“Mom?” he said. He walked into the kitchen swatting the air, his confusion swarming him like flies.
Lillian Kagwa stood at the open fridge, holding a quart of skim milk. “I’m making tea,” she said.
Apollo looked at the oven to find a small pot of milk bubbling up. The tea leaves were already inside, and small strips of ginger, too. They boiled, and the level rose toward the lip, and Apollo did just as he’d learned when he was a boy, turned off the flame before the potion spilled over. With the heat off, the tea settled again, steaming, spinning, a rich brown color.
“Well done,” Lillian said, standing beside him. She had a teacup on the counter, and a sieve. She strained the tea, set the pot back on the oven, picked up her cup, and took one long sip.
“Why are you here?” Apollo asked. “It’s the middle of the night.” He pulled out a chair and sat because he felt unbalanced by his confusion.
“It’s twelve-twenty,” she said, standing over him. She’d always liked to have her tea on her feet, the habit of a woman who had to rush to work in the morning. “How was dinner with Dana and Patrice?” she asked.
Apollo looked up to the ceiling light. “Dana called you,” Apollo said. “She went into the bedroom and called you.”
“I was surprised that you’d been out to see them before you saw me.”
Apollo shook his head and laughed. “Please tell me you’re not guilting me right now, Mom.”
She sipped her tea. “What guilt? Do you feel guilty? Why didn’t you call me to pick you up, though?”
“Too early,” Apollo said. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
Lillian took down a second mug and poured Apollo a cup of tea like hers. “Four in the morning,” she said. “That’s criminal. Let me make you something to eat.”
“I just had dinner with Patrice and Dana,” Apollo said.
In the time it took him to complete the sentence, Lillian had already opened the fridge and removed a half-carton of eggs, an onion, a block of cheddar cheese, sour cream, and a bag of semisweet chocolate chips. A selection strange enough that Apollo wanted to make a joke, but as she removed more items from the fridge—tangerines and cherry tomatoes—he realized how anxious she must be. They’d seen each other at his trial but hadn’t been allowed to talk. He’d called her from Rikers once, but this was the first time they’d been in the same room since then.
“I’m happy you’re here,” Apollo said. “I’m happy to see you.”
He stood and shut the fridge door gently. The two of them stood close and looked at the things she’d laid out.
“What was I planning to cook?” she asked.
“Let’s just have the tea,” Apollo said, guiding her to the chair he’d vacated.
He sat next to her, and neither spoke as they sipped. He felt sure he looked older than her. It seemed important to comfort her, to soothe any fears she could have. In a way it felt good to have someone to care for.
“You need to sleep,” Apollo said. “And I do, too.”
She brought a hand to her chest and patted it softly. “I was asleep when Dana called me. I go to bed so early most nights.”
“You were in Springfield Gardens?” he said. “How did you get here before me?”
Lillian gave a smile. Her purse sat on the table. She reached for it, unzipped the top, took out her phone, and swiped once on the screen. She held the phone toward him.
“I called an Uber,” she said.
“How much did that cost you?” He’d taken that scolding tone adults do with their elderly parents.
Lillian’s face flushed, and she set the phone down. “I called an Uber,” she said. “And now I’m here. Let’s leave it at that.”
They finished their tea and put the food back into the fridge. None of this stuff looked rotten, so Apollo realized Lillian must have brought it all recently, restocking his fridge for his return. Good mothers are a gift, he thought to himself.
“I called the police once a week until they finally told me it was okay to enter your place,” Lillian said. “Your super, Fabian, he let me use his keys. The police dug through everything, went through all the closets and dresser drawers. I didn’t want you to come back and find the place a mess. Not with everything else.”
Lillian washed the cups and cleaned the pot. Apollo told her to take his bed. When she protested, he explained he couldn’t sleep in it anyway.
“I’d offer to buy you a new bed,” she said. “But that Uber ride took most of my savings.”
Apollo laughed, and the sound turned a valve in Lillian, so she laughed, too.
They went into the bedroom, and he pulled back the sheets as if he was about to tuck his mother into bed for the night, but she grabbed his hand and shook it. “Tomorrow morning,” she said. “I want you to come see Brian’s grave. We can bring flowers.”
Brian’s grave.
Two words, and suddenly Apollo felt like the one in need of tucking in.
“Nassau Knolls,” she said. “It’s in Port Washington. It’s a beautiful location.”
“Mom,” he whispered, “I’m not ready for that.”
She pulled him down next to her on the bed. She held his hand in both of hers.
“Let me tell you a story,” she said.
Apollo pulled his hand away. “You’re not going to tell me about Arthur getting shot again, are you? Ugandan dictatorship. You drove like crazy, but he still bled to death. You came to the United States. Immigrants are so amazing. You make America great. I got it.”
Lillian rubbed her thighs. “That’s not what I was going to say.”
“What then?”
“Something else!” Lillian stood up, slipped her shoes off, and set them by the bed. She gestured to the door, and Apollo was dismissed. She closed the door, and Apollo remained on the other side until he saw the light go out under the door. Did he want to apologize? No he did not. He wanted to say more, to say much worse. He wanted to do something worse. Not to her, to himself. Patrice had been right. If his friend hadn’t said something, who knew where he’d have gone next? The George Washington Bridge was a block from this apartment. Every 3.5 days somebody attempted to jump the waist-high handrail. Maybe tonight it would’ve been him.
Apollo thought giving Patrice and Dana the book had been a selfless gesture, but it’s possible he couldn’t be trusted to understand himself right now. What would he have done if Lillian hadn’t been here? He didn’t know, and that surprised him. Who was he now? What might he become? He’d always been so sure—a book man, a husband, a father—but now none of those roles seemed his to fill.