“I won’t dignify that with a answer, and for your information, I don’t need you to remind me when and for how long Birdie been Al’s daughter. I’m very much aware of it. All I’m saying is that I ain’t never seen nobody go to a two-year program and it takes three. You shoulda never let her drop outta high school in the first place.”

“That really ain’t none of your business, now, is it?”

“I’m making it my business. Al’s money is my money.”

“Since when?”

“How much is the deposit, Loretha?”

“Three hundred and sixty-two.”

“Dollars?”

“That’s what I just said. Please make sure he gets this message, would you?”

“I guess child support don’t cover tuition, then, huh?”

“Don’t seem like it, do it?”

“I’m hanging up now, Loretha.”

“Good night, Charlotte. Sleep tight.”

I hang up. I hate that bitch. It never fucking fails: as soon as I start feeling good, can’t ten seconds go by without some bullshit popping up. Why can’t she just disappear? Birdie! Birdie is getting on my last nerve, too. I prayed for the day to come when that girl graduated from high school, turned eighteen, and them child support payments would finally stop. Loretha been nickel-and-diming Al to death, and it seem like Birdie been seventeen for the last three years. Loretha didn’t get pregnant till she found out Al was divorcing her. Loretha always was a sneaky whore, everybody knew it except Al, and once he found out she’d been sleeping with his so-called friend Scratch, he cut him loose, and to this day Al still don’t know for sure if Birdie is even his. She didn’t use to look nothing like him, but he been paying for her so long that she done finally started to favor him.

My head falls into the middle of my pillow. It’s cool when I turn my face toward Al. A few minutes ago, I wanted to wrap my arms around him so tight until wasn’t no space between his body and mine, but now all I wanna do is go to sleep.

In the morning I make him some cheese grits, hard-fried eggs, bacon, and biscuits. When he walks in the kitchen, I’m just finishing up the gravy. He comes over and gives me a wet kiss. “Good morning, baby,” he says.

“Good morning yourself, sweetheart,” I say.

“Who was that you was talking to on the phone so late?” he asks, dipping his finger in the hot grits.

“It was just Janelle,” I hear myself say.

“Well, is everything all right?”

“Yeah, same old, same old.”

“Then why she call so late if everything is all right?”

“Shanice and George is at it again.”

“Yeah? I don’t trust that old guy,” he says, pouring me and him a cup of coffee. “Something’s missing in him. I can’t put my finger on it, but the few times we been around him, he seem like he two different people: the one he want us to see, and the one he don’t. You know what I mean?”