Uncle Kenny had hung his punching bag back on the shade tree that separates our backyard from Old Man Hester’s since the fence collapsed during Hurricane Harvey. He hasn’t touched that old thing since his last boxing “project” failed before I left for New York.
“Oh, we’ve been busy, Lovebug. Kenny’s still tryna raise money for that new AC unit for the gym…we’ve got Family Fun Day at the park coming up…and Kenny put that old punching bag back up.” Aunt Faye hummed on the phone while washing the dishes. “Soyou know how that goes.”
I did, and she sounded unusually chipper about the wasted time and money that came with another one of Uncle Kenny’s “projects.”
Christophe pulls into our driveway behind Aunt Faye’s Camry. Our eyes meet in the rearview mirror, and he cracks a gentle smile while running his fingers through his tousled hair.
I wrap my hand around the door handle, but I don’t pull it.
AJ’s probably looking for me now since I left my Chanel and its AirTag with Yesenia. No—Iknowhe’s looking for me just like he did on New Year’s Eve. He’s probably called Blake and his daddy to our apartment and they’re pacing back and forth in thekitchen where I left my full mug because my stomach rumbled too much to even take a sip of coffee this morning.
“Uh… Yesenia?” Christophe calls out, turning to face me in the backseat.
I blink up at his sallow eyes while his phone dings from its mount on the front windshield.
“I have another ride.”
“Oh,” I mutter, glancing at my trembling hand. “Yeah…thanks.”
I push out of the car, stumbling forward in my heels. As soon as I shut the door, Christophe zooms off.
The comforting scent of fried food wafts through the screen on the open front window of our house as I stand on the cracked sidewalk that leads to our porch. The smell intermingles with the nice pre-fall breeze while my ribs throb.
I know AJ’s daddy, Dr. Boyd, is asking a million questions—like why would Lovie get up and leave when she just said we’d all fly to Nice to look at wedding venues once the season wrapped?
“That’s so unlike her,” he’d say in his pompous accent. “Lovie would never leave without saying anything.”
I gulp as if I’m watching him grip the edge of the island in our kitchen.
Did he even know me well enough to know what was like me and what wasn’t?
“Lovie?” Uncle Kenny croaks out from somewhere. “What you out here dancing around like that for?”
I stop moving, and my head spins.
I don’t even realize I’m running until I’m up on the porch and burying my face in his tattered Worthing Boxing shirt. His musky scent overpowers the perfume I spritzed on this morning in a daze, but I don’t mind it, and his round, hard stomach pokes my chest.
“Faye!” he yells, peeling me from him and patting me on the back like a long-lost friend. “Lovie out here on the porch! Why you ain’t tell me she was coming home?”
Uncle Kenny looks at me over the I NYC mug I mailed him last Christmas. It’s not a look of suspicion, but one that makes him tilt his head like he wants to ask me a question.
I shift in my seat and glance down at the pork chop and mashed potatoes Aunt Faye put in front of me as soon as I sat at the table. I took a bite out of the pork chop, but I had to chug a mouthful of sweet tea to get it down my throat.
“I wish you would’ve told us you were coming. I would’ve had your room ready.” Aunt Faye turns around and leans against the kitchen sink.
She looks different outside of FaceTime. Her skin is deeper, and her short curls seem grayer, and she’s looking more like Grandma and less like Mama. She’s even getting dark moles around her eyes, like Grandma had.
“How long you gonna stay for?” she asks.
“A few days…a…a week? I don’t know,” I stammer back, scanning our kitchen for my absence that I convinced myself would be here after being gone for so long.
The doorbell camera I bought them is still in its box on top of the refrigerator, and my school pictures are still tacked on its front with me frowning in my Rhodes uniform and smiling in my Lockwood cap and gown. Even my bedroom is the same—all of my fabric is piled in the corner, my dusty sewing machine is still sitting next to the window, and my clothes are still hanging in the closet. The engagement pictures me and AJ took at the EiffelTower on that last “I’m sorry” trip are still on the old chipped console table in the living room too.
I’m still here.
I twist my engagement ring back and forth under the table.
AJ’s probably had Blake call Uncle Kenny and ask if he’s heard from me. That’s probably why Uncle Kenny has that look on his face. Blake always does AJ’s dirty work. Maybe they called the cops too, but what can the cops do? I’m grown. I can leave when I want. I can go wherever the wind blows. I can do whatever I want. I can want something different. It’s like the mantra I read in one of those pamphlets Yesenia handed me last month on the train.
