“Yeah. He’s not the worst father, and that’s really been the hardest part—trying to figure out what to do with our children. We’ve been going back and forth about them all summer. They’re back in school in two weeks and we now need to decide if we’re going to enroll them in school in Atlanta or Augusta. It’s a whole big mess.”
“My parents got a divorce when I was nine,” A. J. said.
“Really? What was it like?”
“I think it hurt them more than it hurt me. My dad cheated and when my mother found out, she packed up me and my two older sisters and we moved into a motel. I hated it for a little while—the motel and living in one room with three women—but the older I got, the more I understood what she did. I was proud of her for being so strong. I only wondered why it took her so long to leave.”
“And what about your dad? What’s your relationship like with him?” I asked.
“It’s great.” He shrugged his shoulders. “My father was wrong for what he did, but the fact that he did it was just proof that he wasn’t supposed to be with my mother. It didn’t make him less of a father or a bad human being. His relationship with my mother was over, but neither one of them really knew how to let it go. I think maybe that when you lose something that you really liked, you have to consider that maybe you were supposed to lose that thing and stop looking for it so you can find something else.”
“There you go again,” I said.
“No, that wasn’t a line!”
“No. I mean, sometimes you have this way with words—with saying things in a way that makes it sound so simple. Like it was the perfect thing for me to hear at the perfect time. Just what I needed.” I picked my spoon back up and took a huge helping of the macaroni and cheese.
“Hold up, Cookie Monster,” A. J. said, pretending to karate chop my hand that was holding the fork filled with macaroni and cheese. “Unless you plan to come back here tomorrow morning, I need you to back away from the cheese.”
He jumped up and snatched the dish.
“Oh, one more,” I chided, pointing my spoon at him and the dish as I got up to chase him into the kitchen.
“No! This is mine! Control yourself, woman!”
He slid through the living room, nearly falling two times before I cornered him in the kitchen.
“You wouldn’t take food from a poor man . . . would you?” he asked.
“There’s still another pan,” I said.
“That pan is for Jesus.”
“If you don’t give me more food, you’ll see Jesus!” I joked.
He nervously set the dish on the counter and started laughing as I dug in.
Soon we were both laughing almost hysterically.
“You’re fun,” I said to A. J., standing behind him as he dropped the empty pan in the sink.
“Thank you,” he said. “You’re fun, too.”
He turned to me.
“I have a confession,” he said.
“Oh, no. Here it goes. You need a kidney? You’re part of some freaky Atlanta sex ring? You’re gay?”
“What?” he asked. “And hell no.”
“Your confession . . .”
“Why would it be any of those things?”
“I don’t know. What is it?”