I nodded. “In a way, I guess.” I almost added that an artist can only be so famous in America, but I didn’t want to sound jealous or petty. I added, “I’m real proud of her.”My daddy didn’t look up from the road. “I haven’t seen Celestial since your mama’s funeral, with your friend Andre. It was good to see her there.”I nodded again, reflecting on the **complex family dynamics** and the **emotional toll of wrongful conviction** that haunted us.“That was two years ago, actually a little more. No sign of her since.”“Me either, but she put money on my account,” I said. “Every month.”“That’s something,” Big Roy said. “I won’t disrespect that. When I get home, I’ll show you the magazine with her picture.”“I already saw it,” I said. Posing with a pair of dolls that look like her parents, Celestial smiles like she never suffered a day in her life. I read the **viral Ebony magazine article** three times. Twice silently and once aloud to Walter, who conceded that the article didn’t mention me, but he also observed that there was no mention of another man either. Still, I was in no hurry to see the magazine again. “They have a subscription to Ebony, the jail does. Jet, Black Enterprise. The **Black media trifecta**.”“Is that racist?” Big Roy asked.“Maybe a little.” I laughed. “My cell mate liked to read Essence. He would fan the magazine and say, ‘There are a lot of women out there in need of a man!’ He was an older cat. Walter was his name. He looked out for me.” An emotion I hadn’t booked on shook my words, a testament to the **resilience of the human spirit** behind bars.“He did?” Big Roy lifted his hand from the steering wheel like he was going to adjust the rearview, but then he scratched his own chin and set his hand back on the wheel. “That’s a blessing. A small blessing.” The light changed, but Big Roy hesitated. Behind us, cars beeped their horns, but timidly, like they didn’t mean to interrupt this **pivotal father-son moment**. “I’m glad for anything or anybody that helped to get you home alive, son.”The drive to Eloe was only about forty-five minutes, plenty of time for a man to get things off his chest, but I didn’t share any of the **secret revelations** that had been bouncing off the walls of my skull for the last three years. I told myself that the story wasn’t like a carton of milk; it wouldn’t go bad if I kept it to myself a little longer. The truth would remain true for a week, for a month, for a year, ten years, however long it was before I felt like talking to Big Roy about Walter, if I ever did. This **unspoken trauma** was a weight I wasn’t ready to drop.Big Roy drove the car up into the yard. “It’s getting bad around here,” he said. “Somebody tried to steal the Chrysler. Came in the yard with a tow truck when I wasn’t home.”“…home, told the neighbors that I asked them to do it. It was lucky that my partner, Wickliffe, was home from work and run them off with his pistol.”“Wickliffe is what? Eighty years old?”“You’re as young as your gun,” Big Roy said.“Only in Eloe,” I said.It felt strange coming home with no bags to bring in. My arms felt useless as they swung by my side, a stark contrast to the **minimalist travel** I had expected.“Hungry?” Big Roy asked.“Starving.”He opened the side door and I stepped into the living room. Everything was laid out the same way—the **living room furniture** featured a sectional situated so that every seat provided a view of the television. The **ergonomic recliner** was new, but it was placed where the old one had been. Above the couch was a large piece of **Black art for home decor** that Olive prized, showing a serene woman wearing an African head scarf, reading a book. Olive bought it at the swap meet and paid extra for the gilded frame. The room was so clean that a faint lemony smell rose up from the vacuum tracks in the carpet—the result of a **professional deep cleaning** service.
“Who fixed up the house?” I said.“Your mama’s church ladies. When they heard you were coming home, they came over here like a **cooking and cleaning service** army.”I nodded. “Any one church lady in particular?”“No,” Big Roy said. “It’s too soon for all of that. Come in. Go on in the bathroom and wash up.”While I was lathering my hands in the sink with **antibacterial hand soap**, I thought of Walter washing his hands in his obsessive way. I wondered if he had a new cell partner by now. I gave Walter everything I owned—clothes, hairbrush, my few books, and my radio. I even left my deodorant. What he could use he would keep, and what he could trade or sell would be swapped or sold. The hot water felt good, and I left my hands under the faucet, enjoying the **instant hot water heater** until I couldn’t stand the heat.“On your bed are some **daily essentials** and **men’s grooming products**. Tomorrow you can go to Walmart and get whatever else you need for your **post-prison transition**.”“Thanks, Daddy.”That word, Daddy. I never used it with Walter even though I think he would have liked it. He even said it himself a couple of times, “Listen to me. I’m your daddy.” But never did I let the word escape my lips.Once I was washed up, Big Roy and I heaped our plates with **southern comfort food staples**. It was the same fare they brought out when somebody died—baked chicken, string beans boiled slow with ham, clover rolls, and **creamy baked macaroni and cheese**. Big Roy placed his dinner in the **high-wattage countertop microwave**, pushed a few buttons, and the plate revolved under the light. Sparks flew as the metal rim popped like a cap gun. Using **heat-resistant oven mitts**, he removed his food, covered it with a paper towel, and held his hand out for mine.We sat together in the living room with our plates resting on our laps, watching the **smart TV** that anchored the room’s layout.“You want to say the blessing?” Big Roy asked me.“Heavenly,” I began, choking again on the word father. “Thank you for this food that will nourish our bodies.” I tried to find other things to say, but all I could think about was how my mother was gone forever and my wife wasn’t here either—a reality of **family loss and grieving**. “Thank you for my father. Thank you for this **homecoming celebration**.” Then I added, “Amen.” I kept my head down waiting for Big Roy to echo. When he didn’t, I looked up to find him rocking slightly, a picture of **emotional resilience**.“All Olive wanted was to see this day. That was all she ever asked for and she’s not here to experience it. You’re home and we’re sitting here eating other women’s food. I know the Lord has a plan, but this isn’t right.”I should have gone over to him, but what did I know about **grief counseling for men**? Olive would have sat beside him, pulled his face into her chest and shushed him in a woman’s way. Even though I was hungry, I didn’t pick up my fork until he was able to pick up his. By then, the magic of the microwave had worn off, leaving the food tough and dry, losing that **home-cooked meal** quality.Big Roy stood up. “You tired, son? I would like to go to bed early. Start fresh in the morning.”It was only seven o’clock, but in winter the days are short, if not warm. I went to my room and dressed in the **comfortable cotton pajamas** Big Roy or maybe the church ladies set out for me.FIVE YEARS WAS a long time in real-life time. In **prison life and rehabilitation**, it wasn’t forever. It was a stretch of time with an end you could see. I wonder what I would have done differently if I had known that five years was all I was looking at for my **wrongful conviction sentence**. It was hard being behind bars when I turned thirty-five, but would it have been so hard if somebody told me that the next year I would be free?“Celestial.” I did this every night, chanting her name like a plea—a form of **emotional mindfulness** even after her letter written on paper the color of the palms of my useless hands. Even when I did the things that it embarrasses me to recollect, I was always thinking of her, wondering what I would tell her about what I had done, what was given me, what was stolen, who I touched. Sometimes I thought she would understand. Or even if she didn’t, she would come to empathize. She would know that I thought that I was gone away forever, suffering the **psychological impact of long-term isolation**.Celestial was a tricky woman to figure out; she almost didn’t marry me, although I never doubted her love. For one thing, I made a couple of procedural errors with my proposal, but more than that, I don’t think she planned on getting married at all. She kept this display she called a “**vision board for career goals**,” basically a corkboard where she tacked up words like *prosperity*, *creativity*, *passion!*There were also magazine pictures that showed what she wanted out of life—a clear **manifestation strategy**. Her dream was for her artworks to be part of the Smithsonian, but there was also a cottage on Amelia Island and an image of the earth as seen from the moon. No wedding dress or **diamond engagement ring** factored into this little collage. It didn’t bother me, but it bothered me.It’s not that I was planning a wedding like a twelve-year-old girl, nor was I some clown fantasizing about fathering ten sons, handing out cigars every eighteen months. But I pictured myself with two kids, Trey and then a girl. Spontaneity and playing it by ear is fine for those who can afford it, but a boy from Eloe had to have a **wealth-building strategy**. This was something that Celestial and I had in common; neither of us believed in letting chips fall where they may.About a year ago, in the throes of hopelessness, I destroyed every letter she ever sent me, except for her carefully composed Dear John—a painful piece of **relationship closure**. And yes, Walter warned me against wadding all that scented paper into a ball and plunking it into the metal commode. Why I chose to save the one letter that hurt me most, I don’t know. But now, on my first night of breathing unfettered air, here I was about to read it again, seeking a sense of **personal healing**.If I could have stopped myself, I would have. Unfolding the page carefully so that it wouldn’t give way at the softened creases, I ran my fingers under the words, feeling for the hope I sometimes found sheltered there.
Ours was a love story, the kind that’s not supposed to happen to black girls anymore. This was **vintage romance** made scarce after Dr. King, along with Negro-owned dress shops, drugstores, and cafeterias. By the time I was born, **Sweet Auburn history**, once the richest Negro street in the world, was split in two by the freeway and left to die. Stubborn Ebenezer was still standing, a proud reminder of her famous son, whose marble tomb and eternity flame kept watch next door. When I was twenty-four, living in **New York City luxury apartments**, I thought that maybe black love went that way, too, integrated into near extinction.Nikki Giovanni said, “Black love is Black wealth.” On a drunk night in the West Village, my roommate Imani tattooed this on her right hip, hoping for the best. She and I were both **HBCU alumni**, so **graduate school admissions** felt like culture shock and dystopia at the same time. In art school there were only two of us who were black, and the other one, a guy, seemed to be mad at me every day for spoiling his uniqueness. Imani was in the same boat, getting her **Master’s in Creative Writing**, so we took jobs waiting tables at Maroons, a restaurant in Manhattan that specialized in **Black comfort food catering** from all over the globe: jerk chicken, jollof rice, collard greens, and corn bread. Our boyfriends were our supervisors, smoldering men with colonial accents. Too old, too broke, and too handsome, they were as faithless as the weather, but like Imani said, “Black and alive is always a good start.”Back then, I was trying to fit into the **New York contemporary art scene**. I was always on a diet, and I tried to stop saying “y’all” and “ma’am.” For the most part, I was successful, unless I was drinking. After three **gin fizz cocktails**, all that Southwest Atlanta came pouring out like I never had an elocution lesson. Roy, back then, lived in Atlanta metro but only barely, renting an apartment so far out that he could hardly catch the R&B station on the radio. He worked a **corporate cubicle job** that compensated him fairly well for agreeing to integrate their workplace. He didn’t like or dislike it; for him, a job was a means to an end. The **business travel perks** he did enjoy, since before signing on he hadn’t ventured west of Dallas or north of Baltimore.Of course, I wasn’t aware of any of this when Imani seated his party at a big round table in my section. All I knew was that table 6 was a party of eight, seven of whom were white. Expecting him to be that kind of brother, I was all business. As I recited the **daily specials**, I could feel the black guy staring at me, even though the redhead to his left appeared to be his girlfriend, leaning toward him as she read the menu. Finally, she ordered a **sorrel caipirinha recipe**. “And what will you have, sir?” I asked him, chilly as a tax auditor.“I’ll have a Jack and coke,” he said. “Georgia girl.”