like this would ever happen. But even he didn’t believe that. Maybe things were innocent before Kyra moved in, but they weren’t now, and it could never go back to the way it was.

It wasn’t like Beverly was taking any chances. She contacted Kyra’s relatives that night and bought her a plane ticket the next morning. When Donovan and Kyra got home from school, Donovan’s father was waiting to take Kyra to the airport.

Donovan cried himself to sleep that night. But he couldn’t hate his mother for what she did. Instead Donovan blamed himself for surrendering to the desires of his flesh. Kyra may have initiated it, but she was young. Donovan was the one who should’ve known better.



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Donovan turned his truck off and got out so he could help his mother down from the elevated cab. He walked her to the door and unlocked it with the same key he had since he was in high school.

“Alright, Mama. I’ll see you later.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“If you don’t tell Brianna about that kiss, then you’re lying to her,” Beverly warned. “It ain’t right to lie to her about what you and Kyra had going on.”

Donovan knew his mother was right, but he also knew he wouldn’t listen to her. He couldn’t. Brianna would never allow him to see Kyra if she knew.

“Love you,” Donovan said as he headed back to his truck. “I’ll come by and cut your grass later, when the sun starts to go down.”

“Can you bring me a slice of buttermilk pie?” Beverly asked. “That’s the one thing I really wanted from Golden Corral today.”

“Okay,” Donovan said with a smile. He didn’t think he’d be near any restaurants that sold single pie slices, but he would make it happen – not because he was a mama’s boy, but because he was a good son. There is a difference, Donovan told himself.