CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
NAE
The first court-ordered overnight arrived with a new car seat, a printed schedule, and Amir wrapped around my leg like Malik was trying to take him to another country.
I watched from the window until he got out.
He opened the back door and pointed at the car seat before coming upstairs.
The gesture irritated me because it was clearly for my benefit.
It also relieved me.
Both could be true.
Amir’s overnight bag sat by the door packed like he was moving out.
Three outfits.
Two pairs of pajamas.
Pull-ups.
Wipes.
His blue cup.
The dinosaur.
Children’s fever medicine with the dosage written on a card, even though he was not sick.
A list of foods he would eat and a second list of foods he claimed he would eat before throwing them on the floor.
My mother had looked inside and asked whether Malik’s apartment had oxygen.
“Better too much than not enough,” I told her.
“Better is one extra outfit. You packed for a natural disaster.”
Now, Malik stood in my hallway holding the court schedule in one hand.
“You ready, little man?” he asked.
Amir hid behind me.
“No Daddy house.”
Malik’s face changed before he covered it.
“He been talking about going all week,” I said.
“Do not do that.”
“Do what?”
“Explain him to me like I cannot hear him.”
My back went stiff. Then, I looked down at Amir gripping my sweatpants.
Malik was right.
I crouched. “You remember your room at Daddy’s?”
Amir shook his head against my hip.
“The car bed,” Malik said. “And Grandma got your blocks.”
“No.” His eyes filled.
Mine tried to follow.
This was the first overnight in months. The temporary order gave Malik every other Friday at six through Sunday at four, as long as he used an approved car seat and kept me informed of the address where Amir would sleep.
I had asked for consistency.
Consistency had shown up and was making my baby cry in the hallway.
Instead, I sat on the floor with him. “You can be sad and still go,” I said.
He looked at me like I had betrayed the entire purpose of mothers.
“Come Mama.”
“Not this time. You going with Daddy, and Daddy bringing you home Sunday.”
Malik shifted his weight. “He can call you after bath.”
I looked up. “Seven thirty,” I said.
“Okay.”
“And if he asks for me before then—”
“I know how to call you, Nae.”
The old version of us would have argued over his tone until six became six thirty.
I zipped the bag. “Blue cup leaks if you turn it upside down.”
“All cups leak upside down.”
“Not the point.”
He picked up the bag.
Amir cried when I handed him over.
Not screaming.
The hurt little sobs he made when he wanted me to undo something.
Malik held him against his chest instead of telling him to be a big boy. “I got him,” Malik said.
I did not say, we will see.
I kissed Amir’s forehead. “Mama see you Sunday.”
“Now.”
“Sunday.”
I stayed in the doorway while Malik buckled him into the seat. I checked the chest clip from the sidewalk.
“Too low,” I said.
Malik moved it without arguing. Then, they drove away.
I stood outside until the car disappeared.
Upstairs, my apartment sounded wrong.
No cartoon voices.
No toy wheels on the wall.
No small person asking for a snack while already holding one.
I walked into his room, straightened a blanket that did not need straightening, and opened the co-parenting app.
ME: Please confirm when you arrive.
The message showed sent.
I stared at it.
Then, I added:
ME: He can call at 7:30. Medicine is in the front pocket for emergency only. Dosage card attached.
Still not enough.
I started typing that his bath water could not be too hot.
Deleted it.
Started typing that he slept better with the hall light on.
That one stayed.
I put the phone down and picked it back up before the screen went dark.
DAY ONES OR DIES had three messages.
KYE: Nae child-free weekend starts now
JORI: Do not call it child-free. Her child still exists.
KYE: Thank you Discovery Channel
ARI: We are at Kye house at 8. No pressure but invitation stands.
My first answer was no.
I had laundry. Court paperwork. A refrigerator to clean. Work clothes to lay out. All the things I complained I could not do with Amir home.
Then, I realized I was using chores to sit near the phone.
ME: I might come after he calls.
KYE: That means yes in mother language
At 6:41, Malik sent a picture through the app.
Amir sat at a small table eating spaghetti with sauce across both cheeks. A car-shaped bed showed behind him. The chest of my child was not visibly collapsing. Nobody had left him on a highway.
MALIK: We here. He eating.
I zoomed in until the picture blurred.
The apartment address matched the one filed with court.
I reacted with a thumbs-up because that was the response the information required.
At seven thirty, Amir called wearing dinosaur pajamas I did not pack.
“Daddy got dino,” he announced.
“I see.”
“Red bed.”
“The car bed?”
“Fast car.”
Malik’s voice came from somewhere off camera. “Tell Mama what we doing tomorrow.”
“Park. Grandma. Nugget.”
“Chicken nuggets,” Malik translated.
“I understood him.”
“Did not say you did not.”
The irritation tried to rise.
I moved around it. “You brushing your teeth?” I asked Amir.
“No.”
“Yes,” Malik said.
“No teeth.”
“Sounds like Daddy got it,” I told him.
Amir pressed his face to the screen. “Mama come?”
My throat tightened. “I see you Sunday.”
He frowned.
Then, something off camera distracted him and he dropped the phone.
The screen showed carpet while Malik said, “Do not run with toothpaste in your mouth.”
I laughed before I could stop it.
Malik picked up the phone. “We good.”
“Okay.”
“You can call tomorrow morning.”
“Okay.”
Neither of us found another reason to stay connected.
We ended the call.
At 8:17, I stood in front of Kye’s apartment wearing jeans, a sweatshirt, and the same large purse I carried everywhere.
Kye opened the door and looked at it. “Why you bring a diaper bag to movie night?”
“It is a purse.”
“That purse got snacks, wipes, Tylenol, a change of clothes, and probably a birth certificate.”
“The wipes are useful.”
Ari leaned around her. “She has crackers too. Let her in.”
Jori sat on the couch with takeout menus spread across her lap. She looked up. “Do you want us to ask about Amir or distract you?”
“Both, but not every five minutes.”
“Understood.”
Kye handed me a glass. “This got wine in it. Not juice. Do not give it to nobody under three.”
“Please shut the hell up.”
We picked a movie nobody watched.
For the first hour, I checked the co-parenting app each time my phone lit.
By the second, I left it face down on the coffee table.
Kye told us about a client who arrived with six bundles from three different companies and expected one hairstyle. Jori complained about a classmate who called blood pressure “the top number and the other one”. Ari showed us mockups from an email she had received after her exhibit.
A local creative agency wanted to meet with her.
“Paid?” I asked.
“It says paid internship.”
“Then, why your face look like they invited you to sell plates?”
“Because they want to discuss expanding the campaign. I do not know what that means yet.”
“It means ask about money before telling them your trauma,” Kye said.
Jori nodded. “That is actually good advice.”
Kye looked offended. “Most my advice good. Delivery just got a criminal record.”
I laughed hard enough to spill wine on my sleeve.
At eleven, we ordered diner food because none of us wanted the night to end enough to say it.
I sat in a booth without cutting anybody’s food.
I ate while it was hot.
I went to the bathroom alone.
Those should not have felt like luxuries.
They did.
Ari watched me unwrap a second straw out of habit.
“You okay?” she asked.
“I do not know what to do when nobody need me.”
Kye reached for the extra straw. “Give it here. I need it.”
I pushed her hand away.
Jori said, “You do not have to turn free time into productivity.”
“You sound like your professor.”
“I know. It disgusts me.”
I looked around the booth. “What did I even like before Amir?”
“Us,” Ari said.
Kye pointed at her. “That was needy.”
“It was true.”
I remembered middle-school sleepovers, long walks to nowhere, getting dressed just to sit on somebody’s porch. Before motherhood, before jobs, before every hour had a cost.
“I used to draw,” I said.
All three looked at me.
“Since when?” Kye asked.
“Freshman year. Clothes mostly. Rooms. I wanted to do interior design for like six months.”
Ari leaned forward. “Why did you never tell us?”
“Because then, I got pregnant and it felt stupid.”
“It did not become stupid because life changed,” she said.
At 12:16, Malik sent another picture.
Amir asleep in the car bed, dinosaur tucked under one arm, hall light on.
No emergency.
No message asking me to come get him.
I put the phone back down.
Sunday at four, Malik returned him wearing one sneaker on the wrong foot and dried syrup near his ear.
Amir ran into my arms so hard, I stumbled.
“Mama!”
I held him longer than necessary.
Malik carried the bag upstairs. “He did good. Woke up once asking for you, went back down.”
“What time he go to bed?”
“Nine thirty.”
“His bedtime is eight thirty.”
“It was one night.”
The argument stood between us, ready.
Amir yawned against my neck.
I chose the part that needed addressing.
“He is going to be tired at daycare tomorrow. Please keep bedtime closer next visit.”
Malik looked like he wanted to fight the word please anyway. Then, he nodded. “Alright.”
“Did he nap?”
“Forty minutes in the car.”
I wrote it in the app after Malik left, along with the pickup and return times.
Not to build a case out of every imperfect choice.
To keep the schedule honest.
Amir spent the evening attached to my body. He cried when I went to the bathroom and demanded the blue cup even while drinking from it.
The transition had consequences.
After he fell asleep, I pulled an old sketchbook from the top of my closet.
Most pages were empty.
On the first used page, sixteen-year-old me had drawn a bedroom with a round chair, too many pillows, and a vanity I could not afford.
I sat at the kitchen table and drew the car bed from Malik’s picture. Then, I added a small boy asleep inside it.
My lines were rusty.
The picture was not good.
I kept drawing anyway.