“Isaiah!” My mama spots me through the kitchen window, and her voice goes up. “He’s here, Mama. Let him in, I got my hands in this pan.”
Nan opens the door before I knock.
“Let me look at you.”
“Nan. It’s been a month. I saw you at Thanksgiving. I’m the same.”
She ignores that and pulls me down so she can kiss my forehead. Then she steps back, takes her inventory, and lets me come in.
The house smells like she’s been cooking since yesterday. The tree in the living room is the same tree she’s put up every year I can remember. It’s fake pine with lights the one color Nan will tolerate, which is white, because “everything else looks like acarnival, Isaiah.” My dad is already in the recliner. He folds his newspaper, stands, and shakes my hand.
“Son.”
“Dad.”
“Good drive?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“That’s a good drive in Atlanta.”
He settles back into the chair. That’s the full greeting. My dad loves me the way my dad loves everybody who is his, steady and quiet and without a lot of reaching.
Mama comes out of the kitchen with a dish towel over her shoulder and a spoon in her hand. One-arm hug, spoon careful. Then she pulls back and looks me over the same way Nan did, which is where Nan got it from, or the other way around, I’ve never been able to tell.
“You got that look.”
“What look?”
“The tired look.”
“We had a road trip last week, Mama, of course I’m tired.”
“Mm-hm.” She pats my cheek twice and turns back toward the kitchen.
Nan’s table doesn’t have the leaves in, which means tonight is just us. My sister is in California with her husband’s family. Mama’s brother is in Savannah with his.
“Sit down, baby. Get off your feet.”
“I drove twenty minutes, Nan.”
“Sit down.”
I sit down. She hands me a glass of ginger ale and goes back to the pan she has no intention of letting my mama touch.
Dad watches the game with the sound low. Falcons. Losing, because they are the Falcons.
“You working through the break?” he asks.
“A couple of days off. Game the day after next so everyone’s back.”
“So you got some time.”
“I got some time.”
He nods. Then, without looking away from the screen, he says, “That rotator cuff you mentioned at Thanksgiving. The one giving you trouble. He doing better?”
I look at my dad. He is watching the Falcons lose. His face has not changed.
