Am I a Good Mother?

Sasha

Lamont kissed me like we had nowhere to be.

For once, I let myself believe it.

There were no little hands knocking, no teenagers asking for money, no grown sons calling because adulthood had turned out to be more expensive than they expected. Just his palm against my cheek and the new engagement ring catching the light beside us.

“You keep looking at that thing,” he whispered.

“Because I waited long enough to get it.”

He laughed. “You planning to punish me for that forever?”

“Depends. How long is forever?”

He pulled me close, and for a little while, the rest of the house fell away.

Later, with the bedside lamp on and my robe tied, I rested against him while he scrolled through pictures of places we could get married.

At forty-one, I had seven children, two grandchildren, and a washing machine that sounded like it was trying to leave the house. A wedding felt almost unreasonable.

But I wanted one.

I wanted to stand somewhere pretty and hear somebody promise to stay.

“Small ceremony,” Lamont said. “Your mama. The kids. A few people we actually like.”

“So, six guests?”

He nudged my shoulder.

“You know what I mean.”

I studied a photograph of a garden with white chairs. “Camille could help pick the flowers.”

“She'd like that.”

“I hope so. I can barely get two sentences out of that girl lately.”

“She's twelve, Sasha.”

“I know how old my daughter is.”

“I'm saying it's a hard age.”

I sighed. “Everything's a hard age in this house.”

Darius, my oldest, was twenty-four and convinced becoming a father meant nobody could tell him anything. Malik was twenty-one and still trying to figure out which bills could survive being ignored. Isaiah, sixteen, could argue with a stop sign.

Then there was Camille.

Quiet Camille. The one teachers used to call a pleasure to have in class. The one who remembered where I put my keys.

And finally, our five-year-old triplets: Noah, Micah, and Nia. Two boys and a girl who could turn a clean room upside down before I finished saying their names.

Lamont and I had been together nearly seven years. We had built a life one grocery run, one fever, one overdue payment at a time.

I thought we knew everything that mattered about each other.

Then my phone lit up.

I reached for it before Lamont could see the screen.

He noticed anyway.

“Who is it?”

“Nobody.”

The lie came too quickly.

His arm loosened around me. “Nobody got a name?”

I opened the message.

I want to see my children. We need to talk. —Terrance

For a moment, I could hear the little fan on the dresser better than I could hear my own breathing.

Terrance was the father of my four oldest children. Six years ago, a prison sentence had taken him out of our daily lives. His calls had become less frequent, then stopped. I had told myself the silence was a kind of peace.

“Sasha.”

I locked the phone.

“It's Terrance.”

Lamont sat up. “What does he want?”

“To talk.”

“From prison?”

I adjusted the sleeve of my robe.

“He got out three weeks ago.”

Lamont stared at me.

“Three weeks?”

“I didn't know how to tell you.”

“You open your mouth and say it.”

I moved away from him. “Don't talk to me like that.”

He rubbed both hands over his face, then lowered his voice.

“Has he been here?”

“No.”

“Have you seen him?”

I looked at the garden photograph still glowing on his phone.

“Once.”

Lamont stood.

“It wasn't like that,” I said. “He needed some money. He said he was trying to get situated.”

“And the children?”

“I wanted to know he was stable before I brought him around them.”

“Did you tell Camille?”

“I haven't told anybody.”

He walked to the bedroom door and pulled it shut. It had been resting slightly open; the old latch only caught if somebody pressed it firmly.

Then he turned back to me.

“You can't keep deciding what everybody gets to know.”

That hurt because there was truth in it.

But I was tired of being the person who had to decide everything, then take the blame when the decision went wrong.

“Tomorrow is supposed to be a happy day,” I said. “The kids are coming for breakfast. My mama's coming. Can we please get through the engagement announcement before we deal with him?”

Lamont looked down at my hand.

“Tell the older kids tomorrow,” he said. “They deserve to hear it from you.”

“I know.”

He sat beside me again. I took his hand.

“I wasn't trying to hurt anybody.”

“I believe you. But they're still going to be hurt.”

I leaned against him, wishing love could make a hard conversation disappear.

Outside our closed door, a floorboard creaked.

“Camille?” I called.

Nothing.

I opened the door and looked into the hall. The bathroom light was on. Camille's door was closed. From the triplets' room came Micah's soft snoring.

I turned off the bathroom light and went back inside.

I never checked on my daughter.

I never asked whether she was awake.

Lamont reached for his phone when it buzzed.

“Reggie wants to know if we're doing anything tomorrow,” he said.

His friend had been coming around for years. Fixing a loose cabinet. Watching a game. Bringing a bag of ice when we had a cookout. After a while, I stopped thinking of him as company.

“Tell him he can stop by after breakfast,” I said.

Lamont typed the invitation while I answered Terrance.

Then I put my phone away and let myself think about wedding flowers again.