Downplay| Jordan Clarkson & Quincy Brown

•t h i r t y t w o•

It shouldn't have physically hurt to be across a table from her. Yara shouldn't have felt like her skin was crawling or that every hair on her body was standing up. She'd never been afraid of much besides love and the source of that fear was staring at her. She'd arranged the lunch right after she got up but, sitting here was something different.

Her mother stared back at her, dark red lipstick perfectly filling her full lips and her brown eyes focused. The older woman looked more like her sister than her mother even after all those years of abuse. Her long jet-black hair was swept into a neat bun at the base of her neck and her expression was almost unreadable except for the glimmer of hope in her eyes and apprehension in the way her jaw set.

From Yara's side, Elijah cooed before toying with his teddy bear immediately grabbing Elizabeth's attention. Yara hadn't planned to bring him, but Amari was in LA for her working out a celebration for Steph Curry while Elisa handled her brother EJ's birthday bash. Quincy had said he had urgent business to attend to and Payton was working. Aunt Denise and Uncle Gregory were an option, but they'd had their hearts set on exploring today so she decided to bring her baby boy along with her. There weren't many places Yara went where Jahi didn't follow.

"He's gotten so big."  Elizabeth observed and Yara just glanced at her son before she cleared her throat.

"I want to understand you." Yara said bluntly "I need to understand you because I've centered a lot of my life around not becoming you. I wanted to be nothing like you, and I just realized that I don't even know who you are, so I don't know what to avoid."

Elizabeth's face held pain as her daughter's words sunk in. When Yara was born, she saw so much love and now the young lady across from her looked at her blankly, no emotion at all. She had a grandson who she didn't even have the pleasure of spending time with. She couldn't just blame Michael this time.

"Well, I was born in Portland, Oregon. My mom was a seamstress and she worked at a clothing store that her mother ran. My dad was in the air force, stationed at Kingsley Field. They met when they were 18 but my grandmother didn't approve, and she was right. My dad was abusive so when my mom found out she was pregnant with me at 21, she ran to stay with her aunt in Nevada. I was raised here in Twin Lakes, and I never knew my father. He never looked for me and my mom never talked about him."

"Did you ask about him?"

Elizabeth thought on Yara's question for a minute before she shook her head.

"Not really, maybe when I was small. I learned early on that my mother didn't like to talk about him. So, I didn't make her. My grandaunt would tell me things, but she didn't know much. I did wonder about him though, a lot. Girls need their fathers you know?"

She looked sorrowfully at Yara who just shrugged her shoulders, most of her life she'd had Uncle Gregory and that was her dad. There was no need to pity her.

"Yeah, I know. I'm sorry you didn't get that."

"I'm sorry you didn't know Michael." Elizabeth blinked before she shook her head "He was complicated, but he was a good man. He just wasn't a good partner or husband."

Yara sipped her drink to keep herself from snorting at the statement.

" Michael should be sorry he didn't know me. Some good person he was to cheat on his wife and not even spend time or care about his other child."

"Yara there are so many things you don't know."

Her aunt had said that, even Amari had said that. She'd heard that statement so much during her life that it never ceased to irritate her. If she didn't know these things, why wouldn't the people who did just tell her?