Orange Cream Fruit Salad

Terrence came to Nashville this week. He does this a few times a year — flies in from Atlanta, stays at the Hampton Inn on Elm Hill Pike, picks Elijah up every morning like a man punching a clock he actually wants to punch. Tuesday through Sunday. Six days. He texted me on Monday night: "Landing at 10 AM, I'll pick him up at 11 if that works." It works. It always works. Terrence is the only man who has ever left my life and still managed to show up.

Elijah was vibrating. Not metaphorically — physically vibrating, the way six-year-olds do when their bodies cannot contain their feelings. He stood at the apartment door in his shoes at 9:30, a full ninety minutes early, holding his backpack stuffed with things he wanted to show his dad: Gerald the fish painting, a rock he found at the pool that he's convinced is a fossil, three Hot Wheels cars, and Tony the stuffed tiger, who goes everywhere. He asked me seven times if it was eleven yet. I said no seven times. He asked an eighth time. I said, "Baby, time is not going to move faster because you ask." He said, "But what if it does." I did not have a rebuttal for that.

Terrence picked him up and they went to the Nashville Zoo. Then the Adventure Science Center on Wednesday. Thursday was the park and the children's museum. Friday they went to a movie — something animated, something with talking animals, Elijah's review was "it was SO GOOD and the dog was ORANGE" which tells you everything about both the movie and my son's critical framework. Saturday Terrence took him to his hotel pool, which Elijah described as "way better than DeMarco's pool" because it had a slide. A slide. The bar is a slide.

While Elijah was with Terrence, the apartment was strange. Quieter. Chloe was in and out — she's got her summer pattern, the one where she orbits the apartment like a satellite, appearing for meals and laundry and disappearing into her phone or Destiny's house or some fourteen-year-old dimension I don't have clearance to enter. Jayden was at the pool or on the couch or in that middle space of eleven-year-old boyhood where he's too old for cartoons and too young for anything else and he doesn't know what to do with himself, so he eats cereal and stares at the ceiling.

I cleaned. When the apartment is quiet and my youngest is with his father and my oldest is a satellite and my middle child is eating cereal at the ceiling, I clean. I cleaned the kitchen — really cleaned it, pulled the stove out, found things behind it that I don't want to describe, said words that I'm glad Lorraine wasn't there to hear. I cleaned the bathroom. I organized the pantry, which took forty-five minutes because the pantry is a shelf in the kitchen that holds everything and is organized by the principle of "wherever it fits," which is no principle at all. I found three cans of cream of mushroom soup I didn't know I had. I found a box of Jell-O that expired in 2024. I found a bag of dried black beans that I bought with ambition and never touched. The pantry is a museum of my good intentions.

I made dinner every night this week even though it was just me and Chloe and Jayden, and some nights it was just me and Jayden because Chloe ate at Destiny's. Wednesday night I made fried rice — the clean-out-the-fridge kind, the one where you take leftover rice and whatever vegetables are about to turn and some eggs and soy sauce and you make something out of almost-nothing. Jayden ate it with hot sauce. I ate it on the couch, which I don't normally allow but I was tired and the couch was right there and sometimes rules are guidelines.

Sunday evening Terrence brought Elijah back. Elijah was asleep in the car seat — zonked, completely done, the particular unconsciousness of a child who has been loved into exhaustion. Terrence carried him in. We stood in the kitchen for a minute — not long, not uncomfortable, just two people who made a kid together and are trying to do right by him from different zip codes. He said, "He's amazing, Sarah." I said, "I know." He said, "You're doing an incredible job." I said, "I know that too." He laughed. I walked him to the door. He said he'd be back in October, maybe. Keisha says hi. He sent the monthly money last week, same as always. He is not Marcus. He is not my father. He is a man who leaves and comes back, and the coming back — the consistency of the coming back — is everything.

Elijah woke up Monday morning and said, "Is Dad still here?" I said no. He said, "Okay," in a voice that was small but not broken, and then he asked for Goldfish crackers for breakfast, which — no, absolutely not, but also I gave him four Goldfish while I made his oatmeal because the boy just missed his dad and the world is hard enough. Four Goldfish. A grace. A tiny, orange, fish-shaped grace.

The fried rice took care of dinner that Wednesday, but what I kept coming back to — all week, honestly, even after Elijah came home — was the pantry. All those cans I didn’t know I had, the ingredients I’d bought with good intentions and never touched. When Elijah walked back through the door Sunday night, carried in asleep by his father, I wanted Monday to feel a little celebratory, a little easy — something I could pull together without thinking too hard. A can of mandarin oranges, some whipped topping, a box of vanilla pudding: that’s all this is. He didn’t know it was special. That was the point.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 10 minutes (plus 1 hour chilling) | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 cans (11 oz each) mandarin oranges, drained
1 can (20 oz) crushed pineapple, drained
1 package (3.4 oz) instant vanilla pudding mix, dry
1 container (8 oz) frozen whipped topping, thawed
1 1/2 cups mini marshmallows
1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut (optional)

Instructions

Drain the fruit. Press the drained mandarin oranges and crushed pineapple gently with a paper towel to remove as much excess liquid as possible — this keeps the salad from getting watery.
Mix the base. In a large bowl, stir the dry vanilla pudding mix into the thawed whipped topping until smooth and fully combined.
Fold everything in. Gently fold in the mandarin oranges, crushed pineapple, and mini marshmallows until evenly coated. Add the shredded coconut if using.
Chill before serving. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving. The marshmallows will soften slightly and the flavors will come together. Serve cold.

Nutrition (per serving)

Orange Cream Fruit Salad — Something Sweet for the Quiet Nights In Between