“Did you say ‘huh?’” Jared asks, a frown snapping his brows together. “’Cause I don’t speak grunt. You want me to move forward or not? And if you say ‘not,’ you’re a fool.”
He’s right. If I’m stuck in this place, mired in too-few memories of Iris and the little time we had together, something in my life should be moving forward. Why not my career?
“Yeah.” I smile at the rosy-cheeked waitress and accept the bill. “Let’s see where it goes.”
And if it takes me to Houston, I’m closer to a championship than I thought I would be for years. That should make me happy. And it does. I can’t be ungrateful. A percentage of a percentage of people live the way I do, have the things I have, but something’s still missing. I don’t have to ask what.
I know what it is. I knowwhoit is.
I just don’t know where to find her.
Iris
Death hasa way of uniting or dividing. Families come together and draw comfort from each other or fight about wills and the things that have kept them apart. It can go either way.
Even with the funeral over and everyone gone home, and MiMi’s small refrigerator stuffed with Tupperware and leftovers, I’m not sure what her death will do to our family. Lo hasn’t seen her mother or spoken to her in years. She avoided Aunt May even at the funeral and shows no sign of breaking the silence. I can’t blame her. What Aunt May did was unacceptable, even more so to me now that I have a child of my own. I could never choose a man over her, much less accept his word as truth when my daughter accused him of wrong. But that’s what Aunt May did, and I’m afraid Lo will never forgive her.
And then there’s my mother.
Her beauty hasn’t faded. She had me so young she’s barely forty. Heads still swivel when she walks past. Her body is a trail of winding curves—breasts and hips and butt and thighs. My father diluted my skin color, but hers is a flawless mixture of darkened honey and caramel, and her hair, slightly coarser than mine, is an unrelieved fall of black to her waist. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
And she could never get over herself enough to find out if she had anything else to offer.
“It’s been a long time since I was back home,” she says, glancing around the tiny kitchen before her eyes settle on me. “You should have told me you were here. If I’d known you were so close, I would have—”
“Told Caleb?” I cut in over whatever lie she was poised to tell. “I know. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”
“I have no idea what you mean.” She touches her throat. From years of observation, I know it’s her tell. She can look you dead in the eyes, a picture of innocence, while she tries to sell you a goldmine on the bayou, but she can’t keep that hand off her throat.
“What Imeanis that I know about the apartment in Buckhead.” I wipe down the counter, cleaning because I can’t think what else to do while navigating this awkward conversation with my mother. “He still paying your way, Mama? Caleb told me he had you well under control.”
“Control?” She snaps a brow up, gentile disdain perfected. “No such thing.”
“Did you know?” I toss the rag, sopping wet, into the sink, giving up on any semblance of cleaning. Considering the NDA, I won’t ask her explicitly, but I can read her. I need to know if she sold me out. “You were so thrilled about all that ‘security’ that came with having his baby, you never considered what it was costingme.”
Her eyes flicker, but not with surprise. Did sheknow? Or at least suspect? “I really don’t know what you mean,” she says.
But her hand is at her throat.
Tears sting my eyes, but I won’t let them fall. Lo and I won the lottery with MiMi, but our mothers are a pair of snake eyes.
“You ‘bout ready, Sil?” Aunt May asks from the kitchen doorway. She meets my eyes with difficulty. “Great service, Iris. You did MiMi proud.”
“Your daughter planned most of it,” I reply, my voice a quiet accusation with a millionhow could youspuckering beneath the surface.
She stiffens, tilting her chin, a picture of defiance and grace. She and my mother are almost mirror images of one another separated by just a couple of years. They’ve always been close, covered for one another, chosen one another even over their own children.
“Where is Lo?” she asks. “I . . . we didn’t get to talk.”
“Is that a new development?” I ask, sarcasm thick in the air and in my voice. “I seem to remember her not speaking to you for the last decade.”
Her full lips tighten, the delicately chiseled jaw clenching. She tosses her head, the cloud of dark hair settling around her shoulders.
“Tell herIwanted to try,” she says.
“I will tell her no such thing, because if you really wanted to try, you know she’s down at the river and you’d walk down there until she listened and forgave you.” I release a cynical laugh. “But you don’t want to do that, do you?” I lean back against the counter, my arms folded across my chest. “Or at some point since that night you chose him over her, you would have actually tried.”
“What has gotten into you, Iris?” my mother demands, indignantly. “You never used to be so . . . You weren’t like this before.”
