“It was nice seeing Nia,” she said in lieu of a greeting. She made a show of looking around the apartment.* “You’ve kept this place neat.”
I held back a smirk.
“Neat is a stretch.” I sagged my backpack off, then shrugged toward the coffee table. “What’s all this?”
“Tabatha said you’d decided to braid your hair again,” Momma said. “You should be saving your money, instead of throwing $250 away at the salon. I told her I could do it.” She dove under the coffee table, producing a plastic bag with a row of thank yous running down the front. “I have some hair here; you can find something you like—”
“No need,” I said. I bent to open my backpack, producing four bundles of my gray ombre extensions. I watched her eyes widen as she took in the color; Dorothy Appiah was the one person in the world who was actually stodgier than my stodgiest attending.
“Don’t you think 1B* would be better?” she started, and I cut her off.
“Momma, why are you here?” I said. She flinched, but I pressed on. “We haven’t talked in two months, and that was for a reason. It’s really nice that you’ve decided to come by and cook for me and do my hair, but it doesn’t change anything about how we got here in the first place.”
The Angela Appiah of yesteryear would have said nothing. She would have accepted her mother’s showering of love unquestioningly, happy for a return to normalcy. I wondered whether Momma had expected to meet that Angela, and if she could accept this new one.
Momma sighed, dropping onto the couch. She looked at me for a long moment, the corners of her mouth downturned.
“I didn’t cook the brown stew,” she admitted. “Auntie Abena made it. I’m just heating it up.”
“I knew that,” I said with a smile. I wandered into the kitchen, finding rice warming in my rice cooker and enough brown stew for two simmering on the stove. I grabbed plates from my cabinets and began doling out servings automatically, setting the table for us like the good eldest daughter I was.
“You shouldn’t have blocked us,” Momma said, following me as I filled our glasses with cold water from my Brita pitcher. “We’re your family. That was incredibly disrespectful of you. Your father is still upset about it, and honestly, I don’t blame him. It may take some time for him to come around.”
I didn’t respond for a moment, busying myself by gathering our utensils.
“I would do it again,” I said, setting our glasses down hard on the table. “You were disrespectful to me. I won’t tolerate that. Being family doesn’t get you a free pass to talk to me however you’d like.” I tore off a paper towel for both of us, then sat. “Let’s eat.”
We ate in tense silence, our forks clinking against our plates. Auntie Abena’s brown stew was banging, as usual, and I scarfed it down at resident-level speed.* Afterward, I waited for Momma to finish, then took her plate and mine to the sink.
“You’ve grown up,” she said. I turned to her as I loaded the dishwasher with our dishes. “You have your own place. Pay your bills.” She leaned back in the dining room chair. “You’re an adult, I suppose.”
I rinsed my glass, watching the bubbles gradually loosen.
“Yes,” I said, maintaining eye contact. “I am.”
“Your dad and I,” Momma said. “We don’t mean to be cruel.” I leaned against the kitchen counter, listening. “You were very studious, and you’ve always responded to motivation, and we just want to push you to be successful.”
“Push me,” I repeated with a scoff. “That’s one way to put it.”
“You’ve done well, haven’t you?” she said.
“I would’ve done well regardless,” I insisted.
“You don’t know that.”
“Neither”—I wiped my hands roughly with my dish towel—“do you.”
We were silent again, and I let us sit in it. Like it or not, I was her blood. Dorothy Appiah was legendary for her stubbornness, but I could hold my own in a battle of wills. After a minute, she seemed to recognize that. She closed her eyes, then smiled to herself.
“Did you wash your hair?” she said.
“Yesterday,” I said.
“Come, then.”
I sat between my mother’s legs on my living room floor, stiffening my neck as she tugged a wide-toothed comb through my dense curls. This one has hair like banku, she had said when I was a child. It had been years since she had braided my hair. She had braided for money back then, bringing her customers into the living room of our small Bronzeville apartment and turning the TV to HGTV. She would comment on the houses’ French windows and granite countertops with the assurance of someone who would someday have those things, as if our linoleum tiling and MDF cabinets were a temporary embarrassment. I still remembered what she smelled like then, like Pine-Sol and baby powder, like the dusty homes she frequented to take care of her clientele.