MEHAR
Copper Canyon was only a few blocks from the school, so we walked. Bryce and I moved side by side, talking about anything and nothing—the weather, how Silver Spring had changed, whether the Commanders were ever going to get it together. Surface-level stuff that siblings default to when the real conversation is waiting at the bottom of a meal. But it was good to see him again.
The restaurant was already buzzing with the early dinner crowd when the hostess sat us at a two-top near the open kitchen. I could see the chefs working the grill from where I sat, and the whole place smelled like woodfire and cornbread. Bryce picked up the menu and his eyes went straight to the prices the way they do when someone’s used to eating off the dollar menu.
“I got it,” I said before he could do the math out loud. “Order whatever you want.”
He relaxed a little at that, and I watched him scan the menu with the quiet focus of a kid who was hungry but too proud to admit how hungry. I ordered us the iron skillet cornbread to start because that was their thing and I figured we both needed something warm on the table before this conversation got into whatever it was about to get into.
“I heard you linked up with Zainab,” he said, but it was more of a question than a statement.
“Similar to how you found me. I ran into her and we reconnected.”
“How is she?”
“She’s good. She had twins about seven months ago, a boy and a girl—Idris and Kheris. She recently got married to a good man. She’s happy.”
“I saw in the news she was arrested for Zahara’s murder. I know she ain’t do that shit though. I was a baby when they left, but I heard stories of how close they were.”
“They were very close. The real killer is gone, now,” I said as I picked up my water. Locked up was generous. The real killer was in a cage in a warehouse with destroyed knees and a mind that was disintegrating by the day, but again—not the place.
The cornbread arrived and we both reached for it at the same time. Bryce tore off a piece and ate it in two bites, and for a second he looked exactly like the eleven-year-old who used to run around the house.
“Sis, what the fuck happened to you?” He leaned in and dropped his voice. “I heard that you ran away from Ahmad, and then a couple months later he got shot up in a home robbery. That nigga is holding on by a thread. Confined to a wheelchair. He moved in with his brother and his wife. He refuses to say who did that shit.” He searched my face. “Did you pay someone to do that?”
“No, I didn’t pay to get it done. He raped me all the time. And beat me too. I made him pay for the hell he put me through. I let him keep his pathetic little life and told him that if he snitched, he’d be dead,” I said it like I was reading ingredients off a cereal box. Because that’s what it was to me at this point. A fact. A closed chapter. Something I did and would do again without losing a minute of sleep.
Bryce’s eyes grew huge. He sat back in his chair and looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time, trying to reconcile the sister who used to braid his hair with the woman sitting across from him now.
“I’m proud of you,” he said. And he meant it.
“His brother is looking for whoever did it, though,” Bryce added. “His brother would say, ‘that meek bitch didn’t have it in her and she must’ve paid someone.’”
“His brother can eat a bag of dicks. If he tries to find me, I’ll handle him too,” I said while patting my purse.
“Oh, you strapped?” He laughed, surprised and impressed in equal measure.
“Gotta be.”
“Aight, aight. I see you, sis.” He shook his head with a grin. “You really out here different.”
“But what about you? What are you in DC for?” I asked, and that’s when I noticed the tattoo on his right hand. A snake, coiled and detailed, wrapping around from his knuckles to his wrist. It was well-done, but it was bold for a kid who grew up in a house where tattoos were considered haram.
“I’m here for work,” he said, and pulled his hand off the table, casual enough that most people wouldn’t have noticed. I noticed.
“Baba must’ve been mad at you when you got that,” I said, nodding toward where his hand had been.
“Fuck that nigga.” The lightness in his voice disappeared. “He was fucked up in a store robbery. When I tell you, I was grinnin’ like a Cheshire Cat when I went to visit him in the hospital. Finally that nigga got some of the abuse that he inflicted on us.” He leaned back with a smirk that was part satisfaction and part something darker.
I didn’t tell him that it was Zainab’s man who’d put our father in that hospital. That was a conversation for another day, if ever.
“How is he now?” I asked.
“Not as fucked up as Ahmad. But he is suffering. He can’t speak and he has a permanent tracheostomy. But he’s still a piece of shit to his wives and the rest of the siblings. Soon as I turned sixteen, I got the fuck out of there.”
Sixteen. Three years on his own. I knew exactly what that looked like when you came from where we came from. You took whatever work you could find and you didn’t ask yourself too many questions about it because morality was a luxury for people who’d been loved properly.
“What are you doing for work?” I asked again.
