“Does Grip seem like he’s forgotten where he came from?” I demand, fire licking under my words. “Like he doesn’t understand his culture? Like he’s running from it?”
Her lips part to reply, but I don’t even wait for her answer, because what can she say but no?
“Well, all right then,” I barrel ahead. “Our kids won’t be that way either. I haven’t once tried to take Grip away. If anything, I’m constantly trying to get in. Can’t you see how much that matters to me?”
I pause, hesitant to say my next thought, but I press on since I’m already in the deep end.
“And by the way, our first Black president is half white.”
“Huh?” Confusion puckers her expression. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means that his mother was a white woman from Kansas, but who would know that looking at him? He looks like any other Black man, and there’s a good chance that my children will, too. They’ll have to navigate this world as Black people, and you know what that means a lot better than I do.”
I pause while my words settle in the air and hopefully change her mind.
“Instead of criticizing me for mistakes I haven’t even made yet, waiting for me to fail at raising Black children, why not help me get it right?” I ask. “They’ll be your family, Jade, just like Grip is. You may not think of me as your family, but they certainly are.”
She doesn’t get the chance to respond because the door swings open and Grip walks through. Stopping short at the threshold, his eyes do a slow sweep between the two of us, like we’ve probably been fighting and he’s checking for bruises and bald spots.
“Uh, hey,” he says with deceptive ease. “All good?”
I bend an inquiring look on Jade, asking her silently if we are indeed all good or not. She sighs, adjusts her cap, and tips her head in a nod.
“We good.” The cousins hold a stare for a few seconds before relinquishing grins simultaneously. Grip walks over and hooks his elbow around Jade’s neck, stealing the cap from her head and playing keep-away for a few laughing seconds.
“I’m hearing good things about you,” he says, his smile lingering and wide.
Jade shrugs and replaces the cap, pla
yfully swatting at his head when he tries to kiss her face.
“Well I’m doing good things.” She laughs at her own cocksure response and huddles deeper into his chest.
“I missed you, girl.” A serious inflection strips some of the humor from his voice.
“I missed you, too.” An impish twinkle leaps in Jade’s eyes. “We gon’ exchange recipes or some shit next? Bristol got you so whupped you talking like a chick now?”
Hearing my name in the context of a joke, of her teasing him, jolts me into the conversation. It’s an olive branch of sorts, the first she’s ever extended to me.
“Don’t blame me.” I lean against the sink, folding my arms over my chest and laughing. “He came to me like that.”
“I came like what?” Grip asks, trying to appear affronted.
Sweet. Considerate. Kind. Thoughtful.
All the things I’m thinking, I see reflected in Jade’s eyes, too, as she looks up at her cousin, still tucked into his side.
Yes, we both love him. We have him in common, and maybe one day, it will be enough.
Chapter 33
Bristol
WEAK LIGHT FILTERS through a gap in the drawn drapes, illuminating a sliver in our darkened bedroom. Dawn bathes the room in gray. There’s no color in the sky yet, no brightness. Hundreds of mornings like this already stretch behind me, with Grip asleep at my back, folded around my body in protection, in possession, and I can only hope for a million like it to come. Some of those mornings, I’ll hear banging on our bedroom door. I’ll see little legs flying across the room and feel little bodies sliding between us under the covers. Having Grip’s children and sharing his life is a privilege that, years ago, I never imagined I could have, and now every morning I wake up envisioning it.
“You awake?” Lingering slumber roughens Grip’s voice, deepening the timber.
“Yeah, a little,” I slur sleepily.