Page 49 of Lily In The Valley
“She’s hurting bad,” I finally said.
“I bet. Nothing can prepare you for that.”
“What hurts me is she doesn’t know how to say it. Not with words.”
“Nobody knows how to process grief, son.” We were quiet again. “Kelly’s a strong woman. Just do what you can.”
I shrugged, picking at the food on my plate. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
“She just scared, Khalil. Probably a little guilty. Probably mad at God and herself and the whole damn world.”
“I get that. But why won’t she let me in?”
“Has she ever?” He stayed silent so I could think. “I know y’all love each other, but some people love like a one-way street. Not ‘cause they don’t want to meet you halfway. They just never learned how.”
I swallowed hard. “I just…I want to be there for her.”
“And you think that’s enough to keep her?” He said it so plainly. So quiet. Like a warning wrapped in an old truth he knew all too well. “I just wanted to check-in. Let me know when they get the details figured out for the funeral.”
“I will.” I picked at my food a bit more while staring out at the backyard.
The rest of the morning was a blur of friends and colleagues stopping by to pay their respects to Kelly and her father. Somehow, I’d fallen asleep on the patio after talking to Xavier about business stuff. While asleep, I dreamt about my mom again. But this time, I was older. She was standing in the kitchen with the same blue bag, hair twisting and turning in every direction. She turned around, looked me dead in the face, and said, “You can’t save everybody, baby.” I tried to speak, but my mouth wouldn’t work. She walked out anyway. And I woke up gasping for air, choking on silence.
When I walked into the house, everyone left was fluttering around. Vivian was on a call. Douglass and Trent’s voices were bellowing from Kenneth’s office, seemingly trying to talk him down from something. Xavier was watching something on TV, a queasy Vanessa laying her head in his lap. That was when I saw him.
A man. Tall, wearing scrubs, standing with Kelly in the foyer. They laughed at something I couldn’t hear. She was in sweatpants and a tank top. Her face was still grim, even with the smile pasted on.
They hugged.
It was not romantic. But it didn’t have to be. The hug lasted one second too long. She opened the door. He left. She closed the door. And just like that, my chest split open. My thoughts became mute. I went straight to Kenneth’s bar, picked a bottle from the top shelf, poured a shot of something brown, and knocked it back. And then another. And another. I leanedagainst the cabinets, breathing like I just ran ten miles. Because this right here?
This was what it felt like to be left all over again.
Chapter 16
Kelly
I heardthe gospel song before I opened my eyes. Just one line. “I know I’ve been changed…” Soft. Half a whisper in the back of my mind. Not playing from a speaker, not humming from anyone’s mouth. Just there. Lingering. I blinked up at the ceiling of my childhood bedroom, the faint light through the blinds casting lines across the ceiling like jail bars. My mama’s lily was still on the desk, reaching gently toward the window like it didn’t know it was left behind. I got up, showered, dressed, and walked into the lion’s den.
Once wet and reddened eyes were replaced by irises stuck in nostalgia. Toward the end of yesterday, pleas of whys turned into drunken memories of times with my mother. Her friends and my dad reminisced on simpler times, times when they thought they had more time, had eternity. That was, until my Uncle PJ banged on the door. Then the house became a war zone, everyone tiptoeing around the stand-off between he and my father. Two fragile egos fighting to reign supreme.
Walking into the living room, they were standing too close, both talking with their hands, their fists a breath away from making contact with each other’s shoulders.
“I’m her husband, PJ,” my father said, voice too loud. “I told you once before, everything to do with Charisse, I handle.”
“She was my sister, too yeah,” PJ shot back, his voice just as threatening. “Before she ever fucking met you and let you ruin her goddamn life. You don’t know what the fuck she would’ve wanted. She barely wanted yo’ bitch ass, that’s for damn sho’. Should’ve shot yo’ ass when I had the chance.”
“That’s bullshit! You always coming ‘round here trying to start fights. Threatening to kill people. For what? And you expect me to believe my own wife wouldn’t want me to know how she wanted to go in the ground?”
“Because she knew yo’ bitch ass would make it all about you!”
“Shut up!” I snapped. Years. Years of arguing over nonsense. They were the reason I’d missed out on summers with my grandmother before she passed. Hadn’t they’d had enough? Enough of this tug-o-war they had over my mother. As if she weren’t her own person and not for their possession. They turned, blinking like they’d just remembered I was there. Aunt Viv and Lisa stood in the kitchen with wide eyes. Uncle Doug and Uncle Trent were close by, trying to play referee, arms stretched between my father and uncle like human gates. I stepped forward, hands calm.
“My mother will be laid to rest in a white casket with gold trim,” I said, my voice flat. “No open casket during the wake. I’ll write the obituary. The service will be at First Baptist. Seven speakers max. Neither of you. The repast will be here. That’s what’s happening.” I looked over at Aunt Viv and Lisa, I couldn’t take the heartbreak filling their eyes. I blinked. “You got that, Aunt Viv and Lisa?”
Silence followed. Lisa gave me a look—half pride, half sadness. Vivian nodded. “Then it’s settled.”
PJ swallowed hard, his anger folding into something more fragile. “Okay, Lily-girl,” he said, quiet. “You got it.”
