Should Have Known Better

“Me, too,” I said.

“It’s been so nice being here—with your family. I really enjoyed it.”

“We enjoyed it, too.”

“I insist that you come visit me in Atlanta. And I’ll come visit you again. And—”

Reginald honked the horn. We looked at the car. He pointed at his watch.

“Don’t worry,” I said, laughing at Reginald’s anxiousness. “We’ll keep in touch.”

“Dawn, I want you to know that all of that old stuff from the past, it’s in the past,” she said. “I love your family. We were all wrong. You made a great decision marrying Reggie. You guys have the perfect life. Everything a girl could want.”

“You think so?” I said.

“You have it all.” She looked into my eyes. “Maybe I’ll be as lucky as you one day.”

The minutes after Sasha left with Reginald and R. J. went by slowly and without any form of exclamation. The house was silent. Nothingness pushed its way through the hallways the way it does at a funeral home before a family has come to grieve some lost love. I walked through the empty rooms, fixing and reorganizing, putting away and tucking, reminding myself that Sasha was right: my life was great. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good. And I was so glad she could see it. I needed her to see. I know that sounds petty or childish, but I’d been living for too long with the idea that everyone thought I’d messed up my life and now everyone would know that I was doing fine. Hey, I wasn’t some Spelman alum interviewing people on CNN, but I had a good life of my own. I had a husband and two children. A home. It was no fantasy, but it was mine.

I found one of R. J.’s battered action figures in the dining room and went to take it to his room. As I neared the end of the hallway where the room was just across from Cheyenne’s room, I remembered that she was there in the house with me. She’d been so quiet since Reginald told her that she couldn’t go to the game. I expected some big fight. Some big show— while she pushed me away when she didn’t have a use for me, she tended to cling to her father—but there was nothing. She’d stomped off to her room and closed the door.

I set the action figure on R. J.’s bed and tiptoed to Cheyenne’s door. I pressed my ear against it. There was silence. I stepped back and looked at the door. I wasn’t in the mood at all to fight with Cheyenne. If she was handling her anger with her father by being silent, I wanted to leave her alone and just hope she’d come out of her funk a little happier than she’d been before it appeared.

I stood there and looked at a group of floating pastel balloons Cheyenne had painted on the door a few months ago. I was about to walk away, but then I stopped myself. Maybe, I thought, maybe we could just have a good time. Just me and her. We could talk or watch a movie together until Reginald and R. J. got back.

I knocked. There was no answer. I knocked again and then I opened the door slowly.

The lights were on in the room. Cheyenne sat on the floor in the middle of a little purple carpet she’d set in front of her bed. Everything in the room was purple—picture frames, stuffed animals, a comforter set, and curtains.

She was playing one of her handheld video games and didn’t look up at me.

I knocked on the inside of the door.

“Chey, what are you up to?”

“Nothing.” Her voice was flat and tight.

“Nothing?” I repeated, walking into the room. “Doesn’t look like nothing to me.” I sat on the bed. A purple canopy stretched over the frame.

“Well, if it’s not nothing, what is it?” she asked.

“Looks like one of your games. Nintendo?”

She laughed. “No. Playstation.” It had been a setup.

She clicked the game off and chucked it onto the bed.

“It’s so boring,” she said, getting up from the floor. “I hate it here.” She went and flopped into a furry purple beanbag she’d gotten for Christmas.

“It’s not that bad,” I said. “I’m here.”

She stared at me like I was crazy. Sometimes talking to her was like going into battle.

“All R. J. is gonna talk about when he gets back is that stupid game,” she went on like I’d said nothing.

“Chey, I know you wanted to go to the game, but they only had three tickets. Daddy will take you next time,” I said. “Who wants to be at a funky old basketball game anyway? And with the boys? We can spend quality time together. I can play Playstation. Or we could watch a movie.”

Cheyenne cut her eyes at me again and I felt it right in my throat.