AYIDA
I watched the smoke float upward, lazy and slow, slipping through the vent like it had somewhere better to be. The repast for Juliana was happening just outside this room, voices, footsteps, soft crying folding into laughter the way grief always does when it gets tired, but in here it felt sealed. Protected. Like the walls themselves had decided Nia didn't need to carry the world for a few minutes. This room had become her cocoon.
Chiana had been the one to say we should smoke instead of eating edibles today, said it with that tone she uses when she already made up her mind and just wanted agreement for politeness. truth be told, she was right. Today wasn't the kind of day you wanted anything sneaking up on you. We needed control. Needed to float, not fall. So, we smoked.
We been smoking since we got back to the house. The window was cracked just enough for the smoke to escape, the curtain lifting and falling with the breeze like it was breathing. The air smelled like weed, incense, and grief, thick, layered, unmistakably Southern. Familiar. Almost comforting in a way, I felt guilty for appreciating. I leaned against the dresser, watching the way Nia's shoulders rose and fell as she inhaled, then exhaled slow. She hadn't done much talking. Hadn't needed to. Sometimes silence was the only thing strong enough to sit with pain.
"Evie so lowdown," Amina giggled, blowing smoke toward the ceiling. "She done talked about everybody that came by here to show respect or bring somethin'." I smiled despite myself. I expected nothing less. "She don't give a damn," Chianaadded, shaking her head. "That woman got something slick to say about everybody."
"Saint catchin' hell," Amina went on, grinning. "She keep smokin' up all them damn cigarettes, sendin' him on a wild goose chase for more." I laughed out loud before I could stop myself, the sound catching me by surprise. Evie had been smoking like a freight train all day, pacing, fussing, muttering under her breath like nicotine was the only thing holding her together. Nia too. Every time I turned around, there was another cigarette between her fingers, burning down to nothing.
"I was sittin' in the room puttin' on my dress before we left for the funeral," Nia said suddenly, her voice light in a way that didn't quite match the moment. "I heard her talkin' shit about me." I looked at her then. She was smiling, but it was brittle. Fragile. The kind of smile you wore so you didn't scream. "She told Chiana," Nia continued, laughing softly, "'Y'all need to get somebody over here to braid her hair or somethin'. I'm sick of lookin' at that chicken-ass hair standin' up on top of her head.'" Chiana doubled over in laughter, nearly dropping her blunt. "Evie make me sick I swear," she wheezed. I laughed too, but quieter.
Because underneath the jokes, underneath Evie being Evie, there was something else there. Care. Through all of this, Evie had remained exactly who she was, sharp-tongued, impatient, rough around the edges, but she hadn't turned her back on Nia. Not even for a second. A part of me had expected it. Had braced for it, honestly. Expected her to draw a line, to shun Nia, to say this was what happened when you brought chaos into a family already built on blood and fire.
But she didn't. She embraced her. She hovered. Fussed. Ordered Nia to eat. Ordered her to shower. Ordered her to sitdown and rest. Like grief was something you could boss into submission if you tried hard enough. And maybe, for Evie, that was love.
I watched Nia flick ash into the sink, her hand shaking just a little. Jules had barely been around. When he was, his presence was cold. Distant. Like he was punishing himself by pretending he didn't feel anything at all. He spoke when necessary. Looked through Nia more than at her. Left as soon as the air got too thick. It hurt her. I could feel it in the room, heavy and unspoken.
I leaned back against the wall, closing my eyes.Spirit, be gentle with us.The prayer slipped out of me without sound, old and instinctive. The kind of prayer you learned before you ever learned words. The kind that lived in your bones.
This house was loud with pain. It hummed. Vibrated. The kind of energy that didn't settle easy.
And under all of it, I felt a shift. The end. This was the last chapter of something. I didn't know exactly what yet but I knew endings when they brushed past me. I had always known. I exhaled, pressing my palm flat against my chest like I could steady my heart. Faith and fear lived in the same place inside me. Always had. And love lived everywhere else. Especially when it hurt.
The bedroom door pushed open suddenly, hard enough to make all of us jump, eyes going wide like we'd been caught doing something illegal. Evie stepped inside coughing dramatically, waving her hand through the smoke like she was fighting for her life. "Lord have mercy," she hacked. "Smell like y'all been hotboxing grief itself in here."
"Evie, puh-lease," Chiana said, rolling her eyes. "You smoke cigarettes like they oxygen. Don't act like weed smoke bother you now." Evie cut her eyes at her, unimpressed. "That's different. Cigarettes don't make you lazy." She sniffed the air again. "And y'all in here smokin' up all this weed, ain't gon' be shit left for y'all to eat once these people leave." She turned toward Nia then, her voice shifting not soft, exactly, but firm . "Come on, Nia. You need to eat somethin'. I ain't raisin' no ghost." Nia nodded slowly, like the idea of food had to travel a long way to reach her. She stood on shaky legs, and Evie hovered close without touching her, like a guard posted on grief duty.
Then Evie's attention snapped to me. "Ms. Spiritual," she said, planting a hand on her hip, eyeing the blunt between my fingers. "What you doin' smokin'? Whoever you pray to allow you to indulge in all that?" I was too high to defend myself properly. The words stacked up in my head but refused to come out right, and all I could do was laugh. My chest felt light for the first time all day, and guilt followed immediately after.
She stepped back out into the hall, already calling for Nia again, her voice sharp but steady, like she was holding the whole damn house together by will alone. As the door closed behind her, the room shifted again. This time, heavier. Juste, Noles, and Pierre stepped inside, filling the doorway with their presence. Dark suits loosened, shoulders slumped, grief written across their faces in different fonts. Pierre whistled low, shaking his head. "Y'all done blew this bitch down," he said.
One by one, they went to Nia. No big speeches. No forced strength. Just arms wrapping around her, murmured I love yous pressed into her hair, into her shoulder, into the space where words didn't belong. I watched her crumble into them in pieces,watched the men who were supposed to be stone let themselves bend around her pain.
Noles sat down beside me without a word, his thigh pressing into mine like an anchor. He took my hands into his, warm and familiar, rubbing slow circles into my palms like he was grounding both of us at the same time. "You good?" he asked quietly. I nodded, smiling at him goofy, unguarded, a little too honest. "Good and high, I see," he teased.
I giggled, resting my forehead against his shoulder, letting the moment hold me the way his arms always did—steady, unhurried, safe. Things between us had been... balanced. Not perfect. Not easy. But steady. And after everything we'd survived, steady felt holy.
I was still on the fertility medication. Still drinking the tea Madame Laurent brewed for me with her quiet prayers folded into every leaf. Some mornings my body felt foreign, sore in ways I couldn't explain, emotions rising and falling like tides I didn't control. But Noles never rushed me. Never pressured me. Never made my body feel like a battleground instead of a home. He'd just kiss my forehead and say, It'll happen when it's supposed to happen, Yi. And I believed him. Or maybe I believed us.
Somewhere along the way, I found something else to pour myself into. something that felt like purpose instead of waiting. I started making and selling spiritual jewelry. Nothing flashy at first. Just protection bracelets, grounding necklaces, small pieces meant to sit close to the skin and closer to the spirit. It started slow. one order here, one message there but it grew. Quietly. Steadily. Like things rooted in faith usually do.
For now, I let that be my baby. And what made it sweeter, what made it feel real, was that Noles had his hands in it too. Packing orders with me at the kitchen table. Driving them to the post office. Asking questions about stones and oils like he was learning a new language just to speak my heart better. Watching him care about something that mattered to me, not because he had to, but because he wanted to, did something to my chest I still couldn't put words to.
He'd changed too. Still dark. Still sharp around the edges. But not as hollow. There was a vulnerability in him now, one he didn't hide as much. Not just with me but with his family too. He listened more. Sat longer. Let grief show without turning it straight into rage. The man who woke up from that coma had been forged in anger, but the man beside me now he was learning how to live with it instead of letting it consume him. I pressed closer into his side, breathing him in, whispering a quiet prayer of thanks under my breath. For patience. For love. For the way spirit sometimes gives you what you need, even when it don't look like what you asked for.
Later that night, after all the guests had come and gone, we sat around the living room as a family. The house had finally exhaled. Plates were stacked in the sink, half-empty cups scattered across the tables, the air still heavy with incense, food, and grief that hadn't quite decided where to rest yet. Laughter floated through the room, soft and tired but real. Stories got told. Somebody teased somebody else. Somebody else laughed a little too loud. And for just a second, I forgot we had buried a child earlier that day.
I leaned into Noles' side, my fingers resting on his thigh, feeling the steady rise and fall of him beneath my hand. Across the room, Jules stood alone in the kitchen, cup in hand, eyesdrifting from face to face like he was memorizing us. Like he was afraid to blink and miss something.
I swallowed. "You checked on your brother?" I whispered, nodding my head toward him without being obvious. Noles glanced over, his jaw tightening just a touch before he looked back at me. His hand slid up and down my leg slow, grounding his way of saying I got this even when things felt unfixable. "Yeah," he said quietly. "He ain't talk much but he here."
I watched Jules take a slow sip from his cup, shoulders stiff, grief sitting on him like a weight he didn't know how to set down yet. He stood there like he was bracing for impact even though the worst had already happened. Like if he relaxed even a little, his body might remember what it felt like to fall apart. My heart ached for him. For all of them.
For the way Black men were taught to carry pain like silence was strength. For how nobody ever told them it was okay to scream, to sob, or to feel lost in emotion. They were raised to hold it. To swallow it. To drink it down with liquor and smoke and rage until it burned its own path out.
The living room was warm with bodies and voices, but underneath the laughter and low conversation there was still grief curling through the air, thick and stubborn. It clung to the curtains, the furniture, the corners of the room like it had nowhere else to go. Incense burned low on the coffee table, mixing with the smell of food and smoke and something metallic I couldn't name but felt deep in my chest.
