Here, the Fourth of July held a different kind of meaning. We celebrated big on the island with fireworks, food, and partying, but not for independence from the British. On the Golden Isle and to the Kinfolk, the Fourth was the day of our ancestors’ independence. It marked the night the founding families saw a light in the distance out in the Atlantic and decided to follow it like the North Star, rather than die like the countless other stolen lives on the boats that were carrying them to hell. The founding families vowed never to be taken back again to live in bondage and used that mysterious blinking light in the water to guide them like a lighthouse. They landed on Golden Isle, the isolated island of fireflies, and flourished.
Naira shot me side-eye. “Maybe Maris figured out she screwed up. Don’t you want to hear her out?”
“Nope.” I popped thep. Maris was the cherry on top of an already annoying day.
“People make mistakes, Ada. People change. You can’t always be so black and white about stuff.”
Itwasblack and white. Maris had shown me who she was when she refused to understand my priorities. She showed me I wasn’t enough when she called it quits.
“How are you all into light and warmth when you’re—”
I sat up quickly, striking what I thought was a sexy pose. “—some kinda Nubian goddess who bathes in blood to keep her youthful beauty?”
Naira pursed her lips, unimpressed as she watched me do a few more. “No. No, I wasn’t gonna say that.”
I flopped back down.
I could never share all of me. It came with the territory and the responsibilities to the island. To my grandma, especially since it was only the two of us left. To my legacy and the promise my family made to protect this land and everyone who lived here, which didn’t leave much room for a love life.
“Love is overrated.”
Naira smacked me. “Did you say that when you were with Maris?”
“Okay, now where is Sheriff Lyle because that was definitely assault.” I swiveled around, looking for the Beaufort County sheriff even though it wasn’t his day to check the island. Wouldn’t be surprised if he popped up from behind the cluster of boats, ready to bust us. But we were policing ourselves. No excessive drinking. No boating if you were drinking. Each boat had a designateddriver and Sekou was ours, though I didn’t remember Naira taking a sip of anything other than water. I decided I’d had enough ’shine. I wasn’t about to be the drunkest one on this boat and make an ass of myself.
“I just want you to be happy,” Naira said, sounding like the world was on her shoulders.
I couldn’t explain to Naira why Maris and I didn’t work when I didn’t fully understand it myself. We just didn’t, and I had to believe that was okay sometimes. Plus, I was going through stuff. I had bigger things on my mind: like if this year was finally the one when I’d be able to Light and fulfill my role as the next matriarch to the Kinfolk and caretaker of Golden Isle. Nana had been preparing me since I could remember, teaching me how to make tinctures, salves and balms, protection charms, and mojo bags. How to make her most special elixir that she shared with the Kin every year, the elixir that kept them well and strong, if they wanted it, because on the Isle, there was always a choice. And each year so far, I’d failed at it miserably. Nana said I had to want it, that I hadn’t accepted it, that I still feared it—the Light. She said I had to cultivate more.
“Iamhappy,” I stressed, hoping she’d get it. “I don’t need Maris to make me happy so maybe leave that one alone.”
Giving my everything to someone was out of the picture. There were too many opportunities for danger, for them and for me, if the closely guarded secrets and gifts of the Isle were revealed. I couldn’t invite my closest friends to share that burden, let alone a lover. Holding that part of me backwasme giving my everything.
Naira pouted. The fire pits dotting the shore not too far off snapped and crackled, sending up sparks.
“You know…”
Please don’t say it. Not tonight.I sucked in air. Nearly three years had passed, and I wanted one night when I wasn’t reminded in some way.
“You know…,” she said again, “I just want you to be happy after…,” Naira choked out, her eyes shiny. I slowly exhaled. “Like, you never really talk about it.”
Wasn’t going to either. What was there to say? Naira was really on one tonight. All up in her feels and trying to bring me down with her.
You’d have thought it washermother who was dead. My mother had to be. Because I didn’t sense her presence here on Earth. Or maybe she was too far away and I was too weak to feel her. No, my mother was gone.
“What? Girl, come on,” I scoffed, waving her off. It came out much louder than I intended, as I tried to pretend away any emotion.
“Who needs love when you and Sekou will always be by my side? We’re done with Cal. We have the whole summer to chill, and come fall, maybe I’ll even take classes at the community college with you. It’ll be great. What else is there?” I shot her a big cheesy grin, ignoring the flash of guilt sliding across her face.
Love sure as hell didn’t stop my mom from going and leaving me behind because the thoughts in her mind became too many. Love didn’t keep me from wanting to launch into the stratosphere and never come back whenever I was forced to think of the moment Nana broke the news.
“Ada,” Nana began that morning over a warmed cup of her treasured honeyed coconut water, “your mother has left.”
The heaviness in Nana’s voice and her ageless face, which now looked a hundred years old, told me what she meant without her having to say so. Mom hadn’t gone to the mainland for an excursion. Mom wasn’t coming back.
“How?” I asked, feeling surprisingly calm.
Nana looked beyond me to her groves that led to the cliff. “Out to sea.”
