Chapter 18
eighteen
. . .
A couple of Saturdays after the Burton event, I was in my parents’ kitchen with a church donation check in my purse and my mother talking to me like she had all day.
The kitchen smelled like coffee, toast, and the lavender oil she rubbed into her hands after washing dishes.
My father was somewhere in the den with the television turned up just loud enough to let the whole house know he was already deep in somebody else’s game.
Sunlight came through the lace-trimmed curtains over the sink and made the yellow walls look softer than they did at night.
I set the envelope on the table beside my mother’s purse.
“There,” I said. “Tell Reverend Robinson not to go looking for me because I sent it with you.”
My mother glanced down at the envelope, then back up at me. “You could’ve just mailed it.”
“And y’all could just use Zelle, but here we are.”
That got the smallest smile out of her.
“You know your father doesn’t trust none of that.”
“Your husband doesn’t trust weather apps.”
“That too.”
I laughed and took the mug she slid toward me. Coffee, light enough to still taste like coffee and not dessert, exactly how she knew I liked it.
She looked at me over the rim of her own cup then, quiet for a beat too long.
“What?” I asked.
“You’ve been smiling all morning.”
“That sounds made up.”
“It isn’t.”
I sat down at the table and crossed one leg over the other, trying not to smile again and failing anyway.
That got her.
“There it is,” she said softly.
I looked down into my coffee. “I came over here to drop off a check, not get profiled.”
“You came over here glowing. The check just happened to come with you.”
That made me laugh into the mug. Because she was right.
Something in me had changed over the last few weeks, and even I had stopped pretending not to notice it.
Things with Micah had settled and deepened in a way I had not expected to feel this quickly. Not rushed. Not reckless. Just right in places I had spent a long time assuming were going to stay empty or temporary.
Dinners. Movies. His place. Mine. Falling asleep on his chest with a lamp still on in the other room and waking up in the middle of the night to him dragging a blanket higher over my shoulder without fully waking himself.
Finding his bag by my stairs because he had packed for work the next day instead of pretending every night with me still needed an exit strategy.
Kendra pulling up to steal me back for one girls’ night and leaving twenty minutes later talking about, “I hate to admit it, but that man might actually be worth you acting funny.”
That one had stayed with me for two whole days.
Because Kendra did not give compliments to men easily. She handed them out like they came from her personal savings account, and even then, she usually included a warning label.
But Micah had slipped into my life with a steadiness I could feel even when he was not in the room. Not loud. Not forceful. Not trying to rearrange everything so it had his name on it. Just present in ways that kept adding up.
And if other women noticed him, I could not exactly pretend to be shocked.
Micah posted so rarely that whenever he did, people acted like he had stepped outside after a decade in hiding.
A few weeks earlier, he had posted a picture of a plate of French toast I’d made at his place, thick slices dusted with powdered sugar, berries on the side, syrup catching light near the edge of the plate.
His caption was simple.
Sometimes I like my breakfast sweet.
I had smiled at my phone for entirely inappropriate reasons, remembering exactly how sweet breakfast had gotten that morning before we ever made it to the food.
Then I made the mistake of opening the comments.
A truckload of heauxs had apparently also enjoyed breakfast.
Who cooking breakfast for you now, Micah?
Let me know when you want something different on your plate.
I make pancakes too.
One had the nerve to leave nothing but a fork-and-knife emoji and a smirk.
I stared at that comment longer than I needed to, feeling a little flicker of jealousy before I could dress it up as anything more mature. Then I sent Micah a screenshot with one face.
He responded less than a minute later.
Then:
Don’t worry about them, Tal. You know some women stay hungry.
I had rolled my eyes so hard I almost strained something, but I let it go because what else was there to do?
The man was fine. Finer than most of Black Pittsburgh’s male population, if I was being honest. He made good money, owned his condo with views of the downtown skyline, moved through the world with that quiet confidence that made women look twice, and looked entirely too good behind the wheel of that sleek onyx black Benz.
Of course they wanted him.
I was not new to women wanting what looked good in public, but Micah never made me feel like I had to compete for what he had already placed in my hands. So I brushed it off. Mostly. Because the truth was simple, even if I had not said it to him quite like that yet.
He was mine.
All mine.
And more than that, he knew how to take care of what mattered.
It showed up in small ways that kept catching me off guard.
A text before a long meeting because he remembered I hated going into those cold.
His hand at my lower back when we crossed a street.
My favorite sparkling water in his refrigerator after I mentioned it once.
A picture of his tie options on a Thursday morning because, apparently, he had decided I had opinions worth consulting before nine.
Little things.
Real things.
The kind of things my mother had taught me to notice even when I wanted to act like I was above being moved by them.
She sat across from me now, watching my face with the same quiet precision she used when she was testing a cake for doneness without opening the oven too soon.
I took another sip of coffee.
She waited.
I sighed. “What?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You said plenty.”
“I said you’ve been smiling.”
“And I said that sounds made up.”
My mother leaned back in her chair, one hand around her mug, eyes warm and too knowing for my comfort.
“Mmhmm.”
I pointed at her. “Don’t start.”
“I haven’t started.”
“You’re absolutely starting.”
She smiled then, small and satisfied. “I’m just looking at my child.”
“That’s worse.”
“No, it isn’t.” Her voice softened. “You look happy.”
The words landed differently because she did not say them like a tease.
She said them like a mother who had been watching me carry myself for years and knew the difference between looking fine and being full.
I looked down at my coffee again, but there was no hiding the smile this time.
“I am,” I said quietly.
Her face softened immediately.
“Oh,” she said, and that one syllable held more joy than some people managed in whole speeches. “Good.”
I looked up at her, at my mother’s wise brown eyes watching me over her coffee. “That’s it?”
“What else you want? A tambourine?”
I laughed. “Maybe.”
She reached across the table and laid her hand over mine.
“You know what I want,” she said. “I want you happy. I want you safe. I want whoever comes into your life to know the difference between being blessed by your love and getting comfortable with your sacrifices.”
That sat with me.
Because that had always been part of it.
Not just disappointment. Not just bad dates and almosts and men who sounded better on paper than they did in real life.
It was the slow accumulation of learning how often women were expected to do the extra work.
To explain more. To hold more. To stay soft while somebody else stayed unfinished.
I looked down at our hands.
“For a while,” I said slowly, “I really thought maybe I was just going to be... auntie.”
My mother smiled. “You say that like it’s a punishment.”
“It isn’t.” I smiled too. “I’m a great auntie.”
“You are.”
“I just mean...” I exhaled once. “I got used to the idea that maybe that was enough. Single. Unbothered. Well off. Minding my business. Taking trips. Buying nice shoes. Showing up for the kids. Coming home to my own peace.”
“And now?”
I looked toward the den for a second, where my father’s laugh rose over the television and disappeared again.
“And now,” I said, “I don’t know if that’s all I want anymore.”
The truth loosened in me as I said it.
Not because it was new, but because it wasn’t hidden anymore.
My mother’s hand squeezed mine.
“That’s allowed,” she said gently. “Wanting more is allowed. Letting life change shape when something good comes into it is allowed too.”
I swallowed.
“I think I avoided real relationships for a while because disappointment started feeling too familiar,” I said. “After a point, it was easier to act like I had chosen distance than admit I just didn’t trust what was on the other side of closeness.”
She nodded slowly, like she had known some version of that already and was waiting for me to say it in my own time.
“Baby,” she said, “being careful can keep you safe. It can also keep you lonely if you let it become your whole religion.”
That one went all the way in.
I laughed softly and shook my head. “You and your wise expressions.”
“I had to develop a skill set.”
I leaned back in my chair and let myself smile without hiding it this time.
“It’s good with him,” I admitted. “Easy. Grown. And when it isn’t easy, it still feels honest.”
Her face changed then. Not surprised. Pleased in that deep maternal way that made me feel seen and protected at once.
“Then let it be good,” she said. “Don’t start suffering imaginary tragedies before anything has even gone wrong. Let the thing be what it is while it’s being kind to you.”
I looked at her and felt something inside me settle, because that was it. I had been waiting for the catch, the shift, the place where a man stopped being himself once he got close enough to matter.
Micah kept getting closer and feeling more like himself, not less.
My phone buzzed on the table beside my coffee.