She laughs. “What? I got cancer, but I’m not stupid.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Say what?”
“Tha—that word.”
It doesn’t sound as okay as it does when Ace says it. When it comes out of Mama’s mouth, I can only seethe endand, just like Ace, it makes me wonder what happens afterward.
“Oh, girl.” She rolls her eyes, picking a piece of lint off her housedress. “I can say ‘cancer’ if I want to. You don’t have to live it.Ido.”
“If you would’ve told me that a month ago, I would’ve agreed,” I mutter. “But I never seen a grown man cry so bad behind his Mama.”
“Oh, he’s a grown man now?” She raises her eyebrow and my eyes dart away from her.
“I never said he wasn’t.”
“Don’t stand up there and tell stories now.”
“Mama, don’t start.”
“So, what he buy you?”
“How you know he got me something?”
“For the hundredth time, I know my friend and I know what kind of man she raised. Angie was a go big or go home type of girl in life and in death. Her birthday was her jam.”
“He got me a purse,” I mumble.
“A purse?” Mama whistles. “What kind?”
“You being too nosy now, but it was a nice one.”
I leave out the credit card and the Comfort Care Private Providers welcome packet because I still hadn’t digested it and I couldn’t do it without Mama inserting her biased opinion because of her love for Angie. Swiping his card was different, but having one with my name embossed on the front and his funds attached to it makes me lightheaded. And giving her up to Jazmine isn’t as easy as it sounds.
“Nice like that bathing suit he got you for the party?”
I roll my eyes, fighting my smile. “Thought it was the cutestTarjayswimsuit you ever saw? I’m not the only lil’ liar around here.”
“Keep on rolling them and they might get stuck like that.”
“Yeah, whatever. She ever got you any extravagant gifts on one of her birthdays?”
“Who? Angie?”
I nod.
Mama smirks. “Yeah, she did.”
“Well... what she get you?”
Her eyes dance around the kitchen with that glint Gus was missing the other day, and then she smiles—big.
“The fall Ace turned three, she enrolled him in school in LA for the first time—a private school the other ball player’s wives recommended that cost my damn salary just for a semester. She documented that whole semester to me over the phone.”
Her shoulders bounce as she lets out another raspy laugh that makes me smile because even when he’s not here, Ace still lights up our house.
“He got his first crush there—a little Spanish girl that belonged to one of the local politicians. God, Angie had a fit. Me and Marshall laughed because the boy was only three, but Angie wasn’t having it. Well, during that same semester, me and Marshall found out we was having you. You wasn’t nothing but a lil’ seed in my belly, but Ason and Marsh were already calling you ‘babygirl’ even though we ain’t know if you was a girl or a boy yet. They justknew.”
