“But either way, you think he should see a therapist?” Yasmen presses.
“Have either of you ever seen one?” Ms. Halstead looks from one of us to the other.
“I have.” Yasmen clears her throat. “I do. Kassim knows I talk to someone. Both of our children know.”
“And you, Mr. Wade?” the teacher asks, turning querying eyes my way. I sense more than see Yasmen stiffen beside me. It was one more point of contention between us, the fact that I wouldn’t go to therapy. I saw it then as a waste of time. I was too busy trying to hold our life together, pay our mortgage, save our business, to make time for something I didn’t think would actually help anyway.
“No,” I reply to Ms. Halstead’s question. “I’ve never seen a shrink…um, therapist.”
“If you decide Kassim could benefit from it,” Ms. Halstead says, her voice stern for the first time, “it should be presented in a positive light. You can’t make it seem like a bad thing, or like something you don’t respect.”
“We won’t.” Yasmen levels a pointed look at me. “Will we, Josiah?”
“Of course we won’t,” I say, as if I hadn’t told Yasmen therapy is a load of shit and I’d rather run naked through a hornet’s nest. Pretty sure that’s an exact quote.
“Good,” Ms. Halstead says, breathing out a sigh of relief, her smile loosening. “I’m so glad we got this chance to talk. Maybe you should discuss it and let me know what you decide. As you know, we have school counselors available here, or he could see a private child psychologist.”
“And what about the acceleration?” I ask.
“For now, I’ll find ways to challenge him where he is,” Ms. Halstead says. “He is so advanced in many ways, but we’ll leave things as they are. I hope you’ll consider having him talk to someone, maybe over the next few months, and closer to the end of this school year, we’ll check back in.”
Offering her best teacher smile, studded with optimism, Ms. Halstead asks, “Sound good?”
Yasmen and I did always make a great team, but therapy was something we never agreed on. Watching each other warily, we simply nod.
Chapter Nine
Yasmen
Pizza’s here!” Deja yells from downstairs.
“It’s paid for, Day!” I shout back. “Just get it and you guys can eat.”
I shimmy to get the jeans down over my ass. Yoga three times a week, and this booty ain’t budging. I cross my bedroom to the walk-in closet, dropping the jeans in the hamper. My closet is huge, as big as the bedroom in our first shoebox apartment. My bags and shoes, slotted into cubbies, take up one wall of the closet. Dresses, slacks, blouses, rompers hang—loosely coordinated by color—on another wall. Wearing just panties and a T-shirt, I sit on the round tufted sage-colored ottoman positioned in the center of the space, eyeing the empty slots and shelves that used to hold Josiah’s possessions. For a long time, I left his side completely empty. It felt wrong somehow to “replace” his things with mine when we’d designed this closet together, leaving plenty of room for his massive sneaker collection. I stare at all the empty slots I haven’t been able to fill yet. I’ll never love shoes as much as Josiah does, but only a small section of what was formerly his side remains vacant. Piece by piece, I’m filling in the gaps with my new clothes, with my new life.
Standing, I walk over to his side, opening a bottom drawer. It’s empty, save a pair of powder-blue Air Jordans.
“I can’t find my OG UNCs,” Josiah said a few weeks after he’d moved out, fresh resentment still marking our every exchange. “You seen ’em?”
“No,” I’d lied. “But I’ll keep a lookout.”
Why am I holding on to this pair of shoes?
I slip them on, my feet swallowed by the size thirteens. You know what they say about a man with big feet. Whew, chile, did Josiah live up to it. A shiver slides down my spine, and that restless ache creeps between my legs, bringing breathlessness with it. My eyes wander to the king-sized bed where, before everything went wrong, we did it so right.
“Stop,” I tell the empty closet and the horny girl.
Depending on the day and the website, these shoes would sell for around fifteen hundred dollars, and I know Josiah never wore them more than once or twice. Remembering his excitement when he found them, I caress the tiny orange tag he said proved their authenticity. The leather remains uncreased and that new smell still clings to them. I glance up, startled by the image reflected in the framed mirror at the end of the closet. A half-naked woman with round hips and wild hair and bruised eyes, wearing the shoes of the man she sent away.
Portrait of a fool.
The text message chime from the bedroom drags me out of my own thoughts. I rush from the closet to grab my phone off the bed, half stumbling, losing one of the big shoes along the way.
Josiah:Hey. Be there in about ten minutes. Did you tell him we want to talk, or is it a total ambush?
Me:Total ambush. Thought it would be better just to dive in when you get here. I ordered pizza to put him in a great mood.
Josiah:Save me a slice.