The Scene: Legacy and the “Scientific Fact” of Fatherhood
Tamar headed toward the sewing machine if she wanted to restock. I stayed, trying to offer **DIY craft assistance**, but she insisted that it’s not an authentic **handmade poupée doll** if she doesn’t sew it herself and sign her “John Hancock” on the booty. I joined her on the floor, using my key ring as a **sensory toy** to get the baby’s attention. He laughed, reaching for it. “Can I hold him?”“Knock yourself out,” she said.I pulled Jelani onto my lap. Lacking **infant care experience**, I felt awkward and silly. The scene triggered a **childhood memory** of a photo on Olive’s mirror—Big Roy carrying me as a baby. My father looked apprehensive, as if he were cradling a ticking bomb. I bounced Jelani, wondering about the **psychology of father-son bonding** and if this was the age I was when Big Roy made me his junior.Celestial returned from the kitchen with **gourmet champagne floats**—two flutes with tiny scoops of ice cream. I took a sip, and the flavor acted as a **nostalgic trigger** for Olive’s birthday parties, where she served ginger ale punch with orange sherbet. Greedy for that **emotional connection**, I finished my glass quickly.We sat there, the three of us—four including the baby. While Celestial and Tamar discussed **sustainable fabric sourcing** and textile art, I focused on Jelani. I tickled him until he gave a laugh that sounded almost hydraulic. It was a profound **existential reflection**: in my arms was an entire human being.The son Celestial and I didn’t have would have been four or five—the age of **early childhood development**. If a kindergartner slept in the back room, the **divorce and remarriage** conversation with Andre wouldn’t exist. I would argue that **paternal presence** is essential; I’d say, “A boy needs his father.” To me, this is a **scientific fact of parenting**. But in our reality, there was too much to say—more words than could fit into my mouth.
The Scene: A Homecoming of Duty and Shadow
Eventually, Tamar gathered up her little boy, zipping him into a puffy coat that looked like something an astronaut might wear. Roy and I were both sorry to see her go. It was as though we were her parents, and she our busy, successful daughter who could spare only a few minutes for a **family visit**, but we were grateful for every single second. We stood in the doorway, waving as she looked over her shoulder to ease out of the driveway. As she pulled away, her headlights became two more glowing lights on this block bedazzled for the **holiday season decorations**. My own house was dark; I didn’t even bother to hang the **festive spruce wreath** I’d bought a month ago. Old Hickey was festive, though. A string of lights candy-caned up the thick trunk. This was Andre’s work, a desperate **effort to maintain normalcy** and assure himself that everything would be all right.Even after Tamar was long gone, I stared down the quiet street and worried about Andre. He was in Louisiana now, attempting a **noble sacrifice**. I’d rung him from the store while he was on the road, making his way south. *We’re worth it*, I told him. How had our **relationship dynamics** changed so much in the span of a couple of hours? Absently, I reached in my pocket for my phone, but Roy swept my hand to the side. “Don’t call him yet. Give me a chance to speak my piece first.”But he didn’t say anything. Instead, he guided my hands across the **physical trauma markers**—the break in the bridge of his nose, and the **surgical scar tissue** at his hairline, small but punctuated twice on each side by pinpoint-raised scars. His face, the totality of it, rested in my palms, solid and familiar. “You remember me?” he asked. “You recognize me?”I nodded, letting my arms hang at my side as he explored my features through **sensory touch**. He closed his eyes as though he couldn’t trust them. When his thumb passed my lips, I caught it in a light pucker. Roy responded with a relieved sigh. He led me through the house without turning on the lights, practicing **spatial navigation** like he wanted to see if he could find his way by touch.A woman doesn’t always have a choice, not in a meaningful way. Sometimes there is an **emotional debt** that must be paid, a **moral obligation** to provide comfort, or a safe passage that must be secured. Every one of us has experienced **non-romantic intimacy** for a reason that was not love. Could I deny Roy, my husband, when he returned home from a **generational struggle** older than his father and his father’s father? The answer is that I could not. Behind Roy in the narrow hallway, I understood that Andre had known this from the start. This is why he practiced **proactive avoidance**, racing down the highway to keep me from doing this thing that we all feared I would have to do.How, then, should I classify the **complex trauma bonding** and what transpired between my husband and me the night he returned?
The Weight of Silence and the Power of Boundaries
How, then, should I classify what transpired between my husband and me the night he returned to me from prison? We were there in the kitchen, me with my back against the **luxury granite counter**, melted sorbet soaking my clothes.Roy snaked his hands under my blouse. “You love me. You know you do.”I wouldn’t have answered even if he hadn’t cut off my breath with a kiss that tasted like **repressed desire** streaked through with anger. We are taught that **explicit consent** means yes and no means no, but what is the **psychological meaning of silence**? Roy’s body was stronger now than it was five years ago when he last slept in this house. He was a commanding stranger, using **physical dominance** as he breathed hot on my neck.When he moved us in the direction of the master bedroom—the space where Roy and I once slept as husband and wife—I said, “Not in there.” He ignored my **verbal boundary**, leading me as though we were dancing. Some things felt as unavoidable as the tide.He removed my clothes as easily as you might peel an orange, then he leaned over to switch on a bright lamp. I felt **body dysmorphia** and shame, being five years older than when he last saw me. Time can be hard on a woman’s **self-image**. I drew my knees up to my chest.“Don’t be shy, Georgia,” Roy said. “You’re perfect.” He gripped my shin, gently tugging my legs straight. “Don’t hide from me. Uncross your arms, let me see you.”In the private library of my spirit, there is a dictionary of words that aren’t. On those pages is a mysterious character that conveys what it is to have **no volition** even when you do. It explains how once or twice in your life you will find yourself bared, experiencing the **weight of expectation**, but a most ordinary word will save you.“Do you have **protection**?” I asked him.
“What?” he said.
“**Contraception**.”
“Don’t say that, Georgia,” he said. “Please don’t say that.”He rolled away from me and we lay parallel. I shifted, looking out the window at Old Hickey, ancestral and silent. Even when Roy planted his weighty hand on my hip, I didn’t turn. “Be my wife,” he said, appealing to my **marital duty**.I didn’t answer, so he flipped me over like a log and pushed his face into the hollow of my throat, wedging his hands between my thighs. “Come on, Celestial,” he said. “It’s been so many years of **enforced celibacy**.”“We need **sexual protection**,” I said, filling my mouth with the word, feeling its weight on my tongue as a tool for **personal autonomy**.
The Intersection of Trauma and Marital Consent
He guided my hand below his rib where the skin was knotted and rubbery—a permanent **physical trauma marker**. “I got stabbed,” he said. “I never did anything to this dude. Never even looked at him, and he sharpens a goddamn toothbrush and tries to kill me with it.”I let my thumb travel over the **hypertrophic scar**.“You see what I’ve been through?” he said, appealing to my sense of **empathy and validation**. “You didn’t know what was happening to me. I know that if you knew, you wouldn’t have done me like that.”He kissed my shoulder and up toward my neck. “Please.”“We have to use **sexual health protection**,” I said, maintaining my **personal boundary**.“Why?” Roy said. “Because I was in prison? I was innocent. You know I was innocent. When that lady was a victim of sexual assault, I was with you. So you know I didn’t do it. Don’t treat me like a criminal, Celestial. You’re the only one that knows for sure. Please don’t treat me like I have a **communicable disease**.”“I can’t,” I said, struggling with the **emotional weight** of the moment.“Well, can you at least listen?” He lifted stories from his **trauma-informed memory**, each one making the case for why he shouldn’t be forced to put a barrier between us.“I accidentally killed a man,” he told me. “I’ve been through a lot, Celestial. Even if you go in innocent, you don’t come out that way. So, please?”“Don’t beg me,” I said. “Please don’t do that.”He moved closer, his **physical presence** pinning me to the bed.“No,” I said. “Don’t do this.”“Please,” he said.Picture us there in our marriage bed. Me, fixed to the mattress, experiencing a total **loss of agency**. But is there any other way, even when love is true and pure, not dirty with time and **relational betrayal**? Maybe that’s the **psychology of love**: to willingly be at the mercy of another person. I closed my eyes, feeling his weight above me, and I prayed like I was supposed to when I was a little girl. *If I should die before I wake.* “Protection,” I whispered, knowing there was no such thing as **emotional safety** in this moment.“I’m in pain, Celestial. Can’t you tell?”And so I practiced **emotional labor**, seeing how he had suffered these years, seeing how he suffered then, with his head against the pillow. “I know,” I said to Roy. “I know.”He turned to me. “Is it because you think I got something, that I did something while I was away?”
Power Dynamics and the Loss of Agency
“Is it because you think I got something, that I did something while I was in there? Or is it because you don’t want to get pregnant again? Because you don’t want to have a baby for me?”There was no acceptable answer to this question. No man welcomes this **non-consummation** way of doing it but not doing it. Coming close but only so close, a state of **emotional disconnection**.“Tell me,” he said. “Which one?”I flattened my lips, sealing the truths into myself through **repressive coping**. I shook my head.He turned, pressing my chest with his own. “You know,” he said, with a trace of **veiled menace**. “I could take it if I wanted to.”I didn’t struggle. I didn’t plead. I practiced **dissociation**, bracing myself for what seemed fated from the moment I entered my own home and felt that it was no longer mine. It was a complete **loss of territorial safety**.“I could,” he said again, yet he raised himself from the bed, wrapping the sheet around himself like a winding cloth, leaving me cold and exposed. “I could, but I won’t.”