"I know," I said. The honesty surprised both of us. She blinked. Took another sip. Set her glass down harder than necessary. "Then why push it?" she asked.
Because stopping would mean acknowledging something I wasn't ready to touch, distance felt safer than truth, andif I kept moving, maybe nothing would ask me to sit still long enough to feel what I'd buried. I shrugged. "Kids deserve somethin' normal."
She stared at me, lips pressed tight. "Normal ain't pretendin'," she said. We stood there in silence. The clock on the wall ticking too loud. The fridge was humming like it had something to say. I watched her fingers wrap around her glass, knuckles whitening. She looked tired. Not sleepy. Worn. And for a second, I thought about reaching for her.
"I ain't tryna fight," I said.
She scoffed, staring down into the glass like it had answers in it. "You ain't tryna feel or fix either. But we not sittin' up discussin' that."
"Maybe that ain't somethin' I wanna do," I said before I could stop myself. The words slid out quick. Too honest. Too sharp. I bit my tongue the second they landed, jaw tightening like I could pull them back in. I couldn't. I reached for the liquor bottle instead, snatched it off the counter, and filled my glass to the rim. Didn't measure. Didn't care. I stood there now, shoulders squared, glass heavy in my hand.
She looked up at me slow. "Then why the fuck are you here, Jules?" she asked, frustration finally spilling over. "Because we can co-parent from two different households." She took a step closer, eyes flashing. "You wanna come in here and play Daddy, then lay up with me at night, but you don't wanna play husband. You don't wanna work through shit." She shook her head. "Go to hell, Jules." She finished the rest of her wine and set the glass down hard.
"I don't fuckin' know, Nia," I growled, the sound coming from somewhere low in my chest. "We been together since wewas kids. I don't know what this life look like without you. Without us as a family. I just don't fuckin' know." The words surprised both of us. I hadn't planned to say that. Didn't mean to.
She waved me off like she didn't have space for it. "Well I don't fuckin' know either." She turned to walk away. I moved without thinking, grabbed her arm just above the elbow. Not rough. Just enough to stop her.
"Don't walk away from me," I said. "We havin' a conversation."
She froze. Slowly, she turned back toward me, eyes hard now. Not angry. Resolved. "Let go," she said.
I didn't right away. That was the problem. I held on to shit too long, and didn't know when to loosen my grip on shit no more. On people. On control. On the idea that holding tighter would stop things from slipping through my fingers. I let her go. She stepped back like she needed space to breathe again. "This ain't a conversation," she said. "This is you standing in my kitchen, drunk, finally sayin' what you been avoidin' since you got home."
"I ain't drunk," I said.
"You halfway there," she replied. "And that's the only time you even talk." I looked away, jaw flexing. The kitchen felt smaller all of a sudden. Ceiling lower. Walls closer. Like the house itself was listening.
"You want me to say somethin'?" I asked. "Say what?"
She folded her arms over her chest, the robe pulling tighter around her body like armor. "I want you to acknowledgethat we broke," she said. "That whatever happened while you was gone and before that changed us."
"I acknowledge shit by showin' up," I snapped. "By bein' here. By takin' care of my kids. By keepin' a roof over they head."
She laughed again, soft this time. Sad. "That's survival, Jules," she said. "That ain't intimacy." The word sat there between us. I hated that she was right. I hated that I didn't know how to fix it without tearing down something else.
"You think I don't carry this?" I said, tapping my chest once. "You think I don't feel it?"
She looked at me long and steady. "I think you locked it away so deep you forgot how to reach it," she said. "And I'm tired of standin' outside knockin'." Silence dropped heavy. From down the hallway, a floorboard creaked. One of the kids turning in their sleep. The reminder landed sharp. "This ain't just about us," she added quietly. "They see it."
I exhaled slow through my nose. "I know," I said. That admission cost me something. "I sat in a cell for a year thinkin' about how I fucked up and started all this shit. How you fucked up and finished it. " I continued, voice lower now. "Thinkin' about what I could've done different. Thinkin' about my baby in the ground." Her breath caught. I kept going before she could say anything. "I don't talk about it because if I do, I might not stop," I said. "And I can't afford that."
She didn't answer right away. When she did, her voice wasn't loud. That's what made it worse. "Jules, I know what I did," she said. "You don't think I gotta look in the mirror and blame myself for this shit every day?" She pressed her fingers into her chest, robe shifting open with the movement, like she needed to anchor herself somewhere solid. Her eyes were wet,glossy in a way that didn't spill over, and that almost broke something in me. "I get you blamin' me," she continued. "But I lost a child just like you did. I had a hand in fuckin' up this happy home the same way you did. Yet everybody point the finger at me." Her voice cracked, but she didn't stop. "You don't think I beat myself up about all this shit?" she asked. "While still bein' a mother to my other kids? Because that didn't stop when I lost one. I didn't get a year to myself to sit and think. I didn't get to disappear." She swallowed hard. "I had to get up every day and still be Mama."
That's when my nerves started gettin' bad. My skin felt too tight. Like heat rising under it, nowhere for it to go. I grabbed the glass off the counter and drank straight from it, liquor burning all the way down. I hissed through my teeth before setting it back down harder than I meant to. "It's like you just expect a nigga to forgive you," I said. "Like that shit wasn't dirty as fuck." Both my hands flattened against the counter. The marble felt cool under my palms. I needed that, something solid to push against.
"Jules," she said, shaking her head, "I know what I did fucked you up. I know it did. But that shit is a speck of paint on the canvas compared to all the shit you done to me over the years." I dropped my head. She wasn't wrong. "And I'm not askin' your stupid ass for forgiveness," she went on. "I'm askin' for that same grace and chance after chance after chance I gave you."
The words hit me one after the other, steady and unforgiving. I stayed quiet. Because what was there to say? Jade wasn't the first. Just the most recent. Anybody who knew us knew I ran circles around Nia with other women whenever I got the chance. Especially after she gave herself to me young anddedicated her whole life to me before she even had the space to learn who she was. Back then, I told myself it was just how I was built. That love didn't mean ownership on her end. That I provided, protected, and showed up when it counted.
Now, standing in that kitchen with the house pressing in on us, I knew better. I took advantage of that loyalty. I didn't say it out loud. Didn't need to. The truth sat heavy enough in the air. "Yeah," she said, reading my silence for what it was. "Truth hurts, don't it? Shitty as fuck to actually look in the mirror at yourself, ain't it?" She rolled her eyes and turned away, walking down the hall without another word. Her footsteps faded.
The house felt smaller when she left the room. Like the walls slid in a notch closer. The hum of the fridge got louder. The clock ticked like it was counting something down.
I stayed where I was.
I thought about the cell. About how concrete smells damp even when it's dry. About how nights stretch too long when there's nothing to distract you but your own head. About how grief doesn't come all at once, but in waves, flashes, and in things you don't expect.
I thought about my daughter. About the way she used to fall asleep on my chest, fingers curling into my shirt like she needed proof I was real.