drive away, and you have no idea what she does on a daily basis. This was assuming she even still lived in New Jersey. It’s easier not to think about the guilt when you don’t think at all.
Call, I demanded myself. Call her now.
Of course, there was one problem: I didn’t have her number. I had a cell phone number for her, but she didn’t use it. I knew that because I had purchased the phone for her in college and I had paid the bill on it for several years as part of a family plan. I noticed the usage on her phone was mostly zero. I called it anyway. It kept ringing. Was this cell phone even in her possession anymore?
Sitting in my living room, I briefly wondered if there was no way to get in touch with her. I called another number: my childhood home phone number, with a somewhat ridiculous expectation that it still belonged to my mother. It didn’t.
Luckily, buried in an email from 2014, I found another number. I dialed. After three rings, I heard my mother’s voice. I leaned forward on my couch and gripped the phone tightly. I could feel my blood pulsing.
“Hello?” my mother said.
“Ma, it’s Shambo,” I said, trying to project a sense of calm that didn’t exist.
“Oh. How are you?” my mother said. I could hear that she too was displaying that same faux sense of calm. She sounded old and tired, as if a lifetime of loss and loneliness had taken its toll. I, perhaps recognizing this, summoned my childhood Bengali in an attempt to alleviate the awkward space in which we found ourselves.
“I am doing well. How are you doing?” I nudged.
“I am doing well. What’s new? How’s work?” My mother. It was terrible, uncomfortable small talk.
“Work is very busy. I write a lot about theater, film, and television. What else do I write about? A lot of comedy,” I answered. This was during my time writing for the culture section, before switching to the NBA beat.
“Really? I saw you on MSNBC,” my mother said. Her voice became lighter. She was recalling a recent segment during which I was discussing whether Oprah would run for president in 2020. Meanwhile, my organs felt like they were splitting. The only time my mother had seen my face in the last few years was in a cable television news hit.
“I see a lot of Broadway shows now. It’s a good break for me from politics. When you cover politics, you don’t sleep at all. You’re always working and checking your email. Now I don’t work very much on weekends,” I said.
My mother asked me if I was still living in my apartment in Harlem. I had lived in Harlem for about five years, and my mother had never seen either of the two apartments I lived in while there. I told her yes, but this wasn’t true. I had moved in with my girlfriend, Wesley, something I didn’t, at this point, feel was necessary to tell my mother. She suggested I buy a house.
I quietly sighed. She didn’t quite understand the New York City real estate market.
“I don’t have that kind of money,” I gently chided her. “If you want to buy anything in New York, you have to put down a minimum fifty thousand dollar down payment.”
She suggested I go outside of New York. I told her I’d see. She asked me if I’d be going on MSNBC again. I said maybe, but that I didn’t discuss politics on the air anymore since I wasn’t covering it.
“The next time you’re on, why don’t you let me know?” my mother said.
My stomach had unclenched slightly. We had advanced from Peak Awkwardness to Genuine Catch-Up. Impulsively, I stammered a sentence that seemed inconceivable a few minutes before.
“If in the next month—if you’re not—if . . .” I paused to gather myself. “Do you want to come to New York to watch a Broadway show sometime?”
Silence.
“Uh, the last time I saw a Broadway show? When was that?” My mother had misunderstood the question, possibly because of my stammering.
I clarified: “No, I’m saying if there is a Broadway show you want to see, you can come to New York if you want. I can get tickets.”
Another pause, this one less prolonged.
“If we can go, let me know,” she said. “Weekday or weekend?”
“Whenever is convenient for you.”
Pause. I could hear her breathe.
“Yes, let me know.”
“There are lots of good shows out there. There’s a