He turned on music and grabbed me. Ignored my protests about the baby being sandwiched between us. We danced. Like we used to. The baby laughed. He smiled. He kissed me. We didn’t talk about my tears. We just danced until they stopped.
Some days he sent Gran to pick up the baby. Or Nadia would walk into the office and fight with Delia about who would keep her for the night. O’Shea didn’t argue. She scooped Olivia up and let Olivia rest over her belly. Walked away without a word. Sometimes she told me what time she would bring Olivia back. Cahir and I had drinks with Junie and decided, without looking at each other, that we wouldn’t ask why Junie turned down every man that approached her and paid for her drinks with a credit card we hadn’t seen before and didn’t have her name on it.
He ran his thumb over my knuckles when we were alone in the car. “You know you can’t ask her about it. You know what it’s like to be asked something before you’re ready to talk.”
I waited until he laughed to hit his shoulder. I wanted to be sure.
He introduced me to Korean horror films. He laughed when I jumped. He held me as we laid in the bed, sheets and legs tangled together, and talked about what we watched. Capitalism and kindness and charity and bravery and how far we’d go for our family. We whispered dreams for Olivia into the comfortable dark. Dreams for ourselves. He talked in calm tones about the house he wanted. Quiet, gentle. Easy. Never too much. Never gave me a chance to forget that he wanted more with me and from me. One night I talked back. A pool and a balcony off my bedroom so I could see the sunrise while I had coffee or journaled. He could deal with Olivia. He laughed. He kissed me after I told him in that roundabout way that I didn’t want to share a bed.
He took me out to dinner with my parents, Guy, and O’Shea and wasn’t subtle about why we were there. My mother squealed and showed me houses she saved on her favorite realty app. She bickered with Guy about why her picks were better than anything he owned or worked on. O’Shea and my father whispered to each other about land laws, politics, and politicians. Why Baltimore was asa great place for business as the City and where they should go next. That was how the conversation ended- “they”.
And I felt…warmer. There were days that the cracks were more apparent than others, when I had to admit that it wasn’t all getting better. Like the day I sat beside Cahir at the dining room table.
“I found a therapist. I went.”
He put Olivia in her crib and came back to the table. He sat beside me instead of across from me. “How was it?”
“She said I’m allowed to feel crazy.”
“You’re allowed to feel whatever you want.”
When was the last time I told him I loved him? I breathed for him? I looked for him before my eyes adjusted to the light? Reached for him before I fully left my dreams? “She said that trust is a mirror. But it’s also a mosaic. She said broken pieces can be something beautiful if I make them.”
“What do you think?”
“I think I want to see if she’s right.”
He kissed my forehead. “Okay.”
Cassidy
O’Shea was…pregnant. The kind of pregnant that made me uncomfortable when I saw her. Belly so big and what were once small breasts now so heavy. And a reminder. I felt like I’d always had Olivia but I looked at O’Shea and remembered it had only been about three months. I’d only lost my shit for about three months.
Wonderful.
“I need to talk to you,” I said over the music.
She didn’t turn. “Took you long enough.”
I laughed. “It only took me an hour to work up the nerve.”
“Nah. You’ve been working up the nerve for a while now, Cassidy.” She tucked a paintbrush into her locs. So much paint in her hair. “You’ve got a color. You know it?”
“Aura reading?” I sat at her worktable. “Gran did it for me once before she taught me.”
“Fun.” She smiled over her shoulder at me and rose. “I’m gonna mix it-your color. Tell me if I’m right when I’m finished.”
She mixed. A warm green with depth but not dark.
“Yes,” I said.
“Here’s Cahir.” She mixed together a rust orange.
“Yes.” I didn’t hold back my surprise. “Who are your people?”
She laughed. “Here’s Zion.”
She mixed a rich teal right next to my green. “It’s why I didn’t fight when he chose you and you decided to be his. Made sense to me. More sense than they did. Too dark for each other.”
Zion’s teal was swept off the table. A wet pop when it hit the concrete floor.
She mixed a paintbrush through Cahir and I’s colors. “Let’s paint.”
“Right on the table?” I took the paintbrush she offered me.
“Guy will clean it later. He likes to clean while he fusses at me.”
“What should we paint?”
“Don’t worry about that. It’ll be what it’s going to be.”
So I didn’t. I just dragged color across the table. She cleared space for us on the table when it became clear that I needed it.
“I was angry with him. With me.” I kept my eyes on our brushes. Hers lapped over mine. Brought definition. Additional colors. “I thought I was an idiot for going back to him. I thought I was being punished. For being too happy. For having too much of a good thing. It always falls apart when I have too much of a good thing.”
“The plight of the Black woman.”
O’Shea and I snickered.
“I thought- I thought the baby would never look like me and that mattered. I told myself Olivia would always be more hers than mine and one day Cahir would realize it and leave.”
“Mmm.”
No judgment in the sound. I took a deep breath. “I was angry. That was all. Angry and ready for some kind of goddamned justice. It wasn’t fair that he got his ready made family, and his smiles, and his beautiful kid and I had to be afraid.”
“Keep painting. This is good.” She dragged over a roll of canvas and pressed it into the wet paint. “The rest of the table. Come on. We’re on a roll.”
“Are you supposed to be carrying something that heavy?”
“No.” Guy’s drawl was always so pronounced.
So was the smile on O’Shea’s face. “I knew you were coming to help me.”
“Uh-huh. Give it here.”
She tilted her face up. He kissed her. Dwarfed her. “I did. I could smell you.”
“I believe that. I really do.” He winked at me. “She smells everything now. You need me to go?”
“No.” I shook my head. “You might help. I don’t wanna get in your business but I heard-”
“-that his ex popped up with some delusional idea that she’s gonna get him back. Child, yes. And getting rid of her hasn’t even been fun. How come, do you think, no one wants to play with me?” O’Shea’s question was for Guy, thankfully.
“Cause your playing involves low levels of cannibalism.” He wiped paint off her face and rubbed it into his pants.
“Are there levels to cannibalism?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking.
O’Shea smiled at me. “Ask your questions, baby.”
“How do you deal with it? With the past always being right there?”
She didn’t look at me. Her eyes were on her husband. “Nadia, right?”
“Nadia.” He left and came back with her.
“Oh, no. I didn’t mean to-” There were only so many people that could hear my business and Nadia was a great event planner and boss to Junie but…
“-this is what being a New Money Girl is.” O’Shea sighed a little when Guy settled her in his lap and Nadia handed her a water. “Problem solving is a team sport. Plus I can’t answer your question.”
“What’s the question?” Nadia leaned on Guy and rubbed O’Shea’s stomach. Had I ever had friends like that?
“How do you deal with the ex and the feelings,” O’Shea said.
“Oh.” Nadia’s gaze was sympa
thetic. “Do you have that problem too, Cassidy?”
“You do?”
“Fine’s ex.” She waved a hand in front of her face. “It’s…happening.”
“So I called in Nadia because we’re both coming at this from different angles, okay? I’m not worried about Guy leaving me. He’s made it abundantly clear that the only way I’ll get rid of him is to bury him.”
“I picked out my plot,” he said.
“Yes. It’s a gorgeous piece of land in the middle of nothing that will probably flood one day and have his body floating up to our great-grandchildren’s porch,” O’Shea said.
“Probably.” Guy nodded. “Keep life spicy.”
We laughed.
“So honestly the only question I’ve got to answer is if I want her to live to see tomorrow and what continent do I think she should do it on,” O’Shea said.
Guy and Nadia were relaxed. As if it were only the weather report.
Okay.
“Nadia has to deal with feelings,” O’Shea said.
“Mine and his,” Nadia said.
“Okay,” I said.
“The first thing I had to do was pull my head out of my behind and get honest with myself. Right? They had feelings for each other. Did I want to be angry? Did I want to cry? Did I want to have his ex investigated and followed?”
The small blessing was that I hadn’t even considered those things as options.
“I didn’t want that,” Nadia said. “I just wanted him. That was a turning point. Admitting that I wanted to stay. I wanted to fight. I’ve never fought before. I’ve never had to.”
I nodded.
“Fighting isn’t even physical really,” she said. “I’m going to do some of that.”
“I can’t wait.” O’Shea rubbed her hands together.
“Yeah, you can,” Guy said.
“It’s more psychological. And it’s all mine. Do I believe him? When he says he wants me do I believe him? Do I believe myself when I say I want to stay? Do I believe that my fears aren’t justified and need to be dealt with when they present themselves? Do I know that fear happens? Do I know it’s okay? Do I recognize when it controls my actions? When it makes things worse?”
I wouldn’t cry, I told myself.
“Most important: if the fear becomes reality, if he leaves, will I be okay? Am I strong enough, just me, to make it in a world without him? If the answer to that is no then it doesn’t matter what he does, I’m never going to get this right.”
I don’t know who handed me the tissues. I was just grateful they didn’t ask me why I cried.
Chapter Sixteen
Cassidy
A week later. My day to have Olivia at work with me. We liked to dress within the same color story. To take pictures before anyone else showed up. Just for us. My clients asked why she didn’t have a social media. Why I didn’t take advantage of having a beautiful, happy baby.
“Some things are just for us,” I said.
I changed the music until I found something she bounced her little body to. Cahir said that objectively she wasn’t clapping. I disagreed and sent him video to prove it.
An early feeding. A diaper change. A little whispering between the two of us. She rested easy in my lap while I meditated. She smiled at my clients. They knew not to ask to hold her.
I only put her down to take photographs. Then one of my clients brought me fabric and taught me how to twist and turn it to create a sling that kept Olivia close to my heart.
She still fussed sometimes. I understood. Sometimes I wanted to sit by myself too.
That day I peeled the fabric back to look down on her. “It’s okay. Mommy’s here.”
She settled. Drifted off to sleep.
And I stood, camera in my hand, and repeated my words back to myself over and over and over.
Not a single tear fell.
Cahir
She went to therapy once a week. She meditated every morning instead of going straight to the baby. She did things alone.
“I’m going for a walk,” she said one night. Except she didn’t walk. She hovered by the door with a vice grip on her keys. She stared at me, wild-eyed.
“Okay. Enjoy your walk.”
She nodded and a minute or so later she left. That first walk was short.
“I’m going shopping with Junie,” she said one Saturday.
“Okay. Take my card.”
She put on a fashion show when she came back and I was the reason she didn’t get out of the bed for anything but the bathroom, food, and the baby for the next sixteen hours.
Over dinner a few days later: “The guys are doing that brunch thing, right?”
I nodded.
“You should go.” She looked at me. “I want you to go.”
Not that brunch lasted long. O’Shea’s water broke as soon as things got interesting.
A few days later:
“Did you want to go to the movies tonight?”
I held still. “Who’s gonna take-”
“Gran. She’s complaining. She said Olivia should be learning how to run the shop.”
I smiled. “She’s smart enough.”
“So?” She didn’t meet my eyes and twisted her fingers.
Did she think I could ever say no to her? “No horror.”
She smiled at me.
She smiled at me a lot. We didn’t talk too much about it. But she smiled. And then she laughed. And then she reached for my hand. Not my naked body in quiet early morning when it’s easier to pretend. My hand. Before she got out of the car.
One day she led me to the couch and sat down. Her legs draped over my thighs. I thought about the first time she did that. The first time I realized we could be comfortable. And the day that changed everything for us, up on the Lonely Third.
It was my father that taught me life, history, existence, all of it was circular. What we released came back. What went around came back around. And the most important part of any journey was the beginning. The most important part of any relationship was the foundation it was built on.
I found myself grateful that Cash and I had magic nights, sloppy cheesesteaks, designer suits, dance floors, and tables too small for our food, our drinks, our elbows, before we had kisses and bodies pressed tight.
“So. Therapy.” She kept her hand in mine. Steady. “I’ve been in for a while.”
“You’ve done your bid with real courage and forbearance.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “Shut up.”
“I could try.”
“Or you could just do.”
“You have great legs.” It wasn’t the point, and I didn’t want anything but to see her smile again.
She did. “I’m glad I went to therapy. It…helps to have someone that doesn’t know me hear about my problems and tell me I’m not crazy in a way that isn’t fixable.”
I nodded.
“I didn’t want to fix it. That was the hardest part. To admit that there was part of me that liked wallowing. There was a part of me that just wanted to drown in self-pity at all the things that happened to me.”
Her voice was low, introspective. There wasn’t enough room in my chest for my lungs.
“It wasn’t a lot of fun. It didn’t make me happy. It kept me from Olivia. I want to be her mother.” She pushed her hair away from her face. “I want you to know that.”
“I do.”
“I am her mother.” Her smile was blinding. “I know that. And I know that I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing even though I watched all those videos online and read those books and listened to the podcast.”
“I found a documentary.”
“We’re going to watch it.” She nodded. “I have no idea what I’m doing, and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean I can’t figure it out and be good at this.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing either.”
“Oh, I definitely know that.” She yelped when I poked her in the side. “I don’t think you’re going to leave
me.”
The laughter was gone. I liked what replaced it.
“I don’t think I’ve ever thought it. I think I just-grounding, my therapist calls it. She said we have to ground ourselves in some kind of reality and our subconscious brain doesn’t care what type of reality it is as long as there’s a framework that dictates how we react to the world around us.”
“You needed a world where I’d walk out on you.”
“I needed a world that gave me reasons to hide. I’m coming out of that world. By being selfish of all things.” She laughed.
“Tell me about it.”
“I- you know how when you get on a plane they tell you that you have to put on your own mask before you can help someone else?”
“Yeah.”
“That.”
“That’s it?”
“You’ve never needed a lot of words to understand what I’m trying to say.”
No. Another kind of miracle that existed between us.
Chapter Seventeen
Cassidy
There were clothes on the bed for me. Just before the sun was up. A chipped coffee mug with flowers in it. A little piece of citrine. For hope. I was glad he was my friend. I was glad, while I breathed in wild flowers and their elegant, greenhouse grown cousins, to have a man that saw my world and dove into it. Absorbed so much of me and still stayed him. A quiet miracle but not a small one.
I showered and dressed. I made breakfast and coffee while he dressed the baby. He put her in her stroller and grabbed the basket. The farmer’s market basket.
I thought the smile would crack my face open. I thought the joy would crack each of my ribs. Clean cuts because it was so powerful and so unable to be contained. He took the basket and I pushed the stroller over the cracks in the sidewalk and I talked to him. About work and maybe a trip. Maybe we should take Olivia on a trip.
“Why not? We don’t fly commercial.”
I stood still for a moment and marveled at how casually he could sum up how my life had changed and what my daughter’s would be.
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