Nadia slung her bag across her shoulder and headed for the door. Toya cleared her throat. “My key.” Nadia shed it out of her pocket and tossed it across the room. Home was not a trip she wanted to make, but she couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. Though she’d saved enough for her own place, she hadn’t decided what to do yet. She wasn’t ready to pay a security d eposit and rst and last month’s rent, when she might need the money for something, or someone, else. N ADIA SIGHED AS SHE TURNED her key into her parents’ lock. While she knew Bryan and Terry were at school, she wasn’t ready to face Gladys. She walked through the dining room and into the kitchen. The house was criminal quiet, but Gladys was right there waiting for her as if she knew who to expect. Sitting in her corner chair at the table, another Jackie Collins novel open in front of her, she looked up at rst with a surprised smile until she seemed to remember the last time they’d seen or spoken to one another. “Well, the prodigal daughter has returned,” she said, looking down at her book. “Hey, Mama.” Nadia k ept walking toward the basement st eps. “What brings you around these parts in the middle of the week and”—she looked out the window beside her—“damn near the middle of the day?” “I can’t come home?” “Nobody said that.” Gladys turned a page. “Just surprised to see you.” Her nonchalance threatened to topple Nadia down the basement st eps. Words all canines and incisors, she asked, “What are y o u doing here?” “Since you not here and your brothers are older, I went back to working nights so I can spend my days with your father.” “Where is he?” “Upstairs taking a nap.” “Must be nice.” It wasn’t lost on Nadia that Gladys’s ever-changing schedule was only to her bene t and no one else’s. She hurried down the stairs, irritation mixing with confusion, and unpacked. She put away clothes that had been shoved in her bag
with haste and cleaned up the dusty space that was exactly as she left it. Clothes strewn all over the unmade bed, wardrobe doors open, hangers on the ground, shoes picked over for the practical. That it was left untouched said something. About who—Gladys or herself—she wasn’t sure. Nadia showered when she nished cleaning. Beneath the hot water, she ngered the at terrain around her navel and imagined it distended, the linea nigra copper against her caramel skin. Her mind lled with questions she couldn’t answer. D o I w a n t t h i s ? I t ? Y o u ? She pushed them away and thought of everything else. The best techniques for hair coloring. How to handle a client who wanted color and a relaxer. The best ways to cleanse a scalp without scratching it raw, no matter how good it felt. She focused on the technical, the chemical, ionic bonds and what breaks them. Anything but what was bonded inside her. F u c k . She had nowhere left to run. Bathed and dressed, she went back upstairs and found Eugene had joined Gladys at the table. In his white T-shirt, pea-green slacks, suspenders, and slippers, he poured himself the last of the morning’s co ee. Nadia put one hand over her stomach and the other over her mouth as she tried not to retch right in front of them. “What’s wrong with you?” Gladys asked. “I’m ne,” Nadia mumbled. “Hey, Daddy.” “What happened that you walked home and ain’t get a ride with your friend in the car?” Eugene asked, running his hand over his silver-gray hair. Nadia gritted her teeth. “He hasn’t given me a ride in a long time.” “Oh, y’all ain’t friends no more?” Gladys asked, looking up from her book. “That’s why you come home?” “No!” “You sho’?” Gladys studied Nadia for a sign. Eugene sti ed a yawn and sipped his co ee. “You can come in the kitchen,” Gladys said. “We don’t bite. You hungry?” “Nah, I’m all right,” Nadia lied. She surveyed the table. With Gladys in the corner by the window, and Eugene opposite her by the stove, there was only one
seat left for her to take. The head of the table. It was as if they had choreographed the conversation they would have upon her return. A verbal dance they’d practiced many a time without her, so second nature that all they were doing now was running the routine. Nadia went to the refrigerator and pulled out a bag of green seedless grapes. She set them on the table in front of the seat reserved for her and worked her way through the fruited vines. She tried to remember the last time she ate and couldn’t. The amount of time between meals seemed in nite. Focused on the sticky, sweet fruit she tried to get full. “How’s school going?” Eugene asked. “Good.” She swallowed. “I have about six more months before I get my license. I have a lab today.” “That’s what you call practicing doing hair?” Gladys asked, incredulous. “A lab.” Nadia nodded her answer as she shoved more grapes in her mouth. Gladys grunted. “You stayin’ long?” Eugene asked. “I have class in a little bit, and then I’ll be back.” “That’s not what he meant!” “Gladys,” Eugene admonished. “It’s all right, Daddy.” Nadia swallowed. “I’m back, but just ’til I get my license.” “Mm-hmm,” Gladys humphed. “You couldn’t nd your way in the world as good as you thought you could. Ain’t no more man, so you gotta come home.” “Roman and I broke up the day I left,” Nadia said icily. “So where you been?” “Stayin’ with Toya.” “Well, I coulda told you that was a bad idea. You gotta stay close to your own kind.” “Gladys, let the girl be.” Eugene treaded the churning waters between them. He said, “You wanted her home. Be glad she here.” “But it’s a reason why she home, and I bet you any money I got that it’s got somethin’ to do with that man. Don’t it?”
Nadia rolled her eyes and grabbed a bunch of grapes. I s n ’ t t h i s w h a t I c a m e b a c k f o r ? she asked herself. After all, she had come home for a reason. Packed her things and picked a ght because she needed what? Wisdom? A mother’s touch? Understanding? All of the attributes Gladys didn’t possess. Characteristics she hadn’t had since before Nadia’s own birth. Gladys went on, nagging to know what happened. Certain that something had in fact transpired. Something big. Why else would Nadia go from sneaking in and out on the weekends to coming through the front door in the middle of the day contrite for nothing? Nadia sighed. Chewed. Began slowly, “I just nee... wanted to come home.” “ W a n t e d to come home or n e e d e d to come home?” Gladys demanded, noticing Nadia’s slip. “Gladys, it don’t matter,” Eugene said. “I’m going upstairs. You didn’t need to wake me up for this.” “Uh-uh, Eugene. We gettin’ to the bottom of this right now. Somethin’s going on, and I ain’t lettin’ your daughter play nann one of us for a fool we ain’t.” “Gladys!” “It’s all right, Daddy. I knew she was gon’ be like this.” “Oh, well, now you got me believin’ ya mama might be onto somethin’, ’cause you ain’t never excused her mouth before. Not even when you was a little girl and had to take it.” “I told you,” Gladys said, pushing up from her seat. She crossed her arms over her housecoat with a self-satis ed smile. She asked, “Was it Roman? Or Toya?” Nadia shoved more grapes in her mouth. She chomped through the skin and pulp until the corners of her mouth bubbled with juice. “Both, huh?” Gladys deduced. “Let her alone, Gladys,” Eugene said. “If she don’t wanna talk about it, she ain’t got to.” “Even when she don’t wanna talk about what’s going on, she ain’t never been mute like she is now. Only reason she got to be this quiet is if somebody is pregnant.” Nadia felt her throat constrict. She coughed.
Gladys continued, “You caught your so-called friend sle eping with your so- called boyfriend and she popped up pregnant?” “No.” “So what is it? Who is it? Is it you?” “Yes,” Nadia mumbled. “Nadia! Nadia.” Eugene stopped himself from saying anything else. The anger he may have had with Gladys for whipping up the hurricane of chaos gave way to disappointment. The sentimental kind, full with pity more than anything else. He sat beside Nadia at the table, his arms an isosceles triangle covering his face, while Gladys paced, demanded to know everything. Nadia had no choice but to start from the beginning. How they’d met, his marriage, his s eparation, his pending divorce, and the day it all changed, when Deborah had news of her own. “What you say?” Gladys’s question was rhetorical. High in in ection and intonation, she paced some more. “So it’s two of y’all pregnant for the same tri in’-ass man.” “Seems that way,” Nadia answered. “What’re you gon’ do?” Eugene asked softly. “I don’t know.” Nadia shrugged. “Ke ep it, get rid of it, whatever I do is my choice.” Gladys grabbed the back of a chair and shook her head. Muttered to herself, “All my running from them people and their ways and you want to do this to yourself.” “It’s not the same, cher,” Eugene said to Gladys. “What’s not the same?” Nadia asked. “It don’t matter,” Gladys yelled. “Cain’t nobody help you but Jesus.” “And what h e gon’ do?” Nadia demanded. She stood from the table and headed toward the door. Eugene called behind her, “What about the baby?” “What about it?” she yelled back. The door slammed as Gladys cried out in prayer. Prayers she would say for months before Nadia gave in and agreed to attend church with her.
D e c e m b e r 1 9 8 0 P ASTOR T. G. L ONGFELLOW ’ S VOICE BOOMED from the pulpit despite his small ve-foot- ve stature. For two and a half hours, Nadia had sat through singing, announcements, more singing, visitor welcome, and the sermon, before they reached the benediction. In a suit and tie, Pastor Longfellow mopped his brow with the handkerchief from his breast pocket as he ran through the last announcements regarding the church’s upcoming fashion show fundraiser, an awards luncheon for members of distinction, and the members of the congregation who were on the sick-and-shut-in list and in need of visitation. “Someone to sit with ’em for a while,” he said, pausing a moment for his volunteer request to sink in. “Well, now, church,” he resumed. “We’ve come to the end of our time together today. But before we go, we need to close out in a nal prayer.” “Pastor, if I may.” Gladys stood with one nger in the air. “Sister Washington, go right ahead.” “Church, I don’t mean to hold you...” she began, “but I just want to ask for your prayers for my daughter.” Nadia looked up to see Gladys’s face pointed heavenward in supplication. Her hands were raised, palms to the sky as if she expected the windows of heaven to open and pour out a bounty of blessing. The surrendered serenity ignited anxiety in Nadia’s belly. She tugged her arm, but Gladys only shook her away. “You see, my daughter, Nadia, is here with me today, and she’s in a bit of trouble.” “Mama,” Nadia said through clenched teeth. “Trouble not unlike that of David and Bathsheba. Only the man in her story is no king. Certainly not a man after God’s own heart.” “Mama, what are you doing?” “You see, Nadia is with child.” An audible gasp ew through the church. “Out of wedlock. And the man in volved, well... let’s just say he’s in wedlock with someone else. A wife also with child.”
“Mama!” Nadia yelped, shrinking low in her seat. “So I would just like your prayers for Nadia. For her to have wisdom and discernment about the future of the child she’s carrying. She’s indicated that she may not want to ke ep the child. And I’d just like y’all to pray for her that she nds it in her own heart to consider other alternatives. Can you do that for me, church?” Gladys lowered her head from its tilt toward the sky and opened her eyes to survey the room. The congregation, a harem of women, nodded their heads in agreement, a m e n ed and m m - h m m ed to the prayer request for the sinful daughter de led by a married man. “Church, let us stand to our feet and oblige Sister Washington’s request.” Everyone in the congregation stood exc ept Nadia. She ducked down in the pew as if she were hiding from masked men come to rob the church of its tithes. Pastor Longfellow cleared his throat. Gladys reached for Nadia, she tugged what loose hair she could grasp to get her to stand up and not embarrass her before the Lord, but she didn’t budge. “Sister Nadia, would you please stand so that we may pray for you,” Pastor Longfellow commanded from the altar. Nadia slowly rose to her feet, though she never raised her head. Never looked to the pastor for prayers or penance. “Thank you so much, Sister Nadia,” Pastor Longfellow said. “Church, would you stretch your hands toward this troubled soul.” He prayed, “Dear heavenly father. Be with your daughter in her time of need. Show her that despite her condition this moment doesn’t have to de ne her. Like it didn’t de ne David. Like it didn’t de ne Bathsheba. Nadia too can overcome. Oh my my my...” A m e n s and m m - h m m s burst from the mouths of the congregation like reworks on the Fourth of July. Their chorus added to the litany of voices playing in her head. K e e p i t . G e t r i d o f i t . W h a t e v e r y o u d o , t h a t ’ s o n y o u . A l l w e s a i d w a s t a l k t o h i m . A i n ’ t n o b o d y s a i d f u c k h i m . She heard everyone’s condemnation as her tears fell fat and juicy. They pooled in the grooves between her ngers. With heavy shoulders, Nadia’s body
heaved under the weight of the invisible pressure pouring from the hands of the parishioners, who thought their outstretched arms equated the reach of God. Despite the fervor led by Pastor Longfellow, who prayed in a language all his own, their earnest words fell on deaf ears. The cacophony of voices inside her own head was as su ocating as a sarcophagus against the storm of pleading. As the congregants invoked the assistance of the heavenly hosts and implored the angels on her behalf, Nadia begged a request of her own. She prayed for an end, or at the very least an answer. One didn’t come until three weeks later, when she rolled over in her basement bed and reached for the phone. All compulsion, her heart rate spiked, and skin warmed despite the crisp air. She acted on instinct and dialed his number, which had been disconnected for months. She waited for the three tones she’d heard the last time she called, but they never came. Instead of a computerized voice, the call went through. It rang and rang and rang until it clicked and a maternal voice, syrupy and decidedly Southern, began speaking. “Hi, you’ve reached the Darlings, home of Hill, Lyana, Heidi, and Liam. We’re not in right now, but please leave a message, and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. Bye bye now.” The line be eped. Nadia hung up. Fueled by her own despondence, she got out of bed as best she could and donned the all-black clothing she’d taken to wearing to t in with the rest of the stylists at the d epartment-store salon, where she had a day of washing heads to look forward to. The clothing also helped her hide, especially from herself, since she thought more about what hadn’t happened—the six hundred dollars she hadn’t spent and the time o work she hadn’t taken—than she did what was happening. What had yet to happen. At twenty-six weeks, the navel of her gravid stomach protruded from her skin because of the force behind it. She no more wanted to see the distention of her body, which carried a baby girl who kicked and rolled on her own time and schedule, than she wanted to see the grayscale photo Gladys had framed and placed on the nightstand beside her bed. The sonogram showed a head, belly, legs, and arms, enough of a baby but not enough of a reality. Nadia didn’t know whose eyes or hair color her girl would inherit, let alone whose complexion she’d take: hers or Roman’s.
She headed up the stairs and toward the door, not stopping for the country breakfast Gladys had insisted on cooking because Nadia was eating for two. “You leaving a lil’ early, don’t you think?” Gladys said, following behind her. “I got some things to do before work.” “I hope one of them things is tending to your head.” Gladys snarked. She wasn’t above picking a ght, mi ed as she was at Nadia not eating after she’d gone through the trouble of making breakfast. “How you gon’ be a hairdresser with nappy hair?” she asked. “It’s not nappy. It’s natural. And if you knew what was in relaxer, you’d stop getting it too.” “No, the hell I wouldn’t.” “I gotta go.” “On the bus?” Gladys asked. “Why don’t you let me or your daddy take you?” “I’m good. I got some things to take care of.” Nadia opened and closed the front door before Gladys could protest any further or she lost her own nerve. Maybe it was the Darlings, the woman’s voice on the answering machine, that insisted she move on. Roman had, and so had the phone company. Wasn’t it time she do the same? That’s what she reasoned when she rang the bell for Toya’s apartment and waited on the porch st ep for her to answer. “Who is it?” The intercom crackled with static. “It’s me.” She paused before saying more, searching for words that would have erased the months of time. She had none. “It’s Nadia.” The building door buzzed, and she walked through, but the door to Toya’s apartment was still closed. She knocked lightly. The lock clicked, the dead bolt slid, and the chain was removed. Toya cracked the door open and stood, arms crossed in front of her robe. “Wassup,” she said icily. “I needed to ask you something.” “You could’ve called.” “Yeah... but—” “But what?”
“I also needed to apologize,” Nadia said. “You were trying to get me out of the house for one night, and I made it into more.” “Mm-hmm,” Toya said. Her eyes traveled from Nadia’s face to her belly protruding beneath her black T-shirt. “How’ve you been?” “Tired.” Toya st epped back and opened the door wide. “You wanna come in?” “If it’s all right with you?” “Baby, who’s at the door?” Lou asked, st epping up behind Toya. Toya st epped back into his bare chest. “It’s Nadia.” “My bad,” Nadia said. “I didn’t know you had company.” “It’s just Lou. You can still come in.” Toya st epped back farther, forcing Lou to move out of the way, but Nadia didn’t move. Instead, her mind over owed with questions and assumptions. She gured Lou had to know where Roman had run o to, his new number, at the very least the club he would be promoting for the weekend. But knowing those things and telling her the answers were two entirely di erent endeavors. Noticing Nadia’s hesitancy, Toya asked, “Did you still want to ask me something?” “I... I... I did,” Nadia stuttered. “Well, what is it?” “I just, um, I just wanted to know if you knew where Roman was.” “He moved,” Lou answered. “About a month ago.” “You know where?” Nadia asked. Lou didn’t answer. Toya looked from her man to her friend, caught in the middle, with an answer she was unwilling to give. Nadia watched them communicate with their eyes, neither of them wanting to break a con dence on her behalf. “He told y’all not to tell me, huh?” Nadia said, ending the silence between them. “He’s having a baby with his wife,” Lou began. “They’re starting over. This gives them the best chance.” “And what about m y baby?” Nadia demanded. “What about it?” Lou asked. “He don’t know that’s his baby.”
“He don’t know that Deborah’s baby is his baby either, but that didn’t stop his ass from running behind her.” Lou shrugged. “That’s his wife.” “Toya, get ya man,” Nadia snapped. “C’mon, y’all, that’s enough,” Toya said, straddling the threshold between them. “Nadia, please don’t put us in the middle of this.” “Y’all been in the middle the whole fucking time. What do you mean don’t put you there? That’s where you started.” “Maybe so, but now we’re staying out of it,” Lou said. “We got our own family to worry about.” “Are you pregnant?” Nadia asked, wide-eyed and incredulous. “She is,” Lou answered. “We were actually celebrating before you knocked on the door, and we’d like to get back to it.” “Asshole, I believe I was talking to Toya.” “Hold up!” Toya raised a hand between them. “I know you mad and all, but Lou didn’t do anything to you.” “And you taking up for this nigga tells me everything I need to know about where I stand with you.” “So much for that sorry-ass apology you came over here with.” “You right. It was sorry, because I’m not. When Lou leaves you just like the others, don’t come crying to me because you knocked up and don’t know what to do.” “You mean the way you crying to us right now? Get the hell on, Nadia. Roman’s gone. It’s time for you to be gone too.” Nadia turned away from Toya and Lou without another word. The slam of the door pronounced the end of their friendship. Lines had been drawn. Sides had been taken. Lou and Toya versus Nadia and no one else. She was alone. Roman was gone. Gladys was playing pretend at being a doting grandmother, and Eugene, though he cared, was too old to concern himself with the goings-on of young people. He’d lived long enough to know that relationships changed, alliances forged could be broken, and sworn enemies could become something close to friends if enough time had passed.
For Nadia and Toya, that time would be more than three years. In the fall of 1984, Nadia walked into the tiny lobby of South Harper Montessori School, a storefront day-care center on Stony Island, with a three-year-old Tati holding on to her ngers ready to enroll her for school. She nearly bumped into Toya, who was walking out of the school with a three-year-old Desirée in her arms. After awkward h e l l o s and h o w a r e y o u s, they parted without an acknowledgment of what had happened before. Where and how they’d left their friendship. Their reacquaintance began with little updates shared nonchalantly between the curb and the girls’ day-care classroom. Lou and Toya breaking up shortly after Desirée’s birth. His move across the country to take an accounting job for NBC in Burbank. Toya moving from South Chicago to Englewood. Nadia getting a house through a rent-to-own plan. Her opening her own salon in her basement. By the time the girls were going to kindergarten two years later, there was a friendship that had progressed to taking turns at day-care pickup, happy hour meetups when they were able to get a sitter, Nadia doing Toya’s and Desirée’s hair, and the girls having sle epovers at least once a month. But they didn’t look back. They tried once as they lled out forms to enroll Tati and Desirée into the same magnet elementary school, which would funnel them into one of the city’s prestigious high school gifted centers. “Who else did you put down for next of kin, besides me and your mom?” Toya had asked, sitting in the basement salon. “No one,” Nadia had answered. “Is there someone else I should put down?” “I always add Lou.” “I don’t have that option. Remember.” “Are you ever going to tell Tati about him? About Roman?” “Why would I do that?” “That’s her father. She’s gonna ask.” “I’ll tell her the truth. He’s gone. I don’t know where he is. I’m enough.” “And what if she asks me?” Toya asked. “What do you mean, what if she asks you?” “It’s just, sometimes Desi talks about Lou, and Tati will ask her questions about having a daddy. One day she might not just ask Desi. She might ask me.”
“Then you’ll tell her the same thing you told me,” Nadia said, no longer making perfect capital letters to t in the square boxes of the enrollment application. “He’s gone and you don’t know where he is.” With her eyes, Nadia dared Toya to say di erent. To o er a di erent story. The one she should have given the rst time Nadia asked, Lou be damned. She didn’t. They nished lling out their forms, and then Toya retrieved Desirée from where she played in Tati’s room. No, Desirée could not spend the night. Toya o ered to drop o Nadia’s form at the school along with her own; Nadia declined. Toya left out the front door. Whenever Nadia o ered to do her hair, she declined. Their boundary lines were redrawn and reinforced by the lies they chose to live with. They were each other’s emergency contact, a family of sorts. And just like family, they didn’t always like each other, but they were there for each other due to necessity and proximity as well as their history. A past that looked at them daily in the present. Never buried. Never settled. Always waiting for an opportune time to get loud.
N o v e m b e r 1 9 9 9 Mimi’s dining room table was covered with food. Macaroni and cheese, collard greens, perloo rice, brown gravy, candied yams, corn bread, sweet potato pone, cranberry sauce from the can with the pre-indented ridges for slicing, and a fried turkey still dripping with peanut oil. Eleven people were gathered, holding hands, with their heads bowed, shifting from foot to foot, waiting for Bryan to nish praying. Before he said “Amen,” he asked everyone to say what they were thankful for. Bryan and Terry’s broods began with the speeches they’d pr epared at home with their parents. Their thanks were robotic and rehearsed; it was evident they didn’t know the meaning of the words coming out of their mouths as they looked toward either Lorraine or Chloe for approval. They in turn looked to Mimi for a rmation. Tati gritted her teeth. She released Mimi’s hand for a moment and rubbed her palms against the thighs of her mustard sweater dress. The thankful train was ping-ponging its way toward her and she had yet to think of something to say. Not with Nadia’s note still tucked in the magazine inside her purse hanging from the back of her chair. Gratefulness was not the emotion she connected with, but she had to pretend since she was next after Nadia, who gave thanks for her being home from college. “Tati.” Terry squeezed her hand. “It’s your turn.” “Umm... I’m thankful for... I’m thankful for...” Nadia lifted her head and narrowed her eyes. A demand to hurry up. But Tati was still pulling for words. She couldn’t answer that she had nothing to be thankful for. She had to invent. Find a sliver of truth in a lie. Mimi helped her stall. Bobbed her head back and forth like she was in church and told her to take her time.