The three of us sat there in the small living room. The Isley Brothers were still playing from somewhere in the back of the house. Outside, I heard kids laughing, a car door slamming, thenormal sounds of a neighborhood in the middle of a weekday afternoon.
“So, you’re the father,” Delphine said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And you care about my daughter.”
I looked at Truth. She was watching me with an expression I couldn’t quite read—something between hope and fear, between wanting me to say yes and being terrified of what that would mean.
I looked back at Delphine. “Yes, ma’am.”
Delphine took another sip of her drink. Set the glass down with a soft clink. Leaned forward slightly, her elbows on her knees, her eyes locked on mine with an intensity that would have made most men look away.
“Good,” she said. “Because if you hurt her, I’ll kill you myself.”
The words hung in the air between us.
I should have been offended. Should have reminded her who I was, what I was capable of, and how many people had made threats like that and lived to regret it. But sitting in her living room, drinking her coffee, and watching the way she looked at her daughter with a fierceness that transcended everything else—I respected it.
More than that, I understood it.
So, I smiled. A real smile, not the polite mask I wore in business meetings or the cold expression I used to intimidate enemies. A genuine smile that felt strange on my face because I couldn’t remember the last time I’d used it.
“Understood,” I said.
Delphine studied me for another long moment. Then she smiled back—just a little, just enough—and picked up her glass again. “All right then. We got an understanding.”
Truth was looking between us like she couldn’t quite believe what had just happened. Like she’d expected her mother to throw me out or for me to get offended and leave. Instead, we’d just negotiated a truce over coffee and threats, and somehow it felt more binding than any contract Raymond had ever drawn up.
The chef arrived an hour and forty-three minutes later.
Her name was Natasha—early forties, dark skin, locs pulled back in a neat bun, wearing chef’s whites and carrying two insulated bags that looked like they weighed more than she did. She introduced herself to Delphine first, which was the right move, and then to Truth, and finally to me with a professional nod that said she knew exactly who was paying her but also knew whose kitchen she was about to work in.
“Mr. Landry briefed me on the situation,” Simone said, setting her bags on the kitchen counter. “Severe morning sickness, week seven, food aversions across the board. I brought some basics to start—ginger tea, plain crackers, bone broth, bland proteins. We’ll do a full assessment, and I’ll create a meal plan based on what you can tolerate.”
Truth looked overwhelmed. “I don’t know if I can eat any of that.”
“That’s okay,” Simone said, her voice gentle but firm. “We’re going to start small. Just a few bites. The goal isn’t to fill you up—it’s to keep you nourished enough that you and the baby stay healthy. We’ll figure out what works.”
She spent the next hour in Delphine’s kitchen, moving around like she’d been cooking there for years instead of minutes. She made ginger tea first—fresh ginger, not the bagged stuff—and brought it to Truth with instructions to sip it slowly. Then she started on dinner: baked chicken with just salt and pepper, white rice cooked plain, steamed carrots so soft theypractically dissolved. Nothing fancy. Nothing that would trigger nausea. Just food designed to stay down.
I stayed.
I told myself I’d leave once the chef got there, once I knew Truth was being taken care of. But Delphine invited me to stay for dinner, and Truth didn’t object. Somehow, I found myself sitting at the small kitchen table with them, eating what Delphine cooked off mismatched plates while she told stories.
Stories about Katrina—about the water rising, about evacuating with four kids and two garbage bags of belongings, about coming back to a house that had been underwater for weeks and still standing. Stories about raising those four kids alone after Truth’s father died, about working three jobs and still making sure there was food on the table and school uniforms clean. Stories about this neighborhood, about the people who’d lived here for generations, about survival that looked like stubbornness and stubbornness that looked like love.
I listened.
And somewhere in the middle of her talking about the time Truth’s sister Saroya tried to fight a boy twice her size for calling Truth ugly in the third grade, I laughed. A real laugh, the kind that came from my chest and surprised me with its genuineness.
Truth was watching me. I could feel her eyes on my face, studying me like she was seeing something she hadn’t expected. Like the man sitting at her mother’s table eating and laughing at old stories was someone different from the man who’d sat across from her in that office and made her sign a contract.
Maybe he was.
Maybe sitting here in this small kitchen with these women who’d survived everything life threw at them and still found reasons to laugh—maybe that changed something in me I hadn’t known needed changing.
“You got people, Mr. Landry?” Delphine asked, refilling my water glass without asking if I wanted more.
