Daina followed her mother downstairs, the box of old photographs in her arms. They took the steps slowly and carefully. Her mother was still agile, but sometimes the stairs gave them all pause. Daina knew that eventually, they’d have to shift the house and move their parents onto the first floor, but Jamilah didn’t think that day had arrived yet.
But still.
As soon as both feet hit the first floor, her mother opened her mouth to call out to her husband. “Jimmy!”
“What?” he called back.
“Don’t say what?” she yelled, aiming her body toward the living room.
He sighed so loud they could hear him from the hallway. Daina smiled and her mother chuckled as she righted her t-shirt, unconsciously primping herself to see her husband again.
When they entered the room, they found them sitting on the couch, going through a stack of papers.
“We found the wills,” he said, lifting a small stack of papers for their mother to see.
Jamilah stood and stepped out of the way, and their mother sank into the space she’d vacated, leaning into her husband’s side.
“Where were they?” she asked gently.
“In the safe deposit box,” he said with a smile. “I forgot all about it.”
“You were right,” Jamilah added. “They was in there with granny’s Bible.”
“Look at God,” their mother said with a wry smile. Their father chuckled softly.
“You wanna order lunch?” Daina said.
“Oh yeah, I’m hungry. You hungry, daddy?”
All the women in the room turned to look at the man who was the unequivocal center of their lives.
Daina and Jamilah had always been daddy’s girls. Their mother was the legend, but their father was the constant. Daina found herself scrutinizing her father the ways she’d scrutinized her mother, noting the mostly salt in his salt and pepper hair, the slightly yellow tint of the formerly whites of his eyes, and those deep wrinkles around the nose and mouth, a reminder of life well-lived.
“Whatever y’all wanna eat is fine by me,” he said easily, the familiar selflessness making Daina’s heartache.
They say all girls wanna marry a man like their father, and in hindsight, Daina thought that might have been a good idea. Her now ex-husband was the polar opposite of the man who’d dated her, loud and demanding, the kind of man who filled the room. It had been so attractive, until it wasn’t. For the first time ever, she wondered if her mother had ever felt the same; if she’d ever had a moment when everything she thought she knew about her husband had changed.
The doorbell rang and Daina turned quickly away, grateful for a distraction at that moment.
When Daina pulled the door open, a smile broke out on her face. “Auntie Tia!” She launched herself across the threshold and wrapped her arms around her aunt’s shoulders like she had her entire life.
As she was learning, she was never too old to go home.
Behind them, she heard Jamilah’s quick steps and her own cry. “Auntie Sheryl, I got tickets to the Giants game next Saturday, you coming?”
Sheryl’s laugh was like low thunder building into a crack of lightning, soothing and deep. But it was Tia’s soft sigh that filled Daina’s ears. “It’s all right, string bean. Get it all out,” she whispered.
And that was the moment Daina realized she was crying.