Nia #3
She blinked like she didn't expect that question.
"I don't know," she said after a second.
"I just don't like feeling like I'm waiting on something bad to happen.
" I looked at Julise sitting there in that nail salon chair, her jaw tight, her eyes glassy but trying not to be.
She was angry, yes. But underneath that anger was fear. And underneath that fear was love.
"Listen, Julise," I said, my voice even.
"You have every right to feel the way that you do.
I want you to know that no matter what happens between me and your daddy, it'll never change how we love you or your brother and sister.
That will forever remain constant." I didn't blink when I said it.
I wasn't trying to overpromise anything else.
"I want you to know that you can come to me and talk to me about anything," I continued.
"No matter what it is. No matter how bad it is.
" She studied me like she was testing if that was real or just something mamas said to make kids feel better.
"I need you to stop with the stunts you pulling, Julise," I added, my tone still calm but firmer now.
"You wasn't raised like that, and you better than that.
I don't want that name or that life for you.
You hear me?" She wiped tears away quick like she didn't want to be caught crying. She nodded.
"I hear you," she said quietly. I reached over and squeezed her hand once.
"You not bad," I said. "You hurting." She looked at me then, and something in her eyes softened.
"I just didn't know where to put it," she admitted.
"I know," I replied. I didn't know where to put mine either for a long time.
Grief don't come with instructions. It just sit heavy and dare you to carry it.
I was grateful that me and Julise were able to have that moment together.
It made a difference. It made me see what was really going on with her and how it was all taking a toll on her.
She wasn't rebelling for attention. She was reacting to instability.
Reacting to silence, and to two parents trying to survive something neither of us had faced head on.
Spending quality time with my kids had made me feel whole again in a way that I hadn't felt in a long time. Not because they filled some empty space. But because I wasn't moving around them like a ghost anymore. I was present.
Later that night I leaned up against the counter sipping a glass of wine while writing in my journal.
My therapist had tasked me with doing it daily, and it was something that I had been able to keep up with.
The house was clean. Counters wiped. Dishes stacked.
the kids things pushed back into corners.
The kids were upstairs asleep and I'd just straightened up the house for the night. I wrote slow.
If nothing changed, could you live like this for five more years? That question still sat in my chest. Could I? Yes. Would I? I wasn't sure anymore. The difference between those two answers felt important.
I wrote about Julise. About the way her voice cracked when she said she felt like I ruined the family.
How she didn't want to get used to tension and the fact that she noticed everything.
I wrote about the aquarium and how whole I'd felt spending time with the kids.
For years, I moved in rhythm with him. Now I was moving on my own tempo.
I heard Jules' keys jiggle in the front door as he entered the house.
He hadn't been here in the last two days, and honestly I didn't care to question it.
I wasn't counting his absences anymore. I wasn't building narratives in my head about where he was or who he was with.
If he wanted to be here, he would. If he didn't, that would show too.
I didn't feel the need to chase clarity.
He stopped at the refrigerator looking at the pictures of me, Jezel, and Juelz at the aquarium on Saturday.
I had printed them earlier and stuck them up with a magnet.
"Y'all went to the aquarium?" he questioned, pointing at the picture.
I nodded my head, sipping from my glass.
"Damn, it would've been nice to go," he said.
"I bet it would've," I said. My tone wasn't sharp, but it wasn't inviting either.
He turned slightly, studying me. "You could've told me," he added.
"I didn't know you were coming home," I replied in an exact tone. He opened the fridge, grabbed a bottle of water, and leaned back against the counter across from me. "You mad?" he asked.
"No." He waited like he expected more. There wasn't any.
"I been busy," he muttered.
"I figured," I said. That used to be the part where I'd press. Where I'd ask where, with who, doing what. Now I didn't. Because my peace wasn't hanging on his explanation. He watched me for a moment longer. I rinsed my glass and set it in the drying rack.
As I turned off the kitchen light, I realized something quiet but certain had shifted.
I wasn't living in reaction anymore.
I was choosing.
My tone.
My space.
My peace.
And whether this marriage stretched or snapped, I wasn't waiting to see what happened to me. I was already becoming someone I didn't have to abandon to survive.