Ray hummed. “Good. Fear mean you got somethin’ to lose. Men who ain’t scared ain’t invested.”
Zaire’s throat worked as he swallowed. He stared at the yard, at the shape of the trees, at the silhouette of the main house, and Magnolia’s dark and quiet window. “I be trying really hard, Ray. Harder than I ever tried with anybody, if we keepin’ it a buck. But sometimes I feel like I’m in over my head, like I stepped into somethin’ bigger than me.”
Ray didn’t flinch. “Why you say that?”
Zaire rolled the blunt between his fingers and said it. “Cause the truth is…my Pops tried his best too. Tried to be a great father, loving husband…All from prison.” He let out a jagged exhale. “How good did he really want to be when he couldn’t leave the streets alone long enough to stay home?”
Ray went quiet. The kind of quiet that comes from old wounds being recognized, not judged.
Zaire puffed his blunt a few times before he continued. “As much as I love him, I can’t lie to myself. He had choices. He chose what he chose, and we paid for it. I been paying for it my whole life. So now I’m standin’ here in your yard, with your daughter, tryin’ to be better than what I saw. Tryin’ to show up differently. Tryin’ to lean into love instead of runnin’ from it. But there’s a part of me that’s scared I got more of him in me than I wanna admit.”
He shook his head slowly. “Part of me be thinking…what if I wake up one day and decide I can’t handle all this? What if I walk away and end up bein’ the same man I told myself I’d never be?”
Ray listened, jaw set, eyes shining just enough to betray his own emotion.
“Sometimes I look at Meadow,” Zaire said, “and she look so damn fragile and strong at the same time, it scares the fuck outta me. She deserves somebody who ain’t confused… Somebodywho ain’t traumatized…Somebody who ain’t got a Daddy behind glass and a past full of headlines.”
Ray snorted softly. “You think any of us show up at love’s door with clean hands? Any man who done lived got dirt under his nails. Question ain’t if you got baggage. Question is if you got the courage to unpack it.”
Zaire let that sit.
Ray reached for the blunt again. Zaire handed it over. Ray took a tiny hit then passed it back. “Lemme tell you somethin’,” he said. “It’s real easy to be a good man in your head. To make promises to yourself about what you ain’t gon’ do, who you ain’t gon’ be. It’s harder when you tired. When life punch you in the gut. When bills stack. When the woman you love start lookin’ at you like you ain’t enough.”
He took a breath. “The measure of a man ain’t just in what he provides…it’s in what he refuses to run from.”
He turned his head, eyes on Zaire. “You got every reason to run. Fame…money…options. You can dip on this whole situation and the world would pat you on the back and call it self-preservation. But you still here, that count for somethin’ in my book.”
Zaire’s eyes glossed. He blinked fast. “These lands make you cry, huh?” He wiped his face.
Ray went on. “I did want to play golf once… just like you. But racism said I was only good for holdin’ bags. Uncle Sam said I was only good for carryin’ guns. Life said I was only good for buryin’ people I loved.” He pointed at the ground. “This land the only thing that ever let me stand on my own terms. I pour everything into it, maybe too much…maybe not enough. I don’t know, but I tried.”
“Now I’m watchin’ my daughter carry more than she should ‘cause I can’t move like I used to. And I’m watchin’ you standnext to her even when she swing on you with that sharp little tongue. That matters, son. You hear me? It matters!”
Zaire cleared his throat. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
Ray nodded slowly. “Then don’t…not when it get ugly…not when the bills scream louder than the love…not when the cameras come back…not when Magnolia forgets your name five times in a row…not when Meadow pushes you away ‘cause she scared of dependin’ on you.” His voice grew firmer. “If you love her, don’t just love her in the sunshine…love her in the storm, or walk away now before you make another crack in somethin’ I’m already fightin’ to keep whole.”
Zaire stared at him like he was absorbing every word into his bones. “I love her,” he said quietly. “I don’t even know how it happened this fast…but I do, and I want to be here. I want to be the man she can lean on, not the man she gotta recover from.”
Ray studied him, then finally relaxed a little. “Then you already doin’ better than most. You ain’t runnin’ from that truth. That’s half the battle.”
They both fell quiet again. The night hummed around them.
After a while, Ray sighed and pushed himself up to stand. “My Daddy ain’t leave me much but this land and his last name. I been tryin’ my whole life to make sure they both meant somethin’ by the time I left this earth.” He looked toward the house. “Maybe… just maybe… God knew I was gon’ run outta steam and sent you here to help me finish the job. I don’t know. But I’m willin’ to see.”
Zaire’s chest tightened. “I won’t let you down.”
Ray smiled faintly. “No need to say that…just keep showin’ up…day after day, when you tired…when you angry…when your own demons get loud. That’s what makes a man different from his Daddy.”
Zaire swallowed that down like medicine.
Ray patted his shoulder, firmly. “Get some sleep, son. She gon’ need you tomorrow.”
With that, he walked back toward the main house, his steps slow, back straight, leaving Zaire alone on the porch with his thoughts, his smoke, and the quiet ache of being trusted with more than just his own healing.
Zaire didn’t feel like a boy trying to outrun his past anymore.
He felt like a man being invited into a legacy.
