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Do people remember the exact moment they fall in love? I do.
For a second, Yasmen looked distressed, but then, despite feeling like someone dragged me over hot coals and needles, I laughed. Then she laughed and I wondered if this—finding someone you can laugh with when everything hurts—was the stuff happily ever afters were made of.
I feel like this is gonna make me cry
If I had spoken to my mama that way, she would have pulled over to the shoulder and popped me in the mouth. God knows I love my mother, but I don’t want that. I draw a calming breath and try to remember all the ways I promised myself I would do things differently with my kids, landing somewhere between gentle parenting…and my mama.
Love it. Break the cycle.
Still, my heart clenches with a guilt-tinged ache because as much as I’d like to believe it’s only the big one-three that eroded things between Deja and me, I can’t lie to myself. The trouble started with the divorce.
Oof. . . Yep.
“Well, if things change, let me know,” I say, forcing lightness into my voice, into the room. “Team Wade, right?” That used to be our rallying cry when things got tough. Whatever needed doing, we did it together.
We’re not alone like this often anymore, leading separate lives that only intersect at our kids and our business. Kassim and Deja are usually around, or staff, friends, coaches, teachers. It’s rarely just us. We used to know each other better than anyone.
That's really sad
Hendrix casts me a look I’ve fondly dubbed sly-slutty.
hah that's great
“Like you said,” I tell her, staring into my drink. “You don’t know everything that went down.”
And it would have gone off without a hitch had life not hitched every which way but loose.
Relatable
“You don’t talk about it much, the divorce I mean,” Soledad says. “Did you guys try therapy?” “Josiah’s allergic,” I say wryly. “He doesn’t do therapy. I wanted to, but…”
“At the church where I grew up,” Hendrix says, “they always said you ain’t got a problem God can’t fix. What can a therapist do that God can’t? That mindset kept a lot of folks from getting help.”
I've seen this attitude a lot with people I grew up around that went to church and often later their children. It creates so much more stigma around mental health.
“Josiah’s reasons had nothing to do with faith,” I say with a twist of my lips. “He just thinks it’s a load of bullshit. Deja and Kassim talked some to a grief counselor at school, but aside from a rough patch or two, they bounced back okay. Couples therapy? Josiah didn’t think it could help, and by the end, neither did I.”
Great commentary on mental health & refusal to get help
That’s the part of depression people don’t consider, that at times it physically hurts.
After how we’d loved each other, the way we hurt each other was destroying us.
My heart. . .
If therapy has taught me anything, it’s that you run from your pain in a circle. You end up exhausted, but never really gaining ground.
Yeeeeeah
The only thing we never anticipated was losing each other in the process of gaining everything else.
Her hand rests on Josiah’s knee casually, at ease like she’s touched him that way a hundred times.
Mhhhhmmmm called it
Plates litter the floor, along with cans of Diet Coke and LaCroix. A Monopoly board is splayed across the large glass table Josiah and I purchased from a furniture outlet in North Carolina. That somehow offends me most deeply.
Of course it does like excuse me. . . This wasn't discussed ahead of time or anything. Feeling like a bad guy with your kids as it is then walk into this family feeling scene in your own home - whew.
“Fix that attitude, Day,” Josiah responds before I have to, his voice somehow gentle and stern.
Says the man who let the kids stay up past their bedtime so one of the first things she has to do when she gets home is be the bad guy and make them go to bed. And who didn't make them clean up their trash so she had to mention that too.
“What the hell is she doing in my house?” Okay. That came out wrong.
No, no it did not lol
A knife unsheathed like he was waiting for me to piss him off.
Oh, he was. . . He absolutely was, and he knew exactly how she'd react walking in on that bs without warning.
“We’ve been divorced almost two years, Yas. We knew we’d move on. I honestly didn’t think it would be a big deal.”
Bullshit. He can't even say the words or look at her when he brings up her dating, but thought she would just be cool with this situation out of nowhere. Uh huh. . . Sure, Jan.
I didn’t make a big deal of it, but I want to be honest with them.”
Then he should've told them another time and in another place, and not done it this way. Whether or not the kids knew her already, this was wrong especially cause she works for/with both of them and is the chef at their business that already almost crumbed from losing one.
“Like I need you reminding me how long it took to find a good chef.”
Apparently you do, buddy. This guilt trip is gross.
“Is that how you remember it? Because I remember the worst possible thing happening to us both, to this whole family, and you shutting me out. I remember us losing…”
Oh. . . WTF. No. Absolutely not. Wouldn't even try couples therapy like the nerve.
“We should teach them to play spades, Si,” Vashti says, affection in her smile, in the hand she rests on his arm.
Wow. Not once does she acknowledge Yasmen - their mother who is standing right there - while talking to the kids and him. Like not even to say if it's ok with your mom and dad.
“Wayminit.” Hendrix holds up a hand. “He had her up in your house?”
EXACTLY!!!
“I’m not jealous.”
Lieeees
People talk about the stages of grief, but there is a stage of depression—at least for me—where you go from feeling pain so acutely you can’t bear it, to feeling nothing at all. A blessed numbness after debilitating sadness. It’s like laying a thin film of steel over your emotions. So thin it’s diaphanous. You can see everything through it, but nothing actually touches you. I couldn’t feel a thing, but I embraced it because at least I wasn’t feeling pain.
Oof this is so real. . . That's a deeeep well of depression it's hard to climb out of tbh
Otis, of course, has pulled back the sheet with his teeth and is licking my foot like he does every morning.
Lol knew it was a poochie
A silk robe strained across her breasts, the tight belt emphasizing the fullness of her shape. My dick had swelled at the sight, and just as I was thanking God my T-shirt covered my erection, Otis nudged my shirt aside like some dick-detecting narc canine scenting cocaine.
Omfg rofl
At that moment, Otis confirmed what I had always suspected. That he descended from some supernatural breed of wolf dog, because he calmly walked through the mudroom and out the door to wait quietly, patiently, at the passenger side of my truck.
Awwww sweet baby
A happy “woof” is his only response. I turn to point one finger at him. “I know you love the river. Don’t say I never did anything for you.” I take the stairs and yell back, “But how could you ever say that when I do literally everything for you?” I envision an air bubble over Otis’s head that might read Dude, get over yourself. “Yup,” I say, of course to myself as I strip and turn on the shower. “You’ve lived alone too long.”
Okay I love this lol need more people talking to their pets in books
one…I’m about to refuse, but the happiness and anticipation sketched on both their faces has me stretching my arms out to take her. This was their third time trying to adopt. These guys often keep an eye on Kassim and Deja for us. They’re over for dinner and have our family over all the time. They’re good friends and I can’t dim their light because I have shit I’ve never dealt with—at this rate, probably won’t ever deal with—that makes it hard for me to hold a baby.
Ugh my heart
The memory of when I last held a baby comes rushing up at me like the ground when you trip and fall. There’s nothing warm or sweet about that memory, and I tense my jaw against the emotions it stirs in me, the ones I spent the last three years shoving away.
:(
She stops short, her gold-flecked eyes dropping from my face to Lilian cradled in my arms. Something arcs between us in the small space separating the two porches, a tension that requires no explanation. I know it’s because of the little girl cradled in my arms.
“She’s been through a lot, Yas. We all have.” “I don’t need you telling me what we’ve been through. What Deja’s been through.”
Oh, that was not the right response to his comment
She rushes off the front porch and down the sidewalk toward the park before I can make this any better, not that I would know how even if she stayed. I stare after her for a few seconds, well aware of how badly I mishandled that conversation.
“Why wouldn’t we be?” She sucks her teeth. “You deserve some happiness after what she put you through.” She? “Um…Do you mean your mother?” “Of course. Who could blame you for moving on? Mom went crazy and ruined your life and—” “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I shake my head and look at her full in the face so she’ll understand. “Don’t ever let me hear you call your mother crazy again. You hear me, Deja Marie?”
WHOA is right like um no. . . Hopefully he gets now she isn't being too sensitive about this matter
“She was severely depressed, not crazy. Do you understand all we lost as a family in a matter of months?”
Good. Do not let this slide.
“Yeah,” I reply, some of the heat draining from my voice too. “We all lost Henry, but your mom, she carried him. The same way she carried you and Kassim. And the way she lost him was
EXACTLY
I kiss her forehead to remove some of the sting, and my own words play back. Defending Yasmen to Deja. Trying to understand. There’s a voice in the back of my mind wondering if I should have done more of that when I had the chance.
Uh huuh
Grief is a grind. It is the work of breathing and waking and rising and moving through a world that feels emptier. A gaping hole has been torn into your existence, and everyone around you just walks right past it like it’s not even there.
Very true
I bring a forkful of quiche to my mouth just as Josiah and Vashti come into sight, trailing behind Deja. Hand. In. Fucking. Hand. My Zen bubble pops.
Mhm she's totally fine with it
“Wasn’t prepared to see your ex quite so moved on?” Hendrix discreetly glances over my shoulder. “Well, get more prepared. They’re almost here, and she does not get to see how much it bothers you. Right now, ma’am, I need you to find your happy place, go there, and bring a bad bitch back.”
Such a good friend
Josiah spreads a large blanket in a spot adjacent to ours.
Um no, sir. This is too much too soon even if you expect her to accept your ass is moving on. Sit somewhere else.
“Coming from you, that’s high praise,” Soledad says and then sends me a quick look of apology like she offered shelter to Regina George.
Another good friend tbh
I turn back to Mark, my smile a little wider. I may bat my lashes the tiniest bit. It’s small of me, but my ex is here with our kids and our damn dog for all the world to see. Strolling up in here holding hands. So, yes, I laugh a little longer and louder when Mark makes a joke that’s only slightly funny.
Good.
“Okay.” I chuckle, flicking an uncertain look up at him. “So first at bat?”
Feeeels like a bad idea
She would be into this considering all the time she spends with her therapist. Hey, no knock. It seems to have helped her when nothing else did. More power, but I don’t need that and I certainly don’t think Kassim does.
Whew I need him to stop cause clearly he does need this and knows it to some extent
