Page 16 of As You Walk On

I flop down across from Dad. He’s deeply engrossed in his phone again. I sneak a piece of his bacon, grimacing at its coldness.

“I saw that.”

I guzzle half my Gatorade. “Dad, at least eat the bacon when it’s warm!”

He shakes his head, laughing.

We share a lot of the same physical traits—almost six feet tall, the wide Wright forehead, eternal baby face—but there are parts of me I know aren’t his. Ones I got from my biological mother.

At the ripe age of thirty, Dad had one unfulfilled dream: being a father. Cue the lengthy process of finding an egg donor, a surrogate, extensive testing, getting asecond jobto counter the new debt he was amassing, and then... me.

Theodore Jamal Wright, conceived via in vitro fertilization.

I’ve never met the surrogate who carried me. Never asked to either. Granny swears she was a wonderful woman. I was satisfied with the family unit I had—Dad, Granny, and me. Later, just Dad and me, though that’s taken longer to adjust to.

“You need more than that,” Dad comments, nodding toward my bottle and the second strip of cold bacon I just swiped.

“M’good,” I mumble while chewing. “This is all a growing boy needs: meat and electrolytes.”

“How did I raise such a clueless child?”

“With Granny’s help.”

“Thank God for her.”

We’re quiet for a moment. I bite at the broken cuticle around my thumb. I wonder if he misses the snorty laugh she’d let out while watching reruns of her favorite old sitcom,Living Single. The scent of her lilac perfume on Sunday mornings before church. I haven’t stepped foot in her bedroom since she died. Dad asked her to move in with us when I was born.

I hated the idea of her living alone, he told me.Plus, she couldn’t get enough of you!

G’Pa passed away right after Dad graduated college.

“Grits?” Dad offers, scooting his chair back from the table.

“Only if you make them the way I like.” Also known as Granny-style: lots of butter and sugar.

He rolls his eyes. “Heathen. Don’t ever change, TJ.”

“I don’t plan to!”

Mounted on the wall opposite me is a big dry-erase board. Scribbled in Dad’s chaotic handwriting is The Plan. A step-by-step checklist of the things we must accomplish to secure my optimum future.

Yes.We.

There’s a column for me and one for Dad. Mine is the basic playbook: GPA expectations, ideal SAT scores, track goals. He’s already begun mapping out my senior year, including a job at Crumbtious, a local doughnut shop whose owner is another Brook-Oak alumnus.

Dad’s side is mostly numbers. The weekly hours he needs to work plus overtime. Scholarship and grants deadlines. Things he can cut out of his budget to save more money. A “Top Ten Colleges for TJ” list.

Number one, written in blue marker:DUKE!!!

Duke’s been Dad’s first choice since I joined the track team. A top-twenty-ranked D1 school in the sport. Nationally respected undergrad programs. Strong community. Only an eight-hour drive from Louisville, a safe, still-reachable distance for Dad but enough space where he won’t feel as though I’m reliving his story.

Everyone assumed Dad would end up at Howard, maybesomewhere up north or the West Coast after graduating Brook-Oak.

Instead, he attended Kentucky State University in Frankfort.

I wanted to stay close to my folks, he tells everyone.And you can’t go wrong attending an HBCU!

Truth is money was tight around the Wright household. My grandparents couldn’t afford tuitionandthe out-of-state living costs that Dad’s nominal scholarships didn’t cover. Postgraduation, he landed a job back home. Bought this house. He never married. Then I came around. Every Wright Dad’s ever known has lived, worked, and died here.

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