“I won’t,” he promised, already easing us into the street. “But I might run one very polite yellow.”
As we pulled off, I looked back through the windshield. The Green Room crew spilled onto the sidewalk, clapping and hollering like they’d just watched the end of a movie they were going to talk about forever. Daddy lifted his chin. Uncle Leon saluted with his rag. Shawna blew a kiss like a threat if I didn’t text. Malik pretended to faint and Cierra laughed into his shoulder. Keisha held the boys, both heads tucked under her chin, the picture of Sunday-morning peace on a Friday night. Mama rested her hand on Daddy’s forearm—easy, familiar—and he covered it, both of them smiling like the ship had maybe turned back toward shore.
I turned forward and grabbed Quentin’s hand on the console. He laced our fingers without looking, thumb stroking once—one, two, three, four—his little secret count that always pulls my breath into rhythm.
“You know what I was thinking tonight?” I said, my voice small because the wave had just let me go.
“What?”
“That I used to be proud of being a loner. At the table. In my life. Thought the game was cleaner when it was just me.” I smiled, sudden and stupid with joy that hurt. “But we run cleaner together.”
His jaw worked. He squeezed my hand, eyes on the road, glasses catching the streetlights like tiny moons. “That’s been the math since the night I met you, Rayna.”
I let my head fall back against the seat. Another squeeze gathered, climbed, crested. I breathed and let it move through. With every inhale, I caught the past few months like snapshots—the day I told him I was pregnant and ran,the way he found me on Daddy’s couch the next morning and didn’t try to fix what he could only hold; Grandma telling him he was an anchor and not a chain; my mother’s hands and her quiet confession about the marriage she’d left and the love that never stopped; the way Nia’s shadow had finally slid off my life like it never fit; Malik asking for Whitaker Electric in his program and me and Daddy saying yes without even thinking; Quentin’s ring still in the little box on my dresser, waiting for after the swelling in my fingers went down. All that mess. All that mercy.
The wave eased. I breathed, opened my eyes.
Quentin looked over, mouth tilted in that way that says he’s half in prayer, half in science. “You good?”
I nodded, tears hot and ridiculous and exactly right. “We’re good.”
He smiled, then tapped the brakes gently at the light. The women’s hospital sign glowed ahead like the next rack waiting to be broken.
“Hey,” he said again, softer, and there was the heat under it, the claim that lived in his bones when he said my name. “We got this.”
Nugget kicked, like a fist bump from the inside.
“Yeah,” I whispered, squeezing his hand back, my belly tight and life louder than any room I’d ever played. “We do.”
Chapter 31
Everything Changes Form
Ididn’t think I’d ever been this quiet.
Morning light leaked pale gold across the blinds, turning the room hushed and holy. The bassinet beside the bed held the smallest piece of forever I’d ever seen. Her chest rose, fell—steady, sure. Every breath a rhythm I wanted to memorize before it slipped.
I sat in the recliner I’d dragged too close, one palm resting on Rayna’s calf under the blanket, the other near enough to the bassinet to guard it with my life if the world so much as twitched wrong.
Our daughter slept like she already knew she belonged. Lips parted, bottom lip plush like her mama’s. A fist curledsoft against her cheek. Deep brown skin, a full head of hair plastered to her tiny scalp. When she shifted, I caught the shape of my mother’s eyes, Grandma’s patience, Rayna’s fire.
Not a Juneteenth baby—she waited until the morning after, like she wanted her own day.
Liora.
Light.
Because she was already that.
“Hey, Liora Cadence Whitaker-Hale,” I whispered, trying her name on my tongue.
She stirred, sighed, then sank deeper into sleep, like even my voice wasn’t about to move her.
I turned to Rayna.
She was out, finally. The hours and her beautiful labor, had wrung her dry, but even in sleep, her hand stretched toward the bassinet like instinct. Her frizzy hair framed her face on the pillow, mouth soft in a way I didn’t see often. She had given me everything. She gave me our girl.
Grandma had called me an anchor. Not a chain—an anchor. Keep you from drifting, but let you move with the tide. I thought about that now, every time I checked the clock, every time I traced back the hours. A game in The Green Room that turned into a dash to the hospital.
