three’s a Crowd!

Deborah, her daughter Nafertera, and her daughter Mia say they are the ultimate best of friends. Situated 30 minutes north of Atlanta in Roswell under the same roof, the suburban trio laugh, love and bicker more like sisters than mothers and daughters. Deborah considers Nafertera to be another duplication of herself, her copied flesh and blood. They run a catering business together, often sleep in the same bed, shower/dress together and pray together. If you leave their story to them to tell, they’re soulmates who love hard and fight harder. But if you give their story to others, you’ll learn their loving and playful relationship usually flips in a hot Atlanta minute to pure chaos and hate. And since the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, Nafertera has a very similar situation with her daughter as well!

Deborah and Nafertera have always had a close relationship, but they admit that it’s a volatile one. Deborah claims it’s because Nafertera is less experienced in life and doesn’t understand who the mom is in the relationship. Meanwhile, Nafertera, is a 46-year-old grown woman, with children of her own, and always plans to speak her mind. It’s not uncommon for them to get angry at each other and go days without speaking. They’ll be right beside each other and never say a word. However, despite whatever conflict arises, they’ve still got each other's back.

Nafertera has four kids. Her oldest Marterius is married. They have one child and another on the way. Her middle kids Broderick and Najhe live at home with grandma Deborah. Nafertera’s youngest daughter Mia recently graduated high school and turned 18. She’s going to college in the fall and can’t wait to get out of the looney bin as she sees it! But with the complications caused by Covid-19, her escape does not appear to be coming anytime soon and she still lives at home with mom and grandma. Deborah and Nafertera are insanely overprotective of Mia, they don’t even want her to date. Whenever she’s out, they call her every 5 minutes. Mia wants to spread her wings and be free of them. But as much as their overbearingness annoys her, it’s their constant bickering that drives her crazy. Mia says her mother and grandmother are more like frenemies than friends. And Mia’s uncle Keith adamantly agrees.

The way that Nafertera smothers Mia was learned from her first-hand experience of being smothered by Deborah. When Mia goes out with her friends, Nafertera expects Mia to tell her the names of everyone she will be with, what kind of car she will be riding in, and even the car’s license plate number! Mia feels that her grandma Deborah treats her in pretty much the same exact way, with the exception of Nafertera and Deborah’s reaction to Mia’s interest in dating. Although dating is not too important to her right now, Mia has made it clear that if she were to tell one of them about her dating life, it would definitely be Deborah. Nafertera is not thrilled about this aspect of their relationship, as she wants to always be the first person to hear about anything going on in her daughter’s life, but it’s her own lack of calm and collectiveness that pushes Mia to confide in grandma rather than mom. The double smothering will continue until Mia is able to move out into an apartment of her own, something that will likely not be happening anytime soon. Until then, she’s always in the line of fire of overbearingness. If Mia doesn’t answer a call from Nafertera, Deborah will call her next. If she doesn’t answer THAT call, mom and grandma will have the rest of their family blow up her phone until she finally answers. Mia loves her mom and grandma deeply, and at the end of the day, she finds a balance between accommodating their overbearing expectations while maintaining a semblance of young adult independence.

Deborah’s son Keith believes the women hate each other more than they love. And he paints Nafertera as the biggest problem. He describes Nafertera as a fun and loving person but says she’s vicious and lashes out like no other. He hates the way she treats their mother and thinks her disrespect is intolerable. When Deborah and Nafertera are together, which is all the time, Keith says it’s either great or terrible. There is no in-between. And all it takes to flip to terrible is for them to disagree on one little thing. And that happens often because Deborah believes she’s the boss and always right.

Although Deborah and Nafertera disagree about things constantly, their biggest disagreement is about Deborah's marriage to an African man she met on the internet. Deborah and Saoban Aina connected online while she was posting on Facebook about her vacation to Jamaica. He commented on her post. They messaged each other. And then according to Deborah, they had a whirlwind of an internet love story. She flew to Africa in 2019 to marry him against her family’s wishes, including Nafertera’s. To her family’s dismay Deborah boarded an airplane (by herself) and flew to Nigeria to marry a man she met online. The two had a traditional Nigerian wedding and Deborah’s only complaint was the lack of wedding gifts!

Nafertera was always (and is to this day) skeptical of this so-called marriage and romance. Her sentiment is that the man is using her mother for money and citizenship. She thinks that her mother wants to be in love and married so badly that she is unwilling to see the truth of the situation, that it’s really a scam. This is a point that Keith agrees with his sister about. Saoban doesn’t ask Deborah for money but she is paying an immigration lawyer to help her husband's dream of moving to America come true.

Deborah is a hopeless romantic who loves love. According to Nafertera she would do anything to be in a relationship, including dole out thousands of dollars. She worries: is her mom in too deep with this beau from across the planet? The next step is that Saoban is going to come to the United States and live with them. This is an absolute dealbreaker and Nafertera can’t believe her mom is serious! Is this love or an opportunity for him? Will she really be comfortable sharing her home with a stranger? Deborah sees no issue here, and in fact, thinks that Nafertera’s problem is that she ISN’T married. Deborah wants to see her daughter with a husband, perhaps then she’ll find peace.

A constant that keeps them together is God. Deborah and Nafertera come from a family of preachers and are both religious. While Nafertera was growing up, Deborah would drag her to church service after church service. As an adult, Nafertera has drifted from the constant church lifestyle, but Deborah is still very strong in her faith. It’s quite common for her to pull out scripture or anointing oil, pray with the laying of hands and speak in tongues. Deborah can’t go anywhere without praying for someone! She’ll pray for the birds on the trees, the dogs in the yards, OH, mom will even pray to her electronics- “Amen Alexa!”

With Deborah’s husband actively trying to move to the states, Mia leaving for college and the women trying to purchase a house while running a business, the line between mom and daughter/besties and frenemies is at the highest stakes it’s been. Only time will tell if they’ll get closer and pull through like always or if their current life circumstances will ultimately break their unbreakable bond.

Additional Characters:

Saoban Olatigwa Aina- Deborah’s Husband (47)

Keith- Nafertera’s Brother/Deborah’s Son (48)

Marterius- Nafertera’s Son (27)

Broderick- Nafertera’s Son (23)

Najhe- Nafertera’s Daughter (20)

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