My sister just shook her head. “I’ve told you not to spoil her so much, Killian.”
“I don’t remember that conversation.”
I walked over to hug and kiss both of them before stealing a piece of bacon my mother had cooked to put in her cabbage. She popped my hand and shooed me away.
“I’m gonna put you out of my kitchen. You do this every Sunday.”
“You should be used to it, then.”
She rolled her eyes. “How’s your week been?”
I blew a breath. “It’s been…something. Hey, Ellie, why don’t you go outside with Daddy and Grandpa for a second. We need to have grown-up talk.”
“Okay.”
I waited until she was on the other side of the door.
“Ma, do you remember Alayah Chambers? She was my partner on a science project, and we used to study together.”
“The little freckled-face girl you were crushing on?”
“That’s her.”
Bridget snapped her fingers. “The one that…you know, killed her mama’s boyfriend?”
“That would be her, too.”
“What about her?” they both asked.
“She was granted parole.”
“Good for her,” my mother said. “That poor girl never deserved prison time. Now that mama… She should have been under the jail. You can’t tell me she didn’t know what was going on.”
“Mama, these women don’t care,” Bridget said, waving her hands. “Some of them just want a man to say they have one, and some of them are jealous of their daughters, like there is some kind of competition.”
My mother sighed. “You’re right about that. But to allow your boyfriend to continuously rape your daughter and say you didn’t know? Come on, now. That poor girl would have been showing signs or something. She should have gotten therapy, not a thirty-year sentence.”
I nodded. “I agree. I wish I knew then what I know now. Maybe I could have helped her. It’s crazy how her lawyer didn’t fight for her and the law refused to acknowledge the abuse she suffered. I read the court transcripts and watched the tapes. They focused more on her mental state at the time of the murder than what lead her to it.”
Bridget touched my shoulder. “This is really weighing on you, huh?”
“It’s always weighed on me, sis. I’ve been to that house. I watched that man interact with her and how uncomfortable she was just breathing his damn air.”
My sister shook her. “You were a kid, Killian.”
“I was old enough to know something wasn’t right.”
My mother placed a hand on my other shoulder. “Baby, there was nothing you could have done if she denied it. A friend of mine went to that trial. That man threatened to do the same to her sisters if she told anybody. She probably would have taken that secret to her grave if she could have. I don’t want you blaming yourself for things beyond your control, you hear me?”
I sighed. “Yes, ma’am. Erica is looking to have the case reviewed. I’m planning to help her. Maybe we can get the conviction overturned and her record expunged.”
She offered me a smile. “I hope you two are successful.”
Truthfully, I hoped we were, too. An overturned conviction wouldn’t change the time she’d already served, but at least it wouldn’t count against her anymore. My thoughts drifted back to seeing Alayah at the parole hearing. She had always been beautiful, but her as a grown woman… She was gorgeous.
I remembered the day I was going to ask her to be my girlfriend, but I chickened out. We’d been studying together for a few months, and our friendship had grown into something different.
She wasn’t as shy around me. She cracked jokes or played around with me. Sometimes she even talked shit. My friends teased us about us being a couple, but she always insisted that we were just friends.
