She works to scroll past the number for her primary care physician, gynecologist, mechanic, and a few ex-colleagues before reaching the end. A painful reminder of her inability to form anyreal, lasting connections.
How pathetic.
Opening the app on her phone, she thumbs through her bank account before letting her head fall against the door.
It isn’t supposed to be like this,she thinks to herself. She should be curled up in her ownapartment, enjoying her summer break before her final semester of graduate school, not floundering around Florida with physical reminders of her failed relationships, zero dollars to her name, and the trauma of her childhood preventing her from stepping foot in the house she grew up in.
For the tenth time this week, she lets the hot tears build before soaking her face. Abrupt, choking sounds saturate the air as she trembles. She wipes with more pressure than needed, wanting nothing more for the stream to stop.
Pressing a hand to her quivering lips, she wills herself to calm down. To breathe. She attempts to gather her crumbling mind by playing out her next steps.
She’ll stand for a few more minutes, making sure she’s cried all there is tocryfrom her system. She’ll check her eyes, cover the dark circles taking residence on her face, pinch her cheeks back to life. She’ll smile once, twice, maybe three times until it’sdoable. Believable. A smile that hints at nothing being wrong, and that everything isokay. A genial stretch across the expanse of her face that proves that she made the right choice all those years ago when she distanced herself from her family.
Jahlani checks her appearance in her phone. Inky-brown, bloodshot ones glare back. The long drive—among other mental stresses—is catching up to her.
She needs a bed.
She needs a restart button.
The sun begins to set with vivid bursts of peach and hues of orange glowing across the skyline. This time, she pushes past thescreen door and turns the key in the lock, the sound of the latch as loud as her heartbeat.
With an unsteady exhale, she steps over the threshold and is met with stillness. Her shoulders drop as she shuffles further into the house, closing the door softly. She just wants to get the reunion over with.
The house is shrouded in darkness. Faint glimmers of sunlight seep in through the two windows in the front room. The air carries a faint scent of freshly cut flowers, mingling with the subtle aroma of cedar found in polishing products. As Jahlani steps further into the space, the gentle hum of the air conditioning creates a soothing white noise. Slipping her shoes off, surprise runs through her feet as hardwood floors greet her toes rather than the ugly hunter green carpet she grew up with. Her fingers brush against the wall to flick the lights on, and for a moment, she wonders if she’s broken into someone else’s home.
A gray L-shaped linen couch has replaced the cracked leather one that used to take up much of the family room. An oak coffee table sits in the center, and a moderately-sized television covers the wall. As she steps further into the house, she becomes flustered. Everything is different. Upgraded. It looks pretty. Polished. There are no traces of the house she grew up in.
Trying to forget something, Mom?
Stepping through the hallway, she pushes open her bedroom door. A small gust of air flows past her lips as she looks.
Everything remains untouched, and she isn’t sure how to interpret that.
The shelves housing her old high school textbooks remain frozen in time. Her hand skims her nightstand before moving to the vintage vanity she thrifted for her thirteenth birthday.
Caught in between the frame and mirror are several photos. Imani and her at prom(she insisted on going despite Jahlani’s protests), Imani and her on the hood of her first car, Imani andher in their cheerleading uniforms(not a year she’s proud of). Her chest squeezes as she comes across a beat-up photograph of her cousins, Trent and Teryn, from their tenth birthday party. She can’t remember the last time she spoke to either of them, and she wonders for a moment if she’s as bad as her mother.
Jahlani continues browsing through the room, viewing her old self. Everything looks fairly normal despite the scene outside the four walls.
And yet, something feelsoff. Wrong.Something is missing, she thinks, stepping back into the hallway. She walks further into the house and turns the corner. She sees the gleam of the machete before her, and bloodcurdling screams fill the hallway as Jahlani lifts her arms to protect her body, the knife clattering to the floor.
“Jahlani?” her mother asks, sounding breathless.
Jahlani clutches her chest as she leans against the wall to ground herself.
“Mom,” she says, breathing heavily. “Jesus.”
Her mother positions her hands on her hips and stares up at Jahlani, her lips tight.
“What did you expect? You can’t just walk into a woman’s house unannounced.Especiallyone that lives alone.”
Jahlani’s eyes widen as she takes in her mother’s disheveled appearance. A sweat-soaked shirt clings to her shape as she wipes her chin with the back of her hand. She swoops to grab the knife alongside a basket of fruit by her feet.
“Well, I didn’t expect a life-threatening weapon to be waved in my face.God.What do you even have that for?” Jahlani asks, her voice shaky.
“Mango tree,” she replies, shrugging. “It’s in the back of the house.”
Silence engulfs and expands in the space around the two of them like a tight bubble. In a normal, functioning household,this is the part where the mother and daughter embrace. In a normal,happystory, the mother pulls the daughter close, breathes her in, and checks her over for any signs of hurt. Pain.Heartbreak. They ask questions. They’re curious. They linger in the hallway, trying to cram years of life into a few hours. Everything all at once.
