“What? No. It’s almost eleven. I don’t need?—”
“I don’t care what time it is.” His voice was firm. “You’re preparing to carry my child. Stay there.”
The line went dead.
I stared at my phone.
He’d hung up on me.
I sat there for a moment, processing.
He’s sending someone.
At 11 PM.
To the Seventh Ward.
For a swollen injection site.
I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or terrified.
Forty-three minutes later, headlights swept across the front of the house.
I was standing at the window, my phone clutched in my hand, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat.
A black car pulled up to the curb—sleek, expensive, completely out of place on this street.
The driver’s side door opened.
A woman got out.
Fifties, maybe. Asian. Short silver hair. Wearing slacks and a blazer like she’d just come from an office, not like she’d been dragged out of bed at midnight.
She reached into the backseat and pulled out a black medical bag.
I heard Mama’s bedroom door open.
“Truth?” Her voice was groggy. Suspicious. “Who the hell is that?”
“I don’t know yet.”
The woman walked up the front steps.
Knocked.
Mama appeared in the hallway in her robe and house shoes, her hair wrapped in a scarf, her face set in that expression that saidsomebody better start explaining real quick.
She pushed past me and opened the door.
“Who the hell are you?” Mama demanded.
The woman didn’t flinch. “Dr. Chen. Mr. Landry sent me.”
Mama’s eyes narrowed. “At damn near midnight?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Mama looked at me. “Truth?”
