I’ve only been gone from the A for six weeks.
Six weeks feels like years to me.
Everything in the A that I remember as we travel up I-75 to get to my nana’s exit…well, it looks different for some reason. Maybe it has more to do with getting used to Oakwood Grove than anything. Still, by the time we exit and head up University Avenue to turn into her neighborhood—Pittsburgh community—I’ve settled back into my groove.
Paradise Drive is only a few turns away. The only place I’ve ever known and felt safe.
The row of houses on that dead-end street come with an interesting story I was told when I was younger. The houses used to occupy the land where the highway exists today. So the city and the state governments, according to Nana’s neighbors, negotiated to have all the houses on the street relocated. The foundations were extracted, set up on blocks, moved to their new plots of land, and resettled.
I always thought it was a cool, but irritating, piece of history. Nana wasn’t around for all of that, so she didn’t quite share my irritation. Still, whether by divine invention or just the pure goodness of the people, that street managed to be a haven of sorts for anyone who lived there and for those who visited. Almost as though the minute you turn onto the street, it becomes a “fortress” of sorts, like nothing else matters, and you can leave your troubles at the corner. I don’t know how else to explain it. Chaos may swirl in the rest of the Pittsburgh community, but it never touches “paradise.”
Maybe that’s what I miss most…feeling safe despite everything.
Zahra and I had been vibing the entire drive, stealing glances during the five-hour trip, stopping in Macon to grab some food and gas up. I make a mental note to grab the special fuel blend I have at Nana’s when we get there, since I only run Storm’s engine on ethanol blends when I don’t have time to mix the fuel for longer road trips.
I keep glancing at her, grinning over the beauty who’s making herself comfortable in the passenger seat, playing with the music selection that became the soundtrack for the trip. I can’t believe she’s here with me. I mean, yeah, she said she wanted to go a while ago, but this…this hits different.
“Your whole energy is different, baby.” Zahra breaks through my thoughts as we make the final turn before hitting Nana’s street. “It’s aggressive, edgy.”
“Oh, really? How do you mean?”
“It feels like you had to match the vibe surrounding us. I noticed you started scanning the area more, like you were putting your head on a swivel to see every angle you could.” She keeps studying me like she’s never seen me before a day in her life. It makes me a little uncomfortable, but I adjust quick. “I’m trying to decide if I like this look on you…ruffneck.”
I hide my grin. Okay, let’s stop playing, I can’t hide my grin, and I don’t want to, either. She has a point without realizing it. I kinda remade myself a little bit because I didn’t want my past to follow me to Oakwood Grove. What I failed to account for was having to come back home, and with someone who never knew or had seen that other side of me.
I shrug off those thoughts as I wink at her. “I hope once you’ve seen this side of me, you don’t go running for the hills.”
She leans over and kisses my cheek, sending waves of heat down my spine. “I’m a big girl. I’d like to think I can handle a few things.”
“You haven’t met my nana yet.”
We pull into the driveway, making sure to turn the music down low. While Zahra is confused over my insistence, she doesn’t understand what the streets already know. If anyone came to Ms. Johari’s house for anything, the music had to be turned down or turned off. She always said it upsets the ancestors who commune with her, but I know better.
I take a deep breath once I put the car in park, gripping the gearshift tighter than I planned. I’ve been asking, and asking, since I was thirteen, to find out about my family tree. Now that the moment is here, I want to back out. The unknown is freaking me out, and I fear whatever it is that she might have to tell me.
I feel a soft, soothing hand cover mine while it remains on the gearshift. When I shift my gaze, her eyes pierce through to the very core of my being. I can’t tear myself away, even if I want to. “It will be okay, promise.” She rubs her fingers across the back of my palm, sending shockwaves through my arm. “This was a long time coming, and you’re ready for this.”
I get out of the car, moving around the back to the passenger side to make sure Zahra hops out in one piece. Okay, so I want to sneak a kiss in before we walk up the stairs arm-in-arm to the front door. I’m gonna have to calm down. I’m about to introduce a girl to my grandmother for the first time in my life, on top of learning information that has the potential to shift my whole life.
Even though I have a key, I ring the doorbell and step back to wait for her to go through her usual routine. I look to my left, where I notice the familiar rustling of the curtains, suppressing a smirk because I know what comes next. I’m not prepared for how far she’s about to go, though.
“Now, why would my grandson ring the doorbell when he knows he has a key?” she shouts through the heavy, lacquered, and polished oak door. Her accent comes through with all the richness of a thick batch of molasses. Man, I miss her so much in this moment. “I do not think I should open the door, since I was not expecting any strange visitors today.”
“Nana, I would have used my key, but I have a special guest with me.” I chuckle, cutting my eyes at Zahra, who stifles a giggle of her own at the spectacle we’re putting on in front of her. “I know my grandmother would prefer that I make formal introductions before she welcomed the special guest into the house.”
“They had better be special, or I am giving them the business.”
“Nana, come on. Why would I bring someone to the house if they weren’t special?”
“You have a good point, grandson.” Nana taps her knuckles against the other side of the door. “They had better be pretty, or I will disown you. And you better be wearing your necklace, or I will have another reason to cut you out of my will.”
Zahra breaks out into laughter, bracing one hand against the wall and holding her stomach with the other. “I love her already. She got you shook.”
“Nana, I would never go anywhere without my necklace.” I roll my eyes, intent on breaking through the stonewall she insists on throwing in front of me. She knows I don’t go anywhere without my amethyst teardrop necklace. That’s a karma I don’t want. “She’s stunning, and she’s also the one I told you about.”
“Wait…what?” Zahra whispers in my ear. “You told her I was coming with you? I thought this was a surprise.”
Nana opens the door in grand fashion, causing both of us to jump. She gives me the once-over, then throws a sideways glance at Zahra. “Oh well, since you put it that way, let me get a good look at her for myself, make sure you are not slipping.”
“Nana!”
“What? I have to make sure that you have good taste in girls, Ya-Ya.”
Zahra keeps laughing at the “show” my grandmother puts on, unable to stop, even with her standing in front of us on the other side of the wrought-iron outer door. I want to die on the spot. This is not the way I envisioned things to go at all. “Oh em gee,” Zahra says. “This was worth the trip and then some. I can’t wait to find out what happens next.”
I clear my throat so I can get my life together. “Nana, I would like to introduce my girlfriend, Zahra Assante. Z, this is my Nana, Mrs. Johari Salah, known in the neighborhood as Ms. Johari or Mama Johari.”
Zahra blushes for a moment, extending her hand out to shake. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Johari. Yasir has told me a lot about you.”
Nana takes a long look at Zahra, and her eyes light up. In the next moment, she rushes us inside, taking Zahra by the shoulders and studying her like she’s connecting the dots in her mind. This smile…I mean, this smile…shows up out of nowhere. I have no clue what to make of it, and Zahra looks a little uneasy the whole time.
Nana keeps going into this trance, like she’s looking through her and off into the distance. Her hands start trembling, and I do what I can to calm her. I don’t want Zahra completely freaking out. First impressions and all that.
By the time I get the chance to shake Nana out of whatever is happening to her, she just snaps right out of it. Her gaze is strange, like she doesn’t want to say what she’s seen, but there’s no way I’m about to let that ride. In the next moment, her facial expression turns again, and this time she’s all smiles again. “You are Kua tribe, aren’t you, little one?”
Zahra’s eyes flash, and I stand there confuzzled as all get out. “Yes, ma’am, I am. But how did…?”
“Yeah, Nana, how in the world could you have figured that out just by staring at her?” Why do I get the feeling this all ties into a lot of what she wants to talk about? “And what’s that whole thing you just did where you blanked out on us? I think we need to sit down, for real for real.”
She ushers us into the living room, moving with a sense of urgency that triggers my anxiety. She takes each of our hands in hers, grinning the whole time as she sees the two of us together. “Yes, baby, we do… I had no idea… Please, you two, make yourself comfortable on the couch. I will grab some sweet tea and lemon and explain as much as I can.”
…
We’ve spent the last two hours talking about my life in Kindara, and I’m sitting here reacting like all the things that happened that night before I was brought to Nana were happening to someone else. Every word she speaks feels like I’m sinking deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole, with no chance of coming out of it as anywhere near the same person. Nana has been an oral storyteller her entire life, so everything that comes from her sounds like it was written for fiction.
Except not one word of it is fiction.
“You, your parents, and your older brother, were selected by the Kindaran Council to be a part of the Kindaran Nine families.” Nana began weaving the next part of the fascinating tale that is my life. “You were charged with knowing the location of, and protecting, the sacred Kutokufa Scrolls, because the Vodaran priestesses who brought you into the world saw what the Divine Mother had gifted you.”
My head is spinning, trying to make sense of everything she’s told me and Zahra so far.
My parents were…murdered?
My bloodline is Kindaran, and I wasn’t born in the States.
I have—or had—a big brother?
I was supposed to die that night during an invasion—the Bralba invasion.
“That night was one of the worst nights of my life,” Nana continued, wiping tears from her eyes like it all happened last week, much less over ten years ago. “Hassan brought you to me and gave the devastating news that my son—your father—and your mother had been killed to protect you and get you out.”
“What happened to my…my brother?” I ask her, doing my best to keep my hands from shaking. “Has anyone been able to find him?”
“No, my child, Bomani—your older brother—was a part of the Kindaran military at the time of the invasion,” Nana answers as she continues to rock in her chair. “I fear he is dead, possibly killed during the invasion. When efforts were being made to identify the bodies in the aftermath, the only thing found was his identification tags around the neck of a body found outside of Drana Tirin.”
Tears streak down my face, and I’m sad and confused at the same time. Somewhere deep in my core, I feel the loss of family, another person who could’ve helped me figure out who I am. I just can’t figure out why I’m so distraught over it. I don’t remember him—except for a memory triggered out of the blue before I met with Ms. Lennox for lunch a few days ago.
But she still doesn’t explain why she blanked out into a trance when she held Zahra’s hand. That’s gonna bother me for a minute, but I’m in too much shock from the other revelations to pay any attention to it right now.
“I know that this is a lot for you to take in one day, but I promise, we will take everything one step at a time, one day at a time.” Nana leans in, taking my hands in hers, focusing her gaze into my eyes. “I am sorry that I could not tell you before now, but there is a reason we had to keep the truth from you.”
I force tears back as best I can. It’s more than I thought I’d hear, and more than I can handle in one short burst. I wanted to know, but now I don’t know what to do with it all.
“So I’m…Kindaran? Like, I’m from the same country as you, as Zahra?” I struggle to get the words out. It’s not every day that your world, your history, is split into pieces and put back together again to look like a whole other picture you’re struggling to understand. “So what Tribe… Is that right? What Tribe are we from?”
“We are Solara Tribe, my darling.” She keeps rubbing my hands, but I can’t stop shaking. “And unfortunately, we were ground zero for one of the worst atrocities in Kindaran history.”
“By Nyati…Solara was where everything happened.” Zahra gasps and clamps her hand over her mouth. I’d almost forgotten that Zahra sat right beside me while she listened to everything I heard coming from Nana. It doesn’t even register for me over what she might be thinking right now. “My father is a Kindaran historian. I’ve read about what happened, and I was a little girl when we were evacuated to the States, but I never thought I would ever meet anyone who survived the attacks. We were told that everyone was killed.”
“Well, my dear girl, as you now realize, that was not the case.” Nana nods as she glances at her. “I have a feeling your father and I may need to have a longer conversation. If for nothing else, we may need to update his recollection of historical data.”
“So I have another question,” I interject. My head is still spinning, and I try to find some way to balance. “What about what I told you about the way my eyes turned red? And Zahra said she saw my eyes turn purple when we were alone. What does that mean? Is there something wrong with me?”
“No, there is nothing wrong with you at all, of that I am certain.” Nana’s eyes smile before the rest of her face follows. She places her hand against my cheek. “Nyati has placed something special inside you. What that is, and why the Divine Mother chose you, even I do not know. But I do know how to find out. I will contact Hassan. He has been on a separate mission for the Kindaran Council.”
“Who’s Hassan? Is he part of…the Solara Tribe? Or was he part of another Tribe in Kindara?” It sounds so foreign to me, the way it’s coming out of my mouth. I have to get used to saying it, though… It’s my heritage now. “Does he know where our kin who survived might be? Does anyone else know if they are still alive and if they know my parents? I have so many questions.”
Nana closes her eyes for a moment, clasping her hands together and mumbling something I can’t make out. When she opens her eyes, I can tell it pains her to have to explain things. “We had to…tell a different story…for the Solara Tribe to have a chance to rebuild. The truth of what happened there could only be entrusted to the Kindaran Council and the elder Vodaran priestesses. Not even Hassan knows the whole truth. All he was told was to find you and get you somewhere safe. That’s how you were brought to me that night.”
“But if I lived there, how am I not able to remember? I keep having these strange dreams that don’t make sense to me.” I blink a few times to try to access some of the images to describe to her. “I mean, I kept seeing different parts of the island, and I thought I’d never been there before. I even told Zahra that I didn’t know the island, and I still don’t know if I do or don’t.”
“A priestess suppressed your memories. As I was told by Hassan, the man who brought you to me, you were in so much shock, you could not speak,” she replies, wiping a tear from her eye. “She warned that you might still have nightmares of that night, but we had hoped that they would not happen at all, at least until we had time to prepare you for what I have told you today.”
“How soon can he get here? It sounds like he holds the key to a lot of my past, and I need to know it ASAP.”
“These things take time. I do not know where he is on the planet right now. If I can get him to come to Georgia, I will tell him to come as soon as possible,” Nana says. She leans back in her chair, rubbing her hands together. “There was no way to know when your subconscious might awaken. Now that we know it has, we need to unlock what has been hidden from you.”
“Did you or Unk know what’s going on with me?” I narrow my gaze, unsure of what answer I’ll get from her. “Did you know the truth and keep it from me?”
“Ya-Ya, baby, take a breath, okay?” Zahra rubs my shoulders. I knew I was tense, but considering the information being laid at my feet, I feel like exploding. “We will get you through this, but you need to breathe. Breathe with me, slow and steady.”
“I need answers, that’s what I need.” I massage my temples, feeling Zahra’s hands moving to my back. “I’m not sure why I’m even asking. Who knows how much more of this I can handle right now? Everywhere I’ve been, I’ve felt like I was out of place. Now, I kinda know why, but I don’t know why.”
I feel Zahra’s lips against my cheek, and she hums a tune in my ear, pulling me closer to her so only I can hear it. It’s so hypnotic, so soothing, I almost forget where we are. Our eyes meet when I turn to face her, and she doesn’t speak a word; the only thing I hear is the tune she continues to hum. I take deeper breaths, falling into a Zen-like trance, concentrating on what I hear more than anything.
She smiles as she hums, her eyes darting back and forth. I wonder if she notices something in my eyes and pray they don’t change colors again. I’m already hanging by a thread. The last thing I need is to have something else that I can’t explain.
Zahra places an index finger against my lips, her silent cue to stop worrying over whatever is happening to me. It’s easy for her to say. She’s not the one whose eyes are glowing… Who knows what hue they are this time around?
The moment she stops singing, a cloud lifts from my mind. I grin at her, mouthing “thank you” as I caress her cheek. She whispers, “We’ll handle this, I promise.”
“Yes, that is what I thought.” Nana claps softly over what she’s witnessed. “The gods placed you where you needed to be for their own reasons, and this is one of them, Ya-Ya.”
Zahra smirks a bit, shaking her head a few times as she waits for me to give her any idea that I’m okay. I nod, placing a small kiss across her lips. “I wouldn’t exactly say the gods had anything to do with it, Ms. Johari. Your grandson is quite the charmer. He had my attention from the moment he stepped on campus.”
Nana doesn’t say anything. She just continues to stare at us, crossing her arms over her chest. “My dear girl, first, you no longer have to call me Ms. Johari. It’s Nana. Second, there is a fine line between coincidence and fate. Only time will tell if the gods were right or not.”
I check my watch, realizing we better head out and make a few more stops before we make the drive back to the Grove. More than likely, the streets have already caught wind that I’m back, and it’s only a matter of time before certain people check in to make sure I know that they know.
I kiss Nana’s cheek, giving her a long hug, smiling when she returns my hug and squeezes Zahra so tight, I think she won’t be able to breathe. “Now, I expect for you to come back and see me sometime. There is so much more we need to discuss, you hear?”
“Yes, Nana, I hear you.” Zahra giggles as she takes my hand to leave. “I promise, we will have more conversations soon. I have to find out more embarrassing stories about Ya-Ya, and you’re the perfect person to get that from.”
“Yeah, nah, it’s time to go, for real.” I pull her to the door, coming close to picking her off the ground to carry her to Storm. “We have some other things to do and people to see.”
“Yes, you do, Ya-Ya. You’ve been gone too long, and you might need to get things back in balance.” Nana winks as she sits in her favorite rocking chair on the porch. “Things have been a bit off for the past few weeks.”
Zahra’s ears perk up, turning her attention to my concerned expression. “What does she mean by that? Is there something you’re not telling me?”
The distinctive rumble of several engines catches my ear. It’s faint at first, but the sounds get louder within minutes. I can deal with them if I’m by myself, but having Zahra with me complicates things, and there’s no way I can talk my way out of the situation. Not when she’s with them.
A few minutes later, the line of muscle cars, a mix of Mustangs, Camaros, and Chargers, pop up in front of Nana’s driveway. Zahra surprises me by stepping in front of me, almost like she wants to protect me. Nana notices it, too, but all she does is continue to rock in her chair. If she had access, I’m sure she would have a bowl of popcorn in her lap, ready to watch whatever is about to unfold.
Dante exits from his Charger, walks around the front, and leans against the hood. The rest of the Squad follow his lead, blocking the driveway—and our ability to leave.