Her words sliced through the fury just enough to have me picturing a small, terrified face on the other side of that fence.
I leaned my forehead against the door frame, eyes squeezed shut. “So, what I’m supposed to do?” I asked. “Act like I didn’t just find out I got a daughter?”
Daughter.
The word felt strange and beautiful in my mouth.
“All right. I’m listening.” I dropped into a seat, waiting to see what they could possibly say.
“No, you not,” Zahara shot back immediately. “You vibrating. You one wrong word away from flipping a table.”
She wasn’t wrong. My leg bounced so hard the chair shook.
Truth started, “We just saying, think?—”
“Man, Iamthinking. And every thought in my head say I gotta see her. Tonight. I can’t sit here and eat chicken like I didn’t just find out I got a nine-year-old with my name under my nose.”
Braeden put his hands up. “Jay?—”
“Nah.” I stood up so quickly Braeden reflexively balled his fists. “Y’all can stay. Y’all can talk strategy, lawyers, petitions, whatever. I’m going up that fucking hill.”
Ajani stepped in my path, eyes calm but firm. “You sure you want to do this like this?”
“No,” I said honestly. “But I can’t breathe any other way right now.”
Zahara cursed under her breath and grabbed her keys off a hook. “A’ight then. If you going, I’m going. I’m not letting you go up there by yourself acting crazy with no witnesses and no counsel.”
Truth pushed off the couch. “I’m rolling, too.”
Honesty sighed, got up, and snatched her coat from the back of the chair. “Loyalty, stay here with Zo,” she ordered.
“Yeah, I got this,” he said, suddenly serious.
The next few minutes were blurred. Coats, shoes, doors, chilly air, Christmas lights blinking like the whole block was watching. We piled into two cars, me and Zahara in the front, Truth and Braeden behind us. Ajani and Akeira followed. The drive up that hill felt too long but not long enough. I barely registered the music on the radio or the way the town glowed around us. My mind was stuck on one image: a little girl’s face in the dark by a fence.
Aziza.
Our tires crunched on the gravel near the Grindley gate. The big house rose up ahead, the windows glowing with warm light. On the second floor, the outline of a small Christmas tree and its blurred white lights were visible through one of the windows. We didn’t drive through the gate. Instead, Zahara parked and killed the engine.
“Last chance to turn around,” she coaxed.
I opened the door without answering. The cold slapped me in the face, but I barely felt it. Behind me, I heard my family getting out. Nobody tried to grab me this time. They knew better.
Mr. Benton opened the gate for me again. I approached the front door I had just left earlier tonight. My knock wasn’t polite this time. I hit the wood hard, three times, enough to rattle the glass. For a second, there was nothing. Then I heard Mr. Benton’s voice inside and footsteps. The door opened a crack, security chain still on. Mr. Benton’s eyes narrowed when he saw me—and then widened when he clocked the crowd behind me.
“Mr. Christopher, we were not expecting—” he began icily.
“I need to speak to Kyleigh,” I interrupted. My voice came out flat, deadly calm. “Now.”
His gaze flicked over my shoulder again, landed on Zahara, on Truth, on Ajani, on all of them standing there in the winter air, faces set.
“This is highly irregular,” he said.
“Mr. Benton, it would be best for everyone if you let her know her visitors include an officer of the court. We’re not leaving,” Zahara cut in, her voice in its crisp little lawyer mode.
He studied her for a moment. I guess he saw something in her eyes that convinced him that she was not to be played with. He shut the door. The wait was only a minute, but it felt like forever. My heart pounded against my ribs, hands itching to knock the damn door in if Kyleigh played with me. I could feel my family at my back like a wall.
The door opened again, this time all the way. She stepped into the doorway with her chin up and one hand on the jamb like she owned the whole damn hill—which she did.
