Mama’s speaking at one of her charity luncheons, so I am here at the house alone.
Me: Alright. Give me an hour.
Kayla: You have thirty minutes.
Ugh. Drill sergeant.
My Uber drops me off at Kayla’s Brookhaven home approximately thirty minutes later. When I ring the doorbell, she answers with a child on one hip and another holding her hand.
“You’re late,” she says, turning and striding back through the marble tiled entrance with its soaring ceiling and dramatic staircase. I follow her slim figure back into the living room. It’s a zoo, toys everywhere, children in various stages of undress, hair in disarray, and a collection of sippy cups congregating on the glass coffee table. In contrast, Kayla in her luxury loungewear and brightly colored silk head wrap looks completely serene and unbothered.
“I’m not late,” I tell her, bending to hug my niece Triniti, who’s working on a Rubix Cube. “Hey, Trin. I didn’t know kids still played with things that don’t require Wi-Fi.”
Triniti looks up, her expression morphing from serious to less serious when she sees me. Ever since she was a baby, this girl has made you work for her smile. It makes them all the more beautiful and worth it. She flashes me a small one now, standing and wrapping her arms around my waist.
“Hey, Aunt Kimba,” she says, her voice low and sweet.
A boy, the spitting image of Kayla’s husband Lawrence, runs up to me. He’s six now, if I’m keeping them all straight. I take inventory and make sure they each get a hug. In ascending order there’s the oldest, Triniti, the twins Ida and Gwendolyn, the one boy Joseph, named after my father, and finally the youngest, still in diapers, Zaya.
“You hold Zaya,” Kayla says, thrusting the baby at me. “I want to get Ida over with. She’s tender-headed.”
“I am not,” Ida says, sitting on the floor between her mother’s knees.
Kayla tugs the comb through one swathe of Ida’s wild hair and the poor child screeches, catching the comb before it can go any farther.
Kayla gives me a what’d I tell
you look, and moves Ida’s hand.
“Tender-headed,” she mutters.
I bounce Zaya on my lap. I didn’t grow up thinking about how many children I would have. I don’t remember Kayla doing that either, but she and Lawrence got right down to the business of making babies soon after they married and haven’t stopped since.
“I have two sinks down here,” Kayla says. “I can wash Ida if you can get Trin.”
“Crazy thought,” I say, “but ever considered taking them to a salon? They’re all the rage these days.”
“I do sometimes.” Kayla shrugs. “It’s not just about getting the hair done. It’s about the doing. Don’t you remember how we’d complain when Mama did our hair, but that was at least an hour where I had her undivided attention? She was always teaching, doing something with Daddy or out in the community. When she did my hair, though, she was all mine.” She kisses Ida’s forehead, the usual stern lines of her face softening. “I want my girls to have that sometimes.”
Even though the lavishly decorated living room looks like a natural disaster struck, Kayla has this ecosystem, like every other thing in her life, under control. She probably doesn’t even need my help.
She doesn’t need my help but wanted me here. She doesn’t just want me to bond with the kids. I could be wrong, but I think my sister wants to bond with me, too.
She’s allergic to sentimentality, so I downplay my discovery.
“Cool, cool, cool,” I say with a little grin that she returns after a pause.
“Lawrence always says he has no idea how we ended up having your baby,” Kayla says wryly, smiling over Ida’s volcano of hair.
“My baby? What do you mean?”
“Zaya. She looks just like you, Tru. You have to see that, right?”
I glance back to Zaya on my lap. Dark, curious eyes stare back at me. How did I never notice that Zaya has my eyes?
She reaches for one of the curls resting on my shoulder, pulls it and releases, letting it spring back into place with a bounce. She squees and does it again and again as if that is the funniest thing. She’s the most beautiful little girl with her satiny brown skin and slobbery smile. How does Kayla not give her every single thing her heart desires every day? I would. I’d be that mom.
I’d be that mom?