He peeked out from under the pillow, then flopped his arm dramatically. “I hate school.”
“You love school. You just hate mornings.”
He thought about it, then nodded. “I hate mornings.”
I smiled. “Same. Come on.”
I laid his school uniform out. Then I went to get Kinsley. She was awake now, standing in the bed with her hair all over her head.
“Good morning, sweetie.”
“Good morning, mommy,” she whispered sweetly in her toddler dialect. She wrapped her arms around my neck as I scooped her up. She laid her head on my shoulder like she wasn’t ready to wake up either.
The next forty-five minutes were a blur of brushing teeth, doing Kinsley’s hair, wrestling her into leggings and a sweater, pouring cereal, wiping up spilled cereal, and digging through the clean laundry basket for a pair of socks that actually matched.
I managed to drop KJ off just in time. Then I dropped Kinsley off at daycare.
By seven-thirty, I was at my desk. I worked as a medical coder. It sounded more important than it was. Mostly, I read charts and typed in numbers so insurance companies could find new ways not to pay.
I’d gotten a certification in medical billing/coding after high school. I’d been working in the field ever since, so the pay was decent. But my passion was art. The first time I picked up a pencil, I was five years old. I copied a cartoon off the TV. When I finished, my drawing looked almost exactly like the character. My mother couldn’t believe how good it was.
From then on, I drew on everything. The older I got, I would save my allowance to buy drawing supplies. In high school, when other girls were practicing makeup in the bathroom, I was sketching their faces.
Eventually, I moved from notebook paper to real canvases, teaching myself how to work with paint. Between social media and word of mouth, I had sold a few pieces and even painted a couple of murals in some small businesses in the city. It was never enough for me to quit my job, though.
Being a full-time artist was all I really wanted. Now, my “studio” was a corner of my dining room. After KJ and Kinsley went to sleep, I created until my eyes crossed. Some nights I cried while I painted because I was so tired. But those nights I felt more alive than I did all day.
I would have loved to feel that freedom all day, to have my art pay my bills, but that wasn’t an option. I had two kids to feed and bills to pay, so there wasn’t an option to be a starving artist.
Me and Kodi, my children’s father, weren’t together, but we still slept together. Things between us had fizzled out about a year after Kinsley was born. He was a good father. He showed up for the kids, bought what they needed, and was the best father he knew how to be. The problem was he never grew up. He was still in the streets. In his late twenties, he still acted like that teenage boy who flashed wads of cash on social media like that was cute. Kodi had the gangster persona and the trouble that came with it, but not the kind of money that made all that risk worth it. So, I broke up with him. But the sex was good, and on the nights when I was lonely, I let him come over. Because I was still sleeping with him, Kodi still thought I was his. In his mind, we were just on a break. He still acted like he had some kind of claim over me, and I let him believe it.
I knew I deserved more than that. I wanted a man with bigger dreams than ducking police and posting selfies withmoney he might not even have next week. I wanted stability and partnership.
Around 10AM, I slipped my phone out under my desk and checked it for the first time since I started work.
There was a message from my mother asking me to go to a town hall meeting with her that evening. I playfully rolled my eyes. My mama loved our neighborhoodtoomuch. She was at every block meeting, every school council, and every protest.
Then I saw an Instagram DM notification from Voss Contemporary House.
For a second, my brain didn’t process what I was seeing. Then I opened it and read the message:Hi Rhythm, this is Aria from Voss Contemporary.I’d love to talk about your work.
I almost dropped the phone.
I knew exactly who Aria was. I followed Voss Contemporary House’s page. I had seen the photos from their shows. I had scrolled through, studying the artists they posted, wishing one day my name could be on a tag in that space.
And now they had messaged me.
My hands shook.
Right then, my phone lit up with Kodi’s name.
I answered it through my AirPods. “Hey.”
“What you doing?” He sounded like he was still in bed.
“Working, nigga. It’s a weekday, isn’t it?”
He chuckled. “Relax.”
