Adair looked at his best friend, jaw tight. “I think that’s the problem. I wanted easy. I wanted her to just...forget. To love me like nothing happened. To make it make sense when it never could.”
“Yeah,” Tate said. “But it don’t work like that…trust me I know.”
“I know that now.”
“So what now? You done? You finally movin’ on?”
“I think I have to be,” Adair admitted. “Not for her or me. For Ade. For all the shit I already broke. I can’t keep asking her to carry that weight and I can’t keep showing up hoping she’ll hand me back pieces of her I destroyed.” He looked down at his hands. “I walked away, Tate. For real this time. Took all the hurt with me and left her with the peace I should’ve never stolen.”
“You think she’s good now?”
“Ion know but she better off without me and that’s all I want. I just want Sabine to be better. To feel better. To heal and shit. I’m cool with it bein’ fuck me.”
The words hurt to say…but they were true.
“She working on something big,” Tate said after a while. “Narri said it’s a whole software program.”
Adair nodded slowly. “She always said she wanted to create something. Something with her name on it.”
“Well, now she is.”
They both looked back toward the yard. Nariyah was spinning in circles. TJ was chasing bubbles. Ade was putting his hands over the sprinkler, trying to stop the water that sprayed out once he removed them.
Adair smiled faintly, the ache in his chest dull but steady.
“She’ll be good,” he said, voice steady now. “They both will.”
Dinner was quiet. Just the two of them.
Pam had dropped off a tray of baked chicken, cabbage, and mac and cheese like always—said she had too much and didn’t want it to go to waste, but Adair knew better. She always cooked extra during his weeks with Ade. Said she didn’t trust “his non-cookin’ ass” to feed her grandbaby properly.
Ade sat across from him at the kitchen island, kicking his socked feet back and forth under the stool. He was picking the cabbage out of his food one leaf at a time, even though Adair had already told him tojust eat around it.
“Daddy,” Ade said suddenly, without looking up. “How come we don’t live in the same house as Mommyallthe time?”
Adair’s fork paused mid-air. He’d asked before, in smaller ways—like why there were “two homes,” or why Mommy dropped him off sometimes instead of Daddy picking him up but this was different. This was deeper. He was more aware now. More curious. More ready.
Setting his fork down slowly, he replied, “that’s a good question, man.”
Ade kept his eyes on his plate, stirring his food in little circles. “You don’t love Mommy anymore?” he asked, quiet.
Adair sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. The question didn’t come with attitude. Just...confusion. Curiosity. That little-boy kind of hurt that tried to make sense of what was going on around him even though most of the time he ignored it.
Adair shifted in his seat, then leaned forward, forearms resting on the edge of the island. “Where’d that come from?” he asked softly.
“We don’t live together no more. I don’t see you kiss Mommy…or tell her you love her.”
That hit Adair square in the chest. It was simple. Innocent but it cut deep. Ade wasn’t over it—not having both parents in the same house. He might’ve adapted to the schedule, might’ve stopped asking about sleepovers or why he had two of everything but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. It didn’t mean he didn’t notice what was missing.
They hadn’t been together in a while now but for Ade to say that, tosay it like that, meant it had still been sitting in him. Quiet. Heavy. Probably for a long time.
“Me and your mom? We love each other a whole lot. Always will. But sometimes…people who love each other can grow apart.”
“Why?” Ade frowned. “Why do that happen if they love each other?”
Adair stood, came around to the other side of the island, and sat beside him. He put an arm around his son’s shoulders. “Because sometimes love isn’t enough to fix what’s been broken and sometimes the pain people cause each other…it can’t be undone.”
“Do you still love mommy?” Ade leaned into him a little.