I felt Julise looking at me now. "Is that true, Daddy?" she asked. The car was quiet. I didn't dodge it. "Yeah, it is," I said. That was the first time I'd said it out loud, and I couldn't take it back. “I started the shit that fucked up me and your mama. Shit just got out of hand."
I saw her wipe tears away quick. "I just want everything to go back to how it was," she said.
Juste leaned back in the seat. "Well baeeebbyy girl," he said slowly, "that the funny thing about life. Sometimes shitchange. And sometimes shit will never be the same. But that's life. You gotta roll wit it. It is what it is."
While he was saying that to her, I was hearing it myself. Life don't rewind. You don't get to reset houses the same way you reset business deals. Once something cracks, the structure shifts, whether you acknowledge it or not. I looked at Julise in the mirror again. She looked smaller than she did this morning. Not physically, emotionally. That's when instinct hit me. The same instinct that make you build things bigger than yourself. Fatherhood. Sitting there in that McDonald's parking lot, my mind started spinning. My daughter had been drinking tequila in school for eight weeks. And I didn't see it. Didn't notice it. Because I wasn't looking. That realization didn't come with emotion. It came with clarity.
Later that night, I was at the table eating pizza and watching Juelz and Jezel eat pizza and do their homework. Nia had spent all afternoon raising hell with Julise, so everybody was walking on eggshells. The house had that quiet and tight, but it wasn't in yelling or chaos. Everybody was aware that something had been handled.
Julise had pushed Nia to her limit. She cussed her ass out good. I didn't interrupt it either. I refused to step in this time. Some corrections belong to a mother. And Nia handled it the way she handles most things lately, steady. She took down Julise's hair, washed it, and put individual plaits all over her head with beads on the ends like she was eight years old. Julise was mad as hell. She cried the whole time Nia did her hair. But Nia never stopped talking. Her voice never rose or cracked. Sheexplained to Julise that she had to remind her that she was a child. That part stuck with me. I realized, sitting there watching the scene earlier, that Julise hadn't been acting like one lately. She been moving like somebody older. Somebody trying to outrun something.
Nia threw all of her clothes away. Every last outfit Julise had been running around in that made her look grown. Crop tops. Tight ripped jeans. Nia bagged it up without emotion. She didn't make a show of it; she just folded them, stacked them, and threw them away. She left about an hour ago to stock up on khaki pants and navy-blue shirts. Julise hadn't came out of her room since she left.
The house was quiet except for pencils scratching paper and pizza boxes rustling. I leaned back in my chair, watching my son and daughter across the table. Juelz had his head down over a worksheet. Jezel was chewing slow while writing answers out. It was normal stuff, but tonight it felt different. "Y'all have fun at the aquarium with your mama?" I asked.
Jezel looked up immediately. "Yeah, Daddy, it was fun. We got to see sooo many animals." She stretched the word out like kids do when they excited about something. Her eyes lit up a little. "Sharks too?" I asked. "Yesss," she nodded. "And jellyfish." I nodded and imagined it. I should've been there. That realization didn't come with anything but fact.
"Where was you at?" Juelz asked without looking up from his paper.
I chuckled quietly. My boy was outspoken as hell. He never held back. "I take it you would've liked it if I was there," I said.
He kept writing. "Everybody else would've." His pencil never stopped moving. I stared at him a second longer than I meant to, just registering the statement. Jezel kicked him under the table. He frowned but didn't say nothing else.
Keys jingled in the door before I could respond. Nia walked through the door with two bags in her hands and that same mug she had been wearing most of the evening. Not angry, just done. "Finish up, you two," she said, looking at Juelz and Jezel. "It's almost time for bath and bed." Her voice was calm. They nodded and kept writing.
I watched Nia set the bags on the counter and start pulling folded clothes out.
Khaki pants. Navy blue shirts. Simple. She didn't acknowledge me in the moment. Just moved. And I noticed something while watching her.
She didn't look overwhelmed. She liked somebody who had accepted the situation and started adjusting to it. "You threw all her stuff away?" I asked.
She nodded without looking up. "Yep. She'll live." I nodded once. She wasn't wrong. Kids recover faster than adults when structure get reintroduced.
Julise finally came out of her room then. Her Eyes were puffy. But she wasn't crying anymore. She looked at the bags on the counter. Then looked at her mama.
Nia didn't say nothing. Just slid the clothes toward her. "Grab these and take them upstairs." Julise grabbed the stack and walked off without attitude or argument, just obedience. That told me Nia had already said everything that needed to besaid earlier. I watched her disappear up the stairs. Then I looked back at Nia. "I appreciate you for handling that," I said.
She shrugged slightly. "That's my job." She started rinsing dishes in the sink. Water running. Plates clinking. Juelz finished his worksheet and pushed it toward me. "You wanna check it?" he asked. I pulled the paper toward me and looked it over the math problems. I circled one answer. "You missed that one." He frowned. I showed him how to work it again. He watched closely and adjusted the numbers. He got it right the second time. "Good," I said. He nodded. Moments like that always felt easy to me. It had Clear outcomes. Parenting ain't always that clean, though. Sometimes the problems don't show up on worksheets. Sometimes they show up eight weeks deep in a vodka-filled water bottle at school.
Nia turned the sink off and wiped her hands. "Bath time," she said.
The kids got up and headed upstairs. Their footsteps echoed through the house. I stayed at the table watching the empty chairs. Nia leaned against the counter for a second before heading toward the stairs, too. She stopped halfway up and looked back. "You good?" she asked.
"Yeah." She nodded and continued upstairs.
I found myself downstairs, drinking and taking in the day. Taking in the different realizations that I had come to about my life and my capabilities as a father. I continued to sip on the glass of Don I'd poured up. The kitchen lights were low. Quiet kind of light. The type that make a house feel different at night than it do during the day.
The house had settled. I leaned against the counter, staring at nothing in particular. Just thinking. with a head full of quiet facts. I took another sip. The burn slid down my throat and settled in my chest. I fished my phone out my pocket looking through it. I had a few texts from Juste about business and Julise. Business never really paused, Even when life inside the house start shifting.
My phone vibrated again in my hand and I clicked on the message to see what it was. Three pictures from Jade loaded slow on the screen. Her laid across her bed in lingerie. Legs bent. Arch in her back. The camera angle low enough to make sure everything was showing. Her location attached under the pictures like a damn invitation.
I growled to myself locking my phone feeling my dick get hard. My body reacted before my mind could. That part pissed me off more than anything. I grabbed the counter bracing myself against it. That stupid bitch was on my nuts bad. Ever since that night at the bar she been moving like she knew something about me.
I downed the rest of the liquor in the glass heading up the stairs in search of Nia. The steps creaked under my weight but the house stayed quiet. I pushed the bedroom door open. When I walked in the bedroom she was pulling a t-shirt over her naked body covering her panties. Before she realized I was in the room I moved quick trying to wrap her up in my arms. Her skin was warm when I grabbed her. The type of warmth that used to settle my mind.
She tugged against me trying to get out my grip. "Move Jules." Her voice was flat. I didn't respond just moved my head kissing down her neck.
"Didn't I say move?" she said pushing me against my chest. I paused for a second looking at her.