I didn't say anything. I couldn't. I looked from one to the other, my lips parting but no words coming out.Tears started to spill before I even knew I was crying. One blink, then another, and they fell fast and hot, sliding down my chin, catching in the curve of my neck. My body gave in. The sob that came out of me didn't sound human. It ripped through my throat raw, shaking something loose that'd been living in my chest since the night they called to say he'd been shot.
Chiana climbed up on the couch beside me and pulled me into her arms. Amina slid in on the other side, hand firm at my back, rubbing slow circles. Nia wrapped her arms around all of us, whispering, "Let it out, gurl. Go on, let it out."I did just that.I cried a cry that it had been holding on to for weeks. It was the body-breaking kind of cry. The one that makes your shoulders quake and your voice stumble. My chest felt like it was splitting open, my breath coming in gasps between sobs. Every bit of me that had stayed still for too long finally moved."I'm so tired," I whispered, choking on the words. "I'm so damn tired."Amina's voice was low, steady. "We know, love. You been carrying too much alone."Chiana grabbed my free hand to get my attention. "You not by yourself no more, you hear? We right here."
But part of me wasn't here.Part of me was still back in that hospital room, whispering Creole prayers into candlelight, begging my husband's spirit to remember the way home. Part of me was still kneeling at the foot of his bed, tracing veves with trembling hands and daring for whatever was after him to take me instead.
The blood on the towel looked like paint. I stared at it, shaking, watching it bloom red and dark, spreading like a secret I couldn't hide."You cut deep?" Nia asked.I shook my head, sniffling. "No. It's no that deep. Just... surprised me."
"Everything surprising you right now," Chiana said gently. "You been living between two worlds too long. You can't stay half here and half there forever."Her words hit like truth wrapped in honey. They stung before they soothed."I don't know how to stop," I said. "If I stop... I'm scared he'll fade."Amina squeezed my shoulder. "He not fading. You keeping him alive in every breath you take. But you gotta live too, Ayida. You hear me? “I nodded, though I wasn't sure if I did.The housefelt heavy again, but not the same kind of heavy. This was real weight, human weight. They held me until the shaking stopped. My sobs turned to quiet hiccups, then silence. My throat ached, and my eyes felt like they'd been rinsed out.
My phone buzzed on the table, skittering against the wood like it wanted to run away. I glanced down and saw Auntie Celeste's name flash across the screen. My stomach pinched. Celeste was my mama's sister. She was sharp-tongued, starched, and hard in the way women get when they lose too much early. She hated my mama for the choices she made. Hated me for marrying a St. Jean. We didn't talk. Not like that. Her calling me was strange enough to turn the air.
I put her on speaker. No greeting, acknowledgment, or care. Just her voice, Creole thick and unbothered: "Madame Laurent ap mande w."Madame Laurent is asking for you.Silence hung between us. "Okay," I said finally.She ended the call without goodbye. That was Celeste, she'd drop a stone in your water and don't watch the ripples.
I spent the next couple hours with my girls, letting the world slow to the speed of women in a kitchen, washing plates, retelling the same story three times on purpose, like a prayer that needed to stick. Chiana rewrapped my cut and painted my nails with a soft color. Nia refolded blankets and laid fresh ones at the end of the couch, patting them like she was smoothing the bed for joy to lie down. Amina stood at the sink and stared out the window long enough to make me ask what she saw. "A good ending," she said. "I don't know how long it takes to get there, but I see it."When they left, the house felt less empty, like their shadows stayed behind to hold the corners up. I grabbed my purse and slid my keys in my pocket, kissed two fingertips to thealtar picture frames "Suiv mwen,"follow me.I murmured and locked the door.
I drove until the asphalt turned to rough country and then to dirt that hummed under the tires. Live oaks lined the road, their arms hung low with Spanish moss like old ladies' hair after church. The lake showed up on the left without warning, a long dark eye with a memory too good for comfort. The cypress knees rose up from the water like fingers ready to count. I passed slow, the car shivering at a patch where the road dipped. The swing in front of Madame's place moved a little in the wind before I even parked, creaking like it knew my name.
I cut the engine and sat there a second with my hands on the wheel, breathing steady like I was trying to talk my heart off a ledge. Last time I stood on those steps, we'd argued like we were both the one chosen to save a house from fire. I had told her I was marrying Noles. She had told me, "Si w renmen dife, pa rele lè ou boule."If you love fire, don't shout when you burn. I went and did it anyway. I married him, loved him, burned bright. Now here I was, still burning, just in a quiet place. I found myself standing in front of her porch feet not moving to climb the steps."Child come on in here," her voice floated through the screen door like she'd been standing behind it the whole time, eavesdropping on my bones.
I climbed the steps. The porch boards remembered my feet. Inside smelled like it always did, lemongrass and dust and something sweet baked into the walls from a hundred years of sugar and sorrow. I walked the narrow hall where black-and-white saints and sepia ancestors crowded the frames, every face watching without blinking. I made my way to the kitchen.Madame had her back to me, braids pinned up under a scarf, gold bangles and stacked rings talking every time she lifted herwrist. A kettle hissed on the stove. A small pot breathed steam, the tea inside probably the color of old honey. Little plates with lemon slices and cassava biscuits sat ready, neat, and deliberate."I didn't sleep with you last night," she said without turning, voice dry as lint. "Ou pa salye lè ou antre lakay moun. Ou bliye?"You don't greet when you enter people's houses. You forget?"Bonjou, Manmi," I said, switching speaking Creole that came easier in her presence. "Pardon."Good morning, I'm sorry.
She turned then. Her eyes ran over me slow, as if I were a letter she needed to read twice before deciding what answer it deserved. Something in her body language shifted, her jaw softened, her shoulders widened to make room. She came toward me and kissed my forehead. "Come here," she murmured, pulling me into her chest. . I let out a heavy pent-up breath. She smelled like tobacco she did not smoke, "Sit," she said, guiding me to the little table by the window where afternoon light made a square on the floor. "I'm making tea." She moved around the stove with the kind of grace you only get by surviving, measured, exact, not one step wasted. She dropped a stick of cinnamon into the pot, crushed a few dried orange peels between her fingers, and added a pinch of something she didn't name but the air bent for it.
She sat across from me and slid a cup my way before sipping from hers. The china clinked soft against the table's wood. "You look tired, child," she said, voice steady but low enough to be a warning and a prayer. I wrapped both hands around the cup, letting the heat seep into my palms before I lifted it. "I just want my husband back, is all." The tea was bitter, earthy, like it had been grown in the same soil as sorrow. I sipped anyway. "That's all I want." Madame didn't speak. She just stared at me, eyes deep and unreadable, her face still except for the small pulse at her temple. The silence stretched until Ifelt it crawl over my skin. She was looking through me, not at me. She was searching for the truth underneath my words.
Without warning, she reached across the table and grabbed my hand. Her touch was cool and dry. My first instinct was to pull back, but before I could, I felt that rush, like wind spilling down a hallway, like doors opening all at once. She was reading me. I tensed. It was like she'd cracked something inside me, letting my spirit speak on its own. Images rushed up. The hospital's fluorescent light, the candles burning down to their bones, the smell of smoke that clung to my veil. I tried snatching my hand back, but she held on firm, nails pressing into my palm just enough to anchor me in place. "How long you been having them dreams?" she asked, eyes narrowing until her gaze felt surgical. I swallowed. "They started the night it happened," I whispered, staring down at the table so I wouldn't have to see her reaction. My voice shook, even though I tried to hold it still. "The night Noles got shot, I felt it, before I knew it. Saw it before the phone even rang."
The words scraped coming out. I took another sip of tea to keep my hands from shaking, but it didn't help. "I was asleep," I said. "Everything was dark. The only image I saw was his face before it was snatched away waking me up." I blinked, tears rising fast. "When the call came through ten minutes later, apart of me already knew what it was." Madame's face didn't move, but her thumb began tracing a slow circle in my palm, a rhythm meant to steady me. "Mwen tande w," she said softly.I hear you.
"Every night since," I continued, "the dream comes again. That day becoming more clearer, showing me images of the scene, bullets riddling his body. Sometimes I think I can change it, like if I move faster in the dream, maybe I can stop it this time. But it always ends the same." I bit my lip hard enough to tastecopper. "I hear the voice giving the order, clear as day. Telling Bone where they are. But I never see his face. Every time I get close, I wake up shaking. Breathless. Crying." Madame nodded once, her eyes lowering to the table. "The voice, what it sound like?" she asked. I shivered at the memory. "Low. Calm. Like it wasn't murder, it was business somewhat personal." My voice felt small in that old kitchen. I lifted my gaze, meeting her eyes. "It wasn't a stranger. That voice knew him."
Madame leaned back, folding her hands slow. "Was it a stranger to you?" she asked, her tone even but heavy. That question hung in the air, thick. I opened my mouth, then closed it again. I didn't have an answer. The voice didn't feel foreign. It was eerie, familiar, like a half-forgotten song I used to hum in childhood when I didn't even know the words. It didn't sound like a stranger, but it didn't sound safe either. Madame watched me closely, her eyes narrowing, reading the thoughts I didn't say out loud. "You know," she said finally, "in some way, shape, or form, we all still paying for what your mama did." That stung. Not because it wasn't true but because I'd been trying my whole life not to think about it. The words pressed against my chest, unlocking memories I'd kept chained too long.
I could almost smell my mama's perfume again, sweet gardenia and cheap liquor. The scent of a woman who wanted to be more than what life let her be. I could see her standing in front of the cracked mirror, lipstick bright, eyes soft but tired. She used to hum when she got ready, low, and shaky, like she was singing to ghosts that lived in the walls. Mama had a way of loving men like they were wishes whispered fast before morning could change its mind.
She was twenty when she fell for Fidel Baptiste. Everybody in the neighborhood knew his name. Mr. Baptiste had clean money on the surface like businesses, real estate, a family that posed for pictures. But under that, he ran gambling houses and liquor spots from one end of town to the other. Power made him magnetic. It also made him cruel. My grandma told Mama to leave that man alone. Said his money was soaked in bad spirits. Said he had a wife who worked the roots darker than most men could understand. "Ou ap jwe nan dlo fon," she'd warned her.You swimming in deep waters, child.But Mama just laughed. She always thought she could outswim anything. For a while, she did. She wore the gifts he bought her, silk blouses and gold jewelry that clinked like proof she mattered to somebody. But when she got pregnant with me, everything changed.
Fidel stopped coming around. He sent money through cousins, nothing more. I never got to have a bond or relationship with him. Just stories, folded up and passed around like rumors wrapped in newspaper. Six months before Mama died, we saw him in the store. He was with his wife and their children, shopping like Sundays were sacred. He looked right through her. Through me. Like we didn't exist.
Something in her broke that day. She started burning candles at strange hours, whispering prayers that weren't to any spirit I knew. She'd stare into mirrors like they were windows, her lips moving without sound. Sometimes she'd wake up screaming, swearing she saw a woman's face behind her in the glass. Madame Laurent tried fixing her, but by then it was too late. Whatever had been following Mama had already found her. They said she died of a stroke. But we knew better. Fidel's wife had been a conjure woman, deep in dark work. Her power didn'tend when her husband's lies did. When Mama crossed her, she answered with something that didn't need hands to hurt.
I was eight when Mama died. I remember Grandma making me bathe in salt water, crying into her prayers. "Bondye, pa kite pitit la peye pou peche manman li," she said. Don't let the child pay for the sins of her mother.
But I did. I've been paying ever since. Every time I looked in the mirror and saw her face in mine. Every time I tried to love and it slipped through my hands. Every time madame and her friends told me I might never have children and couldn't explain why. Mama's curse didn't end with her. It just changed shape. Sometimes, when I'd wake from one of those dreams about Noles, I'd swear I could smell Mama's perfume again and I'd wonder if she was warning me or haunting me.
I looked back at Madame then, my throat dry. "I just don't feel like it's related. The St. Jeans on they own journey and timeline remember?" I repeated her words that she said to me when I told her me and Noles were getting married. She nodded her head sipping from her cup. "Mm-hm," she hummed, taking a long sip from her cup. "I did say that." The room felt smaller suddenly. The smell of cinnamon and orange peel thickened, clinging to my skin. I held my cup with both hands, needing the warmth to anchor me, to keep me from drifting into the past or panicking about the future. Then Madame set her cup down with a soft tap, the sound sharp as a heartbeat. She lifted her eyes to mine, steady and sharp. "Your husband know you won't be able to give him life?"
Her words hit me like the room dropped three degrees. My breath stalled. My spine stiffened. My heart jumped and stumbled at the same time. I snapped my eyes toward her, shock and fear slicing through me so fast it almost made me dizzy."Ma..." I whispered, my voice barely there. She didn't blink. She just stared straight at me, the kind of stare that stripped a soul clean of excuses. The truth of her question hovered in the air like smoke that refused to clear. Apart of me wanted to pretend I didn't hear her. Another part wanted to lie outright. But the biggest part, the part that had been hurting quietly for years, felt seen in a way that damn near made my throat close. I wanted to block it out of my mind and not believe it, or even argue that my womb was fine, that she didn't know everything, that curses die with the people who caused them. But since mama died I had a pain deep in my belly like something had been taken from me before I even had the chance to offer it, that part knew. It was true. It had always been true.
I lowered my gaze, watching the tea swirl in my cup like it was trying to reveal something in its ripples. Tears stung the back of my eyes, hot and sudden, and the shame that rose behind them felt like a hand around my throat. "I..." I swallowed hard. "I never told him." Madame let the silence sit there, heavy but not mocking. She didn't comfort me. She didn't soften her face. She let the truth breathe first. "Why not?" she finally asked, voice still soft, but firm in that way she always carried her knowing.
I shook my head, staring at a dark knot in the wooden table, letting my tears fall quietly without wiping them. "I didn't want to say it out loud," I whispered. "'Cause once you speak something, it becomes real. Becomes yours."
"And you didn't want to claim it," she said. "No," I whispered, voice trembling. "I didn't." Madame leaned back in her chair, her body shifting like she was bracing herself against grief that wasn't hers. "You think a man like Noles, full of death, full of destiny, walking with two worlds on his shoulders. You think a man like that don't deserve to know the whole womanhe's tied to?" My tears fell faster. "I didn't wanna lose him," I choked. "I didn't want him to feel cheated. To think I was less than what he deserved." Madame shook her head slowly. "You think your womb is your worth?"
"No," I whispered. "But maybe a little. Maybe sometimes." She reached out and covered my hand with hers, not gripping, not prying, just offering her palm like a bridge.
"Ayida," she said gently, "the fruit he want from you ain't just one kind. Some women bear children. Some bear light. Some bear legacy. Some bear men back from the edge of death. You think that's small?" Her words struck something inside me. Something raw and tender that I'd been hiding under ritual and prayer and exhaustion. I pressed my lips together, trying not to break again. She kept going, her voice a soft hum of truth. "You carrying him through the dark right now. You feeding his soul every night. You standing between him and something that want him for its own. And you doing it without complaint, without rest, without telling the world you hurting. That's fruit too, Cher. That's sacred."
