“I figured she deserved a place.”
I couldn’t speak.
I counted the plates.
Twelve.
Every one accounted for.
My father now visits every Sunday.
The entire day.
He drives himself.
He sends Raymond home.
“Raymond has done enough of my showing up,” he says.
“It’s my turn.”
He pushes Wren through the neighborhood in her stroller.
He knows the neighbors.
Mrs. Adeyemi even gave him her soup recipe.
He tried making it.
It was terrible.
We ate all of it.
He reads Wren the same books Mom once read to me.
His character voices are awful.
Wren loves them.
Last Sunday, he was sitting on the living-room floor while Wren held one of his fingers.
She is four months old now.
Almost able to sit upright.
“Simone?”
“Yes?”
“That night you called me… why?”
He looked up.
“You had friends. Paula. Hotels. You hadn’t called me in two years.”
I thought about that night.
Seven plates.
No place for me.
No place for Wren.
Then I remembered the first message my father sent after she was born.
Is she healthy?
Are you?
“Because you asked.”
He frowned slightly.
“You were the only person who asked whether I was okay too.”
