TWENTY-SEVEN

It’s cold here.

Wherever here is.

A soft-focus white void, light coming from nowhere in particular.

Shreds of conversations I can’t parse. Music from a time and place long forgotten.

Anxiety ripples through me, and I know that, for once, it isn’t mine. It’s something in the air. Like whoever was here before me had so much they wanted to say, so much they wished to do. And none of it happened. Now, simply the tension remains.

I’m tired.

“Then rest a little while.”

I whirl around. A young woman stands with pretty brown skin and huge eyes and a crimson ribbon woven through her braids. So much of me reflected in her.

“Kelly?”

She reaches out to touch my face. I step back. “Beautiful girl. And I not just saying that ’cause you look like me.”

“Ruth is lying,” I say.

“Ruth is smart.” She shrugs. “Always was.”

“I know my mother.”

“Yeah, you do, sweetness. And I sure she been a good mother too. Better than I could have been. I’m not strict enough.”

“Shut up.” I can’t hear this right now. Even here, a headache creeps into my skull. “Where are we?”

Kelly glances around the nothingness, like she’s curious. Like she just noticed it. “Somewhere,” she replies. “Don’t know what you call it. Been here a long, long time, though, tell you that.”

I take in the sight of her. There’s nothing motherly here. She could be my older sister or big cousin, someone I tell secrets to, someone who would sneak out of the house with me to do fucked-up shit.

She’s really here.

She’s really dead.

And I have no clue how much time I have before she moves on or before I do.

“What happened to you?” After everything, it’s all I want to know.

Her face flattens.

“The Honorable Ian Hall happened. Him hire me as a young thing, just eighteen.”

To her left, the void transforms. And suddenly, I’m a fly on the wall, seeing the past through Kelly’s point of view.

Kelly’s family believed she’d be a known name one day. So did her teachers. And her ex-boyfriends. There was something about her. But Kelly didn’t know how she’d do it.

And until she figured that out, she was okay being a nobody in the Hall household.

With her hands, Kelly banged out a simple rhythm on Dante’s pint-size drum. She could barely hear the beat over his sobs. He pulled at the red shirt she’d tugged over his head that morning; he cried without ever seeming to know what had upset him. At three years old, Dante was a challenge. And that was only one of Kelly’s problems.

Someone had noticed her.

“I did watch Ian’s boy. And all the while, he did watch me.”

She turned to the door—and there stood Mr. Hall. He walked in, hovered by Kelly’s side, and pressed a finger to his lips. “Hush now,” he said to Dante. “I’m not asking you. I’m telling you.” Dante tried to listen, gulping back big breaths, swiping at his tears. Kelly looked up from the floor and smiled at Mr. Hall. With gratitude. He laid a hand on her shoulder. Squeezed, held for a few seconds too long. Then he ambled out of the room and down the hallway.

Kelly’s heart fluttered.

“I loved him. He wanted me. Big difference.”

I get it. I wish I didn’t, but I do.

“Wanted you until he didn’t?”

“I wish it were that simple.” She walks around. The image morphs.

Through the bathroom door, Dante’s cries pierced the air. Five years old and terrified of everything. Always inconsolable. Even at this age, he needed her comfort. But Kelly needed a minute.

She inspected the test on the white counter.

Positive.

Shocked, but she shouldn’t be. She missed getting her shot; he hated condoms. Now here she was, twenty years old and pregnant by a man almost twice her age. If she told the Halls, they’d ask questions.

Or Ian could fire her.

Because this wasn’t part of the arrangement. She’d hoped that would change someday, when he woke up and realized how much she loved him, how much he needed her warmth, warmth his wife could never provide.

Dante’s screams switched to desperate gasps. Kelly hid the test in her pocket and rushed out of the bathroom to calm him.

Maybe things would be different someday. But not today.

“Carry small, so I hid the pregnancy for as long as I could. When I couldn’t, took leave. Said Mama was sick, needed to care for her.” She surveys the emptiness, lost in her thoughts. “Hid some more. Until the baby came. Until… you. Then I sent you on your way.”

Kelly and Ian… and me. Their child. The thought sickens me. Because it doesn’t make sense.

“Then who is the person I call Mom? Do you even know her?”

“Of course.” Kelly beams. “Big sister always come and save me.”

“Sister?”

“Yes. Your auntie. Now your mama.”

Mom and I have similar features. But so do me and Kelly. A triangle of women joined by strange blood. “I beg her to take you until I got settled,” Kelly says. “Because I couldn’t give you a good life yet. I needed time. She agree.”

“So you had… me… and then, what? Just disappeared?”

The image dissolves. Kelly winces at the venom in my question. But how else should I feel? Everyone’s been lying. Mom’s not my mom. Kelly is the family member I thought was missing. How do I feel anything other than rage?

“I went back to work,” Kelly says. “Needed money to get you back, take care of you.” She presses her hands together, as if she were praying, places them against her lips. “But was young then. And I still loved Ian, body and soul. Spent years at Blackbead, playing with Dante during the day, fooling around at night.”

Years? She was a side chick for years? “Why?” She had to know he was stringing her along.

“Him paint a pretty picture for me. Of our future. Together, we would be rich and safe.” He’d say anything to keep her around. “And one day, I would tell him about you. He’d leave Ruth. Then we’d raise you together. I truly believed that was the plan.”

I think of Sean, the wild delusions I had about him and Joy, the way I believed he and I had something special compared to what he had with her.

In the end, he and I had nothing. I wasn’t his girlfriend or his lover. I was a buddy to listen to music with. A boost to his ego. Someone to sleep with when Joy was on her period or being a bitch.

There’s not much difference between Kelly and me. Just history repeating itself in the most embarrassing way.

Like mother, like daughter.

“You wanted a lot from Ian,” I say.

“Too much. I know that now. Probably why it never happen.”

“So how did it… end?”

A mirage re-forms. “Dante.”

---

“You teased me all day,” Ian whispered. “You know that, right?” The warm lights of the reading room surrounded them. Ian toyed with the bone flute necklace she wore, the one he bought for her on a recent trip. Kelly played with her braids and glanced at the all-white bouquet he’d placed on a nearby table. For her. Her favorites.

Ian traced a hand down her arm. Over the curve of her hip.

For the first time, Kelly tensed at his touch.

Once, these brief moments were all she’d lived for. She had been sustained for years on stolen time, whispers, secrets, sneaking. They excited her. Every hour together fed the fantasy she’d created for her and Ian, one where he fell just as hard for her as she had for him. One where he dropped all his playthings, left Ruth, and committed to Kelly with his entire heart. The dream kept her patient.

But after five or six years, patience was hard to find.

Still, his touch usually calmed her. Quieted her fears and frustrations. Lulled her into believing what she needed to be true. All this time devoted to him had to be worth it. How badly he wanted her had to mean something. After all, they were bonded forever, even if Ian didn’t know it.

They had a child to raise. Carina had just turned three. Kelly got to watch Dante grow into the smart nine-year-old he’d become. But she and Ian had missed so much of their own daughter’s life in the meantime. How much more time could they let pass while Ian figured himself out?

As if Ian could hear her worries, he kissed her. And one by one, her thoughts flitted away. Like they always did.

And then, something crashed to the floor.

Dante stood in the doorway, Lego pieces dropped everywhere. His eyes zipped back and forth between his father and his nanny.

“What are you doing here?” Ian asked, irritated.

“Why were you kissing Miss Kelly?” Dante shot back.

“Son, I don’t know what you think you saw—”

“Does Mom know what you guys are doing?”

“Enough,” Ian bellowed. “Stay out of grown folks’ business, you hear me?”

Dante’s hands tightened to fists. He bolted from the room.

Kelly stepped around the fallen Legos. Ian held her back.

“You’re too soft,” he said. “He’s nine, and he’s like this because of how you always baby him.”

Kelly pulled her wrist from Ian’s grip. “He’s still a child. Children get upset.”

As Kelly ran, she wondered if he’d treat their daughter this way too. Had she ever seen Ian show Dante love? Real love? Did he know how to be a real man, a real father?

Kelly needed to reconsider some things later.

She raced outside because Dante always wanted fresh air when he was angry. He liked to sit in the garden, breathe in the scent of hibiscus and orchid until he settled down, poke at the little shame bush Gregory planted for Dante’s amusement.

But he wasn’t by the flowers. Nor the trees. The shame bush showed off its open leaves; Dante hadn’t been there.

Kelly peered farther out. Toward the sea.

Dante stood by the cliff’s edge.

I’ve seen this cliff before.

In the vision by the jerk pit. While the Halls took photos. In my nightmares as I envisioned myself crumpled at the bottom of it.

“Dante,” Kelly called, “please come here. Come to me.” She slowly approached him. Waves crashed against the rocky shore, drowning her out.

“Get away from me,” he yelled. He stepped back. Tear streaks stained his cheeks.

She crept closer. “I know you upset, but we’re not safe here.”

“Leave me alone. Leave my family alone.” Dante shifted away again. The side of the cliff stretched far down. Dante’s eyes widened.

Kelly feared heights too.

“Okay,” Kelly said, heart pounding. If Dante retreated much farther, he’d fall. “I’ll leave. As soon as you want. But you have to come to me first.”

Dante scowled.

He inched himself backward.

No.

Kelly lurched for him. She yanked on Dante’s arm. She fell forward.

Dante screamed.

Kelly plunged.

I look away. I can’t stomach watching her plummet, seeing her smash against the ground while Dante takes in everything from above.

“I lay there for what felt like forever,” Kelly murmurs. It’s as if remembering still rattles her. “It hurt everywhere. Till it didn’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

The vision I saw in the smoke was wrong. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t Simone.

It was Kelly. It had always been Kelly.

But I didn’t find her bones under the cliff.

“You didn’t die there,” I say plainly.

“I did. But I didn’t stay there.”

Kelly kept her eyes closed. When she dared open them, she followed the moon. Full and crawling across the darkened sky.

Minutes passed. Perhaps hours did. It was hard to know. Time didn’t feel the same. Her body didn’t feel the same. But her body did feel. Did twitch and ache and writhe atop rocks and crags.

A shadow blocked the moonlight.

Help. Dante must have gotten help.

The shadow hovered. It did not ask if Kelly was okay, where she hurt, or if she could move. It simply took notice.

Kelly tried to speak. She could only cough and cry. Pain reverberated through her body. The next time she opened her eyes, the shadow came into focus.

The bleached skin, the swoop of hair, the nails as sharp as a cutlass.

Ruth.

Her arms raised, a heavy rock in her grasp.

Kelly tried to speak.

Ruth did not allow it.

“And then they moved you. And hid you.”

“And I linger. Follow ’em. Had no choice.”

They buried her body, probably had Gregory plant that mango tree on top of her, then pretended that love and commitment made it grow. Told us to respect the tree so we wouldn’t discover the truth.

“They said you left the country.”

“Ruth say that. Next day, she write a goodbye note like it was from me, put it in my room. Said I quit, said I left.”

My mind’s spinning. “But Dante saw you fall. So, what, he’s always known?”

“Be easy on him. He was just a boy. He didn’t know. Never did.”

“But he saw.”

“And he cry and scream and get his mother. Bet she say she’d handle it.” Kelly sighs. “Guess she did.”

“He never asked? Never wondered where the hell you went?”

“You assume so much. Angry like your father.” She shakes her head. “Dante ask, plenty. Ruth story never change. Heard it so much, he had to believe it.”

With how much he hates his dad, I don’t know that he did. Not entirely.

“I didn’t like Ruth,” Kelly admits, waving the vision away. “But she always take care of everything. Especially her family. She grow it, protect it.” She crosses her arms. “Can almost forgive her for that.”

Murderers don’t deserve forgiveness. Ruth definitely doesn’t. And when I thought my selfishness killed Joy, I knew it was true for me too.

“So when I first showed up at Blackbead, what did you want from me?”

“To leave.” She’s so simple with it that it annoys the shit out of me. “Since I pass, I try to shield anyone the Halls bring to care for the pickney. Scare them out of the home, keep them runnin’ for the mountains. Always work.” She smiles, sadly. “Until you. You fight me so.”

Wish I hadn’t. “I can’t fight anymore.” I’ve been running for so long. Deep down, I knew I’d hit a dead end eventually. But I didn’t imagine it’d play out like this.

“You not done yet,” Kelly says.

“I want to be done.”

“No,” she insists. “You want to fight. You love it. You’re just like me.” Kelly grasps my shoulder. Her first touch and her last. “Fight a little longer. Live.”

A sharp current flies through my body. It sets every nerve on fire, lights up my cells. It’s too much.

“Wake up,” Kelly whispers.

I’m so tired.

“Wake up.”

No more, please.

“Wake up.”