Page 17 of Dali: The Demolisher

Because he’d regret it eventually… wouldn’t he?

My thoughts were all over the place.

No man had ever made such a sacrifice for me, but I loved Dali too much to let him. If anything, I’d have to figure out a way to live with his career choice. If he was willing to give it up for me… I’d have to be willing to live with it for him.

The Family Meeting

“What didyou do to my friend?” Ken asked, sitting next to me. “You broke him.”

I turned slightly to face my brother. “What?”

“He’s been sitting in the same spot staring at the wall for hours. What did you do to Dali?”

Huffing, I ran my fingers through my straightened hair. “I didn’t try to break him. He told me he retired for me. You know I can’t let him do that.”

“He’s a grown man, Kas.” He seethed quietly. “It’s not about what you want to let him do. It was his choice.”

My eyes rolled as I crossed my arms over my chest. “Is he really sad? Or just mad?”

“He’s surprised more than anything. I think he’s sad too. He really wants to be with you and knew retiring would be the start of that. Now I don’t think he knows what to do.”

“Now I feel even more horrible. I promise I didn’t want to hurt him, Ken. This is for the best, though, right? Did I make a mistake? I can’t… He can’t give that up for me. For me?”

My brother stared at me for a while. He chuckled and shook his head before running his hands up and down his legs.

“Yeah, I see what the problem is now,” he said, looking straight ahead as our uncle Markus stepped in the center of the living room. We’d gathered at Granny’s house for whateverreason. I was curious about what this was about, but now, I was more concerned about what Kennessy had to say.

“What’s the problem?”

“We’ll talk.”

“No, tell me now!” I whispered roughly.

“Girl, shut up. I’ma make you suffer for a while since you hurt my friend.”

My growl made him laugh as I gripped the edge of my seat. I wanted to pop him upside his head, but that would have been out of character for me. Instead, I gave Uncle Markus my attention as he thanked us for coming. It was us and our parents plus his wife, my other uncle and two aunts on Daddy’s side of the family, and my cousins.

“I’m going to cut to the chase because I know we all have lives and families to get back to,” Unc said. “Daddy Frank has been gone for almost a year now. We’ve gotten most of his affairs taken care of. There is still the issue of his land and his portion of the oil payments he gets monthly with his siblings.”

I looked over at Daddy, unsure why we were involved in this conversation. It sounded like something Granny was supposed to be handling with her kids.

“Now Daddy Frank wanted the oil payments to be divided for his grandchildren, which is why y’all are here. We need your information to get the payments set up.” He paused and looked at his mother. “As far as the land is concerned… he wants to keep it in the family. Mama wants to sell.”

Granny sat up in her seat, hands cupped in her lap as she rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why you wasted everyone’s time. I didn’t want to deal with the upkeep of that land while he was here and I’m certainly not going to deal with it now that he’s gone. I’m going to sell.”

“If upkeep is the issue, what if we take care of it,” Daddy said. “We can limit your involvement.”

Her head shook. “I want to sell.”

“But, Mama, that land was important to Daddy,” Aunt Claurice said. “He wanted us to build homes there so our families could live by each other. It doesn’t seem fair to sell it now that he’s gone.”

“I don’t think it’s fair to put that weight on Mama,” Uncle Rodney said. “She has the right to do with it what she wants to. Regardless of what Daddy wanted, he left it in her care. Besides, she could make millions from that land if she sold it.”

“I agree,” Mama said. “How many of us would really be willing to leave our home to live there? If Mama Bessie doesn’t want it and she can benefit from selling it, I say we do that.”

They continued to go back and forth about it for another thirty minutes and realized it wouldn’t be as easy as they thought to come to an agreement. While I appreciated them wanting to involve us, I felt like us being here was slightly intrusive. I made the mental note to check in with Granny one on one this week to see if she was completely against keeping the land. If so, regardless of how I felt personally, I’d advocate for the land to be sold.

By the time the meeting was over, Kennessy had slipped out of the living room before I could hold him down for information on Dali. That was cute. It wasn’t like I didn’t know where he lived and couldn’t pop up on him if I needed to.

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