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  I was falling short on giving Nain what he needed, too. He was complicated—some moments he acted like the young adult he was, craving long, thoughtful conversations with me about college applications or part-time jobs he wanted to take on for a little extra money. But he also needed me to hold his hand while he learned daily routines, like eating nutritious meals that included vegetables (freeze-dried didn’t count) and soups (the canned kind didn’t count, either). Whenever I had a few extra seconds to focus, I’d try to coach him on social interactions he sometimes struggled with: Look people in the eye when you speak. Don’t turn away when they’re talking to you. But I could zero in on Nain only briefly before I got pulled in another direction—then he’d be left to figure things out on his own.

  And then there was Georgia, my Ladybug, my everything, who’d always made a beeline for me no matter where we were, happy to be close to her mama. Now fourteen and in full-on teenager mode, she could barely stand my touch. She’d cringe whenever I tried to hug her, relegating me to the “dummy” corner in every conversation we had—as if I didn’t know her inside and out, as if I hadn’t been the one to birth her, or lived all these years on this earth.

  “I don’t have time to talk, Mom, I’m late for school.” Georgia had stopped calling me “Mama” recently, and this new, formal “Mom” title irked me like nobody’s business.

  “We need to talk, Georgia. I’m not interested in how late you are. You should have woken up earlier.” Every day for a month, I watched her walk directly into her room after school, slamming the door behind her. She spent most of her time in her room or with her friends. And any time I tried to breach that invisible boundary line, she’d snap back with an eye roll.

  One morning during this routine, I cornered her near the front door. “I expect you home by four today, no excuses, Georgia.”

  Stepping to the side of me, away from my direct gaze, she responded, “I can’t predict the train schedule, Mother.” An even more formal “M” word that she knew would set me off. I was tired—mentally freaking exhausted—and Georgia was testing me. I hated her for it.

  I snatched her arm, pulling her back in line. “I’m not playing.”

  “I don’t even know what that means,” she fired back, unafraid.

  “It means, Georgia, what the hell is going on? You come home late every day. I have no idea why. You say the library, but then your grades…And your attitude. And all you say to me is ‘Close my door behind you!’ ” I took a long breath in. “Who are you?” My head started spinning. “In fact: Sit. Your. Butt. Down. You’re not going to school today.”

  I wasn’t making any sense, clearly, but I didn’t care.

  “You can’t stop me from going to school,” she taunted.

  “Watch me.”

  Georgia turned her eyes toward the front door and lifted her foot to walk. My arm, with a mind of its own, flew back and then whipped forward—landing a hard smack across her face. It was the first time I’d ever hit my daughter. Ever. As a baby, she never needed much of a reprimand, a slight raise of the eyebrow and she’d pull herself together. But that day, she took me there. Life had taken me there.

  We both looked at each other, stunned by what had just happened. I was back in Ramona’s bedroom on Riverside Drive, watching the power dynamic shift in our household all over again. Except this time, I was the one who sent the household reeling.

  A stream of emails from my mother in the days leading up to the slap had taken me to the edge.

  Hi Jodie,

  I hope you will take Penelope to someone, be it a cranial sacral therapist or someone else you choose, who can truly help him totally release the trauma…

  She was referring to the catheter the doctors had inserted in Penelope’s urethra when he was a baby, after suspecting a urinary tract infection. Though supportive, my mother was still under the impression that something had happened to Penelope to cause him to be like this. She was still searching, as I once had been, for a concrete reason, because if we could find a cause, she seemed to think, then surely we could find a solution. With a little adjustment here and a little wiggle there, life could return, she hoped, to the way it used to be. When the email popped up, as with all of her emails of late on Joe, on Penelope, on my general attitude toward life, I read it with only half my attention, rolled my eyes, and then moved it to the Mom folder. I just didn’t have the time.

  There was too much to keep hold of—and so much to undo. One part of my brain was continuing to take apart everything I’d learned about boys and girls and how we should behave. The other half was just trying to remember the necessities of each day, of each kid. I’d make pages-long to-do lists and get through them all in two days, crossing each and every item off with a vengeance. Pay taxes. Upload blog post. Schedule Georgia’s hair appointment. Find a chess coach. Locate trans book. Done. Done. Done. And done.

  But then I’d get a ringing between my ears, and that’s when the migraines would start. They were debilitating, like a thin needle being dragged in and out of the space between my eyes. Sometimes I’d crawl back into bed and bury myself under the covers for hours, trying to manage the pain through slow, shallow breathing. I’d tell Joe I couldn’t pick up the kids from school or make dinner, and he’d jump in, doing parent overtime.

  Once, after spending a late afternoon with Georgia and Nain, taking them around the city to the different places they needed to go—listening to their chatter for hours—I felt it coming. My squinting made driving our SUV difficult.

  “Is everyone’s seat buckle fastened?” I asked as we hopped back into the car after our fourth stop in Manhattan.

  “Yo, Mama!” Nain let out a hearty laugh. “We’re not babies! I’m like twenty-two—a man—and GeeGee…Well, I can’t say what she is…”

  “Don’t even start, Ernain!” Georgia used his full name whenever she was trying to be funny. Laughing rowdily in my backseats, they were about to start, I could tell, a long banter of trash-talking.

  “Hey, Georgia?” my tone was soft and strained, noticeably different from theirs. “Do you think you guys could take a taxi from here? I have to go farther uptown for a meeting. I can’t make it downtown to drop you off at your dad’s.”

  “You okay, Mama?” Nain leaned over toward the front seat, sensing the struggle in my voice.

  “I’m fine. Just have a lot on my plate. You guys go on.” I pulled over to the corner.

  “Hop out. Grab that cab. Text me when you’re with Dad.” It sounded normal enough to them—Mom giving orders—so they obeyed.

  I watched them make their way into a Yellow Cab—Nain opening the cab door, trying to be the big brother, Georgia laughing at his gesture—and I pulled off, knowing they were safe. I made my way one block closer to home before the pain took over.

  It was Forty-Second Street and Broadway, in the heart of Times Square—a no-parking zone as crowded as a concert stadium—but I pulled over anyway, turning off the engine. I dialed Joe for help, found the darkest, quietest nook in the car, and curled up there, down between the steering wheel and the floor. I stayed on the floor of my car with my eyes closed tight for an hour, until Joe came and drove me home.

  * * *

  —

  We carry weights on our back until we can’t go any farther. Truths are weights, and I carried Penelope’s truth on my body—which was buckling, fast, under the pressure. I could feel that breaking was inevitable. The tensions were too taut. The rub between Joe and me, between me and the rest of the family, between Penelope and the rest of the world—everything was wearing me down. It wasn’t a question of when, but rather of what.

  What will break first? I asked myself, over and over again. The family? The woman? Or the construct?

  By 2014, I was in over my head. I had become Penelope’s personal advocate and our family’s official bad guy, all the while working twelv
e-hour days. By the end of each day all I craved was sleep, but there was little time for that.

  And there would be even less time for sleep in a few months—I was pregnant again, with our sixth child.

  I continued on full force as if my body were made of steel, racing from obligation to obligation, borough to borough, person to person, meeting to meeting. A typical day went something like this: Up at six, check email, hop on social media and look at what’s trending in the LGBTQIA community, wake kids, eat breakfast, school drop-off, grab coffee, exercise, clean house, tend to business, hop on the A train, pop over to the Doobop office, meet with team over lunch, find a quiet corner to do a phone interview, brainstorm on company expansion, touch base with interns, hop back on the train to pick up the kids, karate class, then finally back home for homework, dinner, nightly prayers, and good night kisses.

  Wasn’t that what a “modern woman” was supposed to do? Get everything done on the to-do list no matter what? My body could take it—it had never failed me before. I could push it, and then push it even more, if that’s what my life demanded of me. Don’t stop, don’t slow down. Keep going. Keep pushing. Push a little more.

  But six months into the pregnancy, I realized just how human I was.

  It was Easter, and as difficult as it was to get everyone up and out on a Sunday morning, I insisted we attend Reverend Calvin Butts’s service at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. I wanted the kids to experience Black church on Easter and understand the relevance it’s had to our lives. I got all the kids dressed and, miraculously, we made it to church on time. We sat up close to the pulpit while Reverend Butts gave a moving sermon—about what, I can’t now recall, but it was of the moment and very political, as Butts is known to be. I remember Georgia, normally a church skeptic, nodding in approval. I sat back in the pew, looking to both my right and my left, seeing all my children and my husband peaceably together, and I felt proud of us as a family for making it there. It was a simple pleasure and I reveled in it.

  After the service ended, normally we’d make our way over to Sylvia’s for fish and grits, cornbread and iced tea. For the kids, this was the big payoff for a long morning spent behaving well. But that day I was exhausted and my belly was starting to feel heavy, so we decided to go directly home. I made brunch for the family and our neighbors came over to celebrate the new baby.

  After everyone had eaten, I plopped down on our couch, looked around the room, and smiled. How could I be so lucky? Despite all the tribulations, we were expecting more life, more joy into our family.

  As soon as our friends left, I sank deeper into the couch cushions, preparing to take a good long nap. About an hour later my temperature spiked, and halfway through the night Joe and I rushed to the emergency room. The baby’s heart had stopped. There was no more life inside me.

  Somewhere along the road, I messed up. I wasn’t superwoman after all. Apparently there was a limit—and I’d just reached it.

  Two months later, I continued to spin.

  “Jodie-love, you’re really skinny,” Joe said to me one evening while I hunched over the kitchen counter, struggling to keep my thoughts together to plan for the next day’s marathon. After losing the baby, there’d been no time to slow down, to catch my breath, to take stock. Instead, I leaned more into everything, harder, fiercer, afraid the sadness would consume me if I changed my pace.

  I walked away from Joe, pretending to let his concerns slide off—it was something I’d gotten used to doing with most people lately. But in truth, they hung there, bringing me back to my small, insecure ten-year-old self.

  I hadn’t played Mama’s “I love myself” game in at least twenty years, but that night, I found myself needing to see what would happen if I did.

  I stood in front of our tall living room mirror and stared at the woman in front of me. I recognized the same upside-down-banana lips, now with deep creases framing the edges. The Peter Pan ears looked familiar, too, though my hair was thinning all around. The gymnastics-made muscular thighs were now hollow where my legs met. Long, thin fingers fell limp against bony hips. My eyes were lined with worry, my reddish-brown skin had turned sallow. All the visible signs of chaos and stress were there for everyone to see. I stared at her—at me—running my eyes over her face, her hair, her body—and I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.

  My body, the thing that had nurtured my strength since Georgia, that showed me that I was indeed powerful, was now betraying me. I asked myself once again, What will break first? The family? The woman? Or the construct?

  My body answered. I was looking at a broken woman.

  FIFTEEN

  I, Woman (The South, Revisited)

  RETURNING HOME IS WHAT I KNOW—it’s what the Blackwell women have always done to treat their heartaches. After my parents’ divorce in the late 1980s, my mother left New York, to eventually move in with Grandma Gloria. Grandma Gloria had done the same a long time ago, packing up her three girls in her convertible to escape a bad marriage and driving straight to her parents’ home in the middle of the night. Even my sister Ramona came back down south to live with Grandma for a stint during her adult years when life became too overwhelming. Home is safety in the most basic way: food, shelter, and rest.

  I need the South now—it owns something in me, and I need to touch that place it owns. Let it revive me, hold me, until I come back to life.

  The cul-de-sac my mother lives on in Peachtree City is quiet. I rarely see much action in her neighborhood, just a few people driving by during their regular commutes—to and from work, the grocery store, or the mall. As we pull onto her road on the way back from the airport, every face we see is a familiar one: a church friend, a teacher from the nearby elementary school. We both wave as we pass them, putting on a smile. Mom’s is wide and warm, filled with the kind of genuinely happy surprise you wouldn’t expect to see from someone who likely runs into these same neighbors every day. Mine is tight and strained, a little too polite, a little sad. The neighborhoods of Peachtree City go on for miles, and it’s the back roads that connect them all—long and meandering streets canopied by weeping willows on either side. The suburb is expansive, though it feels more like a village. Folks either know each other or make it their business to.

  Soon after I arrive at Mama’s house the doorbell rings. I peek through the curtains at the side window, and I don’t recognize the man standing there. “What do you want?” I ask cautiously from behind the front door.

  Hearing the commotion from the other room, Mama rushes over, looking at me funny, before pushing me aside so she can tend to the man at the door. Turns out he’s just Mr. So-and-So from down the way—stopping by to say hi and to share some of the mac and cheese his wife had made earlier that afternoon. They sit on the screened-in porch and talk, my mother’s tinkling laughter echoing through the rest of the house. Later, after the man leaves, I remind Mama that that type of behavior is cause for concern back in New York. “Showing up unannounced like that? I mean, come on. You sure he’s not trying to case your house?” She looks at me funny again, then makes her way into the kitchen to fix a late lunch.

  It’s not easy for me to be here. This trip doesn’t come as a vacation. There’s real pain and awkwardness in each moment between us.

  For years, it’s felt like what I need has been way bigger than what Mom knows or can do. I can’t talk to her about my company, my investors, or the looming debt that I’d stacked up while running the store because money makes her uncomfortable. I also can’t tell her any more about the battle for power between me and Joe—her solutions, like lingerie and a little gratitude, they never work. She’s been unable to fix my crises, time and time again. And honestly, I’d love for my problems to just be “handled”—not managed or lessened, but obliterated altogether.

  But Mama is neutralizing; she never aggravates the fire. Growing up, whenever Daddy belittled her, I’d watc
h her get quieter, more still, defusing his outbursts. Every time he raised his voice, I wanted more than anything for her to ball him up in her fist like a piece of paper and hurl him far away. I came to realize that big problems, mean people, can’t be offset. They need to be grabbed, swung around twice, and then hurled into the sky, letting the sun burn them to ashes. But Mama isn’t aggressive—it’s just not who she is. And the slow realization over the years that she will never be the one to obliterate a problem has grown an anger in me that I can’t release. It sits there between us, year after year, stifling conversation, making it hard to even hug her—deeply, warmly. That is why I don’t tell her why I’m here.

  But what Mama can give me is stillness, and slowness. In her house, I can hide away for hours, or watch her clean the kitchen, or climb into bed at six o’clock as the day darkens outside my window, without bringing in the baggage of my past or the weight of the future. There, I can just show up and surrender, giving in to the things I can’t change.

  In Peachtree City, we typically take long, quiet drives in Mama’s golf cart along the dirt paths behind the houses, encouraging her little putt-putt-mobile over the hills and around the bends. Sometimes we’ll take a different path than we’re used to—getting lost on the other side of the miniature bridge, turning right at the duck pond instead of scooting around its perimeter. It’s these winding pathways that take you everywhere you need to go in the neighborhood—to the movie theater, a neighbor’s house, the corner store, or nowhere in particular. Those roads are like veins moving blood back and forth through a giant communal body.

  I need my blood to move. To feel my limbs again.

  The day after we arrive, I wake up before the sun. Georgia has come with me on this trip—given all the recent drama between us, I thought we could take a break from the city together. While she sleeps soundly next to me, I find my sneakers, put on some leggings and an old T-shirt, and make my way to the kitchen. Mama’s already awake, sitting at the table in her bathrobe, cradling a cup of hot water in both hands.