I set the phone aside and let myself just sit for a moment. The apartment is quiet except for the twins’ concentrated babbling as they stack blocks and the distant sound of the shower running.
The scent of home surrounds me—baby powder and something delicious Grant must have started in the slow cooker this morning, and underneath it all, the faint citrusy notes of the new perfume I've been developing. Neroli and blood orange and just a whisper of cardamom for warmth.
Innovation, I'm calling it. A scent that's both familiar and surprising. Traditional and bold.
Kind of like my life turned out to be.
I look around the living room, taking in the beautiful disaster. This space has transformed so completely from whatit was. We kept some of Grant's furniture—the sofa, the coffee table, the gorgeous bookshelves—but everything else is new. Softer. More lived-in.
There are photos everywhere. Grant and I on our wedding day, a small ceremony with just close friends and family. Samantha holding the twins when they were newborns, her face soft with wonder. Poppy and me at the Essence ribbon-cutting for our new studio space. The twins' first birthday, both of them covered in cake.
And one I love especially—Grant's grandfather, James Senior, holding baby James for the first time. The expression on his face, the way his weathered hands cradled his great-grandson with such tenderness.
He passed away six months ago. Peacefully, in his sleep, which is what everyone says when they're trying to find comfort in loss.
Grant still misses him so much. I see it in quiet moments, when he's holding James and his expression goes distant. When he catches himself wanting to call his grandfather with some piece of news.
But there's joy in the grief too. Joy that his grandfather got to meet the twins. Got to see Grant happy. Got to know me.
"You'll take care of my boy," he'd told me once, his eyes sharp despite his age. "Won't let him work himself to death like he's prone to doing."
"I'll try," I'd promised.
"You'll do more than try." His smile had been knowing. "You're good for him. Best thing that ever happened to him, if you ask me."
I hadn't known what to say to that. Still don't, really.
But I think about it a lot.
James—my James, not Grant's grandfather—makes a sound of triumph as his tower reaches impressive heights. "Mama, look!"
"I see, buddy! That's so tall!"
He beams at me, then immediately knocks it over with a sweep of his arm. The cycle begins again.
I hear Grant's footsteps in the hallway before he appears, freshly showered and in clean clothes. His hair is still damp, and he smells like the sandalwood soap I bought him for his birthday.
"Better?" he asks.
"Much. Though I was getting used to the banana aesthetic."
He drops onto the sofa beside me, pulling me into his side with one arm. I curl into him automatically, my head on his shoulder.
"How are you feeling about David coming?" he asks quietly.
It's a loaded question. It's always a loaded question.
My father and I have been rebuilding our relationship for two years now. Slowly. Carefully. With a lot of boundaries and even more therapy—for me, not him, though I've suggested it approximately a thousand times.
He's never apologized for what he said when he found out about Grant and me. Never acknowledged how cruel he was, how deeply he hurt me.
But he's tried in other ways. Shown up for the twins' birthday. Sent flowers when Essence secured our Series A funding. Called to check in, his voice gruff and uncomfortable but genuine.
He's trying. It's not enough, and maybe it never will be. But it's something.
"I'm okay," I tell Grant. And mostly, I mean it. "He's not here to see me anyway. He's here for them."
I gesture to the twins. James has abandoned the blocks in favor of trying to climb into the toy box. Clara is sitting on the floor, examining a stuffed elephant with intense concentration.
