“Won’t hear me complaining,” Deja says, entering my room, still in her pajamas, and coming to stand beside me at the window. There have been awkward moments since she caught Josiah and me on Sunday. I imagine you never forget the image of your parents having sex. Not that she actuallysawthe act, but close enough. A few minutes earlier, and she would have seen her mom riding her dad like a roller coaster.
Even Mama’s Clorox couldn’t have scrubbed that from her brain.
But in between awkward moments, there’s been an ease, a loosening. I don’t expect her to forget overnight what she heard when Josiah and I argued or the anger she’s felt about it, but it seems like she’s trying. Like she heard me, believed me when I said I wanted things to be right between us and am willing to work on it.
“What do you want to do today?” I ask her.
“Eat? Watch TV. There’s a marathon on.”
“What kind of marathon?”
“A Different World? I’ve heard about it, but never seen it.”
“How have you never seen it? It’s one of my favorite shows of all time.” I hesitate, glancing at her from the side. “You wanna watch…together?”
Deja turns to look at me, her expression somewhat guarded, but not unpleased. “Sure, but can we make breakfast first?”
“Breakfast, yes,” Kassim says from the door, peering at us through the slits of a Captain America helmet. “Can we do sweet potato pie pancakes like Dad made?”
Deja and I share a quick look. We told Deja we would explain our “arrangement” to Kassim when Josiah returns from Charlotte. I’m not looking forward to it.
“I can’t guarantee they’ll taste like your dad’s,” I tell Kassim. “But I’ll try.”
They don’t taste like Josiah’s, but they aren’t awful. A few notches above merely edible. Kassim eats four, so I’m counting it a win. After breakfast, with the snow still falling outside, Deja and I crawl into my bed and turn on the television. The marathon is already underway, so we come in on season three and lose ourselves for hours on the campus of Hillman College.
“Is this how it was for you and Dad?” she asks, dipping her hand into the bowl of popcorn we brought upstairs. “Is this what it’s like at an HBCU?”
“I mean, this is fictionalized, of course, but yeah. It’s definitely inspired by real traditions and experiences like the ones I had at A&T and your dad had at Morehouse.”
She cradles a handful of popcorn, watching the students gather in the Pit to eat Mr. Gaines’s greasy food and digest his sage words.
“I want that,” she finally says.
My heart springs into action. “For college, you mean?”
“I don’t know. I’m still not sure college is for me, but I could have it now, right?”
“What do you mean,now?”
“I don’t want to go to Harrington for high school.”
My stomach sinks and I pause the episode, turning to give Deja my full attention. “It’s one of the best schools in the state, Day.”
“It’s the Twiwhite Zone. I want to be around more people who look like me.”
She gestures to the flat screen mounted on my wall. “Isn’t that one of the things you loved about attending an HBCU?”
“Well, of course. There’s nothing like it, but you…”
Wow. It hits me, the irony of my success being so shaped by my experience at an HBCU, and me thinking my daughter should only thrive at a place like Harrington.
“You’re serious?” I probe. “You really don’t want to go to Harrington?”
“I really don’t.”
“Where would you go?”
“The high school for our district is in walking distance. Lupe and I talked about it. She’s gonna ask her mom too. She doesn’t want to go to private school next year either.”