When I check the mirror again, I only see her profile. She’s studying I-85 through her window. The six o’clock traffic is basically a parking lot, a fleet of Atlantan commuters inching forward and negotiating tight spaces in a game of vehicular Tetris.
“I was asking how your day went,” I try again.
“It was all right,” Deja says, eyes fixed on the traffic beyond her window. “Dad’s at the restaurant?”
So much for connecting.
“Uh, yeah.” I tap the brakes when a Prius cuts in front of me. “You guys can eat dinner there and your dad’ll take you home once you’re done.”
“Why?” Kassim asks.
“Why what?” I wait for the Prius to decide what he wants to do.
“I mean where willyoube?” Kassim presses.
“It’s Soledad’s birthday,” I tell him, carefully switching lanes. “We’re taking her out to dinner. Make sure you get your homework done. I don’t want you to fall behind.”
“God, Mom,” Deja sighs. “We’re barely back from summer and you’re already up our asses.”
I ping a sharp glance from Kassim in the front seat to Deja in the back.
“Day, don’t cuss.”
She mumbles something under her breath.
“What was that?” I flash a look at her in the mirror as I pull off the exit. “You got something to say?”
“I said it.” Defiant, resentful eyes snap to meet mine.
“I didn’thearit.”
“Is that my problem?”
“Yeah, it is. If you’re big and bad enough to say it, say it loud enough for me to hear it.”
“Mom, geez.” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “Why are you so…ugh.”
I have a thousand replies to that, but all of them would only worsen the tension between us. If I had spoken tomymama that way, she would have pulled over to the shoulder and popped me in the mouth. God knows I love my mother, but I don’t want that. I draw a calming breath and try to remember all the ways I promised myself I would do things differently with my kids, landing somewhere between gentle parenting…and my mama.
I stop at a red light, turning to glance over my shoulder, meeting Deja’s hard stare. It always feels like she’s fortifying a wall between us, piling up the bricks before I can touch her on the other side. I miss the girl who loved our pillow fights, s’mores over the backyard firepit, and Saturday morning mommy-daughter manis. Is it all part of growing up, or are we just growing apart? Or both?
“Your dad and I expect you to set a better example for your brother,” I tell her.
“Well, Daddy’s not around as much anymore.” She turns her head, shifts her eyes away from me, and stares back out the window. “Is he?”
Even though Josiah doesn’t live with us, he’s only two streets over and they see him every day. Still, my heart clenches with a guilt-tinged ache because as much as I’d like to believe it’s only the big one-three that eroded things between Deja and me, I can’t lie to myself. The trouble started with the divorce. Those eyes, before never far from sparkling with laughter, now seem too old for the rest of her face, and not just from seeing one more year pass, but from witnessing the dissolution of her parents’ marriage over the last few.
“It’s green, Mom,” Kassim says.
Before anyone can honk, I accelerate with the cars around me, driving past the blue-and-white sign heralding that we’re entering Skyland, one of Atlanta’s most vibrant in-town neighborhoods. My shoulder muscles relax as we shift from the tension of the interstate to the more sedate pace and thinner traffic of Skyland’s narrow roads. It pairs the charm and intimacy of a smaller community with proximity to the explosive energy and limitless options of a world-class city. We drive down Main Street, bordered by cobblestone walkways, boutiques, and cloth-draped tables spilling from the cafés onto the sidewalks. I exit the roundabout encircling the fountain in the center of Sky Square and keep driving until our restaurant, Grits, comes into view.
Downtown Skyland is a perfect blend of preservation and progress. The zoning gatekeepers have preserved many of the historic homes by repurposing them for business. Our soul fusion restaurant, Grits, is a shining example. The two-story Victorian with its wraparound porch stole my heart as soon as I laid eyes on it. The house had fallen into disrepair, but we had a loan from the bank, more ideas than we knew what to do with, and a stack of family recipes. Josiah had the business degree, but I brought the vision for an upscale, “down-home” restaurant that specialized in reinventing old Southern favorites. It took us awhile to get to “upscale.” For a long time we were more “mom-and-pop,” our entire operation squeezed into a small retail space on the south side of Atlanta. So much has changed, been lost, gained.
Besides the two humans in this car, Grits is what I’m proudest of. It’s our baby too. Even when things fell apart between Josiah and me, we still had our three babies. Deja, Kassim, and this place, Grits. When we realized those were the only things holding us together, we knew it would be better to dissolve our marriage than to go on as what we had become.
Well, I knew.
When we arrive at Grits, I pull into a reserved parking space right up front and kill the engine. Kassim opens the door and is out and up the steps to Grits’s entrance without another word. Deja gets out, too, and closes the door. Coltish, all skinny arms and giraffe legs in her plaid school uniform skirt and pink high-top Converse, she pauses to type, already glued to her phone again, before entering the restaurant.