I looked down at the test in my hand, my tears blurring the lines. “How are we supposed to manage financially, Kairo? It’s one thing to depend on our parents for us, but a baby? That’s not their responsibility. That’s ours.”
He stepped closer, cupping my face in his hands. “It’s my responsibility,” he said. “I’ll do everything I have to do to make sure you and this baby have a life that’s equal to the one we had growing up, if not better. I’ll work hard, Khloe. With every bone in my body, I’ll make sure you both have everything you want and need. We got this, Khloe. Don’t freak out now. Today is supposed to be a celebration. Our first big milestone. And after this, there’ll be plenty more.”
My chest ached as I looked at him. He looked so sure, so steady, like he could carry the whole world if he had to.
“You promise?” I whispered.
He leaned in, pressed his forehead against mine, and kissed me softly.
“I promise my life.”
Part One
Our minds can be quite weird. We beg for a certain kind of love, then forget what it costs to receive it. We ask people to show up for dreams we no longer remember praying for, and when life shifts and we change, we rarely stop to consider what we’re still demanding from hearts we’ve outgrown.
1
Khloe
15 years later…
It has been 5,479 days since he promised his life on that graduation day. I know the number because I counted it last night… again.
I don’t count it in the way that a wife counts anniversaries or milestones, but I count in a way a woman counts the slow death of the girl she used to be. At 18, love felt like certainty and apartments we couldn’t afford on our own. At 21, it felt like sacrifice and survival. At 29, it felt like stability and compromise. But at 33, standing in the mirror at 1:17 a.m., love felt like a question I was scared to ask out loud:When did provision replace pursuit?
I tightened my bonnet and stared at the woman looking back at me. I was still beautiful but somewhere along the way, I’d stopped being seen and started being secured instead.
Kairo was upstairs asleep. He always slept peacefully after closing million-dollar deals. I always lay awake, wondering when I’d get a deal that good.
The house was silent except for the hum of the refrigerator. It was stacked with groceries he had delivered as an apology because he didn’t make it home in time for dinner again.
My law diploma hung on the wall beside our wedding portrait. One represented my dream. The other represented his interpretation of it.
He thought legacy meant buildings with our name on them. I thought it meant a family that felt chosen, wanted, and emotionally wealthy.
I slipped into my silk robe, grabbed the laundry basket, and headed downstairs. Kairo would always tell me that we could hire someone to do laundry, but movement was the only thing that kept silence from swallowing me whole.
I was pouring detergent into the washer when the kitchen lights snapped on down the hall, followed by a dramatic slam of the pantry door.
All I heard was rummaging and I didn’t even have to come out of the laundry room to know who it was.
Kennedi. My fifteen-year-old snack-gremlin, who was also my attitude-infused, bundle of joy. She had her phone in her hand on speaker while scrolling with one thumb while digging through the fridge with the other.
I stepped into the doorway quietly. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but the universe clearly had other plans. A boy’s voice came through the speaker, deep and flirty. And then Kennedi giggled the kind of giggle that carried possibilities. The kind of giggle I used to have right before seventeen became eighteen. Right before my entire life shifted into motherhood, sacrifice, survival, and moving different.
I listened for exactly eleven seconds before I stepped into the light. “Who is that on your phone this time of night?” I asked.
She jumped like she’d seen a ghost and screamed so loud she almost dropped her bag of Hot Cheetos. “Mom! Why are you creeping in the dark like a serial killer?!”
I crossed my arms. “I asked a question, Kennedi.”
She took the phone off speaker with a groan. “Just a friend, dang.”
“A friend shouldn’t be calling this late or have a voice that deep.” I shot back.
“Oh my God,” she dragged out dramatically, rolling her eyes toward the heavens. “It’s not even like that.”
I knew that line too well because I’d said it word for word when I was her age. The same person that once ‘wasn’t anything like that’ became my boyfriend and then my child’s father not too long after.
