Page 126 of Invisible Bars

“Oh, dang! You could’ve told me! I’ve been meaning 7to go by there and see her. But it’s not like I could’ve come anyway—I’mbabysitting.Still, tell her I said hey… and Auntie Renee too if you see her. Oh, and if she cooked, grab me a plate! I’mstarving! Seriously. If not, call me when you leave so I can tell you what I want to eat.”

“Dess, you got a whole nigga… afiancé. That man can’t feed you?”

“I’m sorry,what?! Okay! Watch menotbabysit for you ever again!”

I laughed. “I’m just fuckin’ with you, sis. I’ma bring both of y’all something… although Naji may not eat much. Then again, it’s Friday… her cheat day. I’ll call you when I leave.”

“Okay then! Don’t forget the cornbread if she made some!”

Two minutes hadn’t even passed before my phone lit up again.

Dessign.

I sighed, already laughing as I answered. “Yeah, Dess?”

“I forgot to tell you—if she made banana pudding, I want some! And don’t be bringing me no corner scoop either! I want middle pudding, with at least two full Nilla wafers!”

I shook my head. “Really, sis?”

“I’m serious! Last time you brought me that dry-ass edge piece with like half a wafer and a spoonful of attitude.”

I grinned. “You act like you placing an Uber Eats order with God.”

“Iam! Grandma's food is spiritual! Respect it!”

“You done now?”

“I think so… unless she made pound cake. If she did, I want a slice wrapped in foil and warmed for seven seconds in the microwave. Not eight.Seven.”

I stared at the phone. “You can warm it up when I bring it to you. I’m hanging up.”

“Okay, bye—but don’t forget the pudding!”

Click.

I chuckled.

We talked and hung up the phone on each other like that all the time.

About five minutes later, I pulled up to my grandma’s house—the hood, where she refused to leave.

The neighborhood wasn’t the worst, but it damn sure wasn’t the best. It wasn’t deep in the trenches—no boarded-up houses on every corner, no regular gunfire to soundtrack the night—butit was still the hood. Not gentrified. Not polished. Justfamiliar. The kind of place where ice cream trucks still circled year-round, even in February, and somebody’s cousin stayed selling seafood plates out the trunk of their car.

I had tried—more than once—to put her in a better neighborhood.

A condo uptown. A two-story home in a gated community. A lake house with a porch swing and a whole separate guest wing; something far from the sirens, the corner stores, the noise.

Not because I was embarrassed, but I cared about her safety—although she could hold her own. But Mama Rose shut that idea downevery single timewith a hand wave and a look like I’d just told her she had to join the army.

Thinking about it took me back to the last time I asked her, which was over a year ago.

“Imanio, for the I don’t know how many times, I’m not leaving my people,” she stated with finality, with a hand on her hip and stirring a pot with the other like she was delivering scripture and supper at the same time. “I know who lives next door,” she continued. “I know who cuts across my lawn, who pretends they don’t see me when I wave, and who needs to stop letting they’re kids climb my damn fence. Juanita’s boys even volunteer to shovel my walkway in the winter.”

She pointed a spoon at me.

“If I move into this big ol’ dreamhouse of yours, who gon’ do that for me? Huh? Mr. HOA with his fancy clipboard? Surely not you. Grandson, I appreciate what you’ve been wanting to do for me for years, but I got babies to feed, grown men who cry on my porch after breakups, and folks who knock on my door when their lights are off. They need sugar, prayer, or Wi-Fi. And you want me to move somewhere with a homeowners association that will fine me for frying fish on a Friday or to aneighborhood where the neighbors clutch their purses when I sneeze too loud?”

She scoffed, then hit me with the final blow.