“What he always want… you.”
The disgust in her voice made me glance up. “He called asking if I’d seen you, if you came by, if you been talking to anybody. Like I’m working dispatch for your whereabouts.” She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “I told him I don’t know nothing, and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell his overgrown ass.”
A smile spread across my mouth, although the tight feeling in my chest kept it from lasting. “I can’t believe he’s still coming here too.”
“From time to time.” Her eyes dropped into slits. “Pull up in that car and sit outside like he part of neighborhood watch. Last week he came knocking, talking ’bout he just wanted to make sure I was okay.”
I shook my damn head. “He doesn’t care if you’re okay.”
“I know that. I’ve been alive longer than he’s been lying.”
I placed the spoon inside the bowl and stared at the broth. “I filed yesterday.”
Lulu raised her brow. “For what?”
“The divorce.”
She parted her lips to say something, but no sound came out at first. Then she reached for my hand with her fingers closing around mine with a softness that made my eyes burn before I could prepare for it. “You did?”
I nodded. “And I started the process for the order of protection too. I have to go back with some more information, but I filed what I could.”
Relief crossed her face before the sadness came behind it. She squeezed my hand and looked at me the same way she hadwhen I was little and came home with scraped knees. “I’m glad you did it, baby, but I’m sorry you had to.”
“I should’ve done it sooner.”
“No.” Her grip tightened. “You did it when you was ready. Don’t beat yourself up because it took you time to admit something was hurting you. People love to tell women when they should leave, but they ain’t the ones who gotta live through what happen after.”
I looked away before the tears fell so I could suck them back up. Lulu had never been one for long emotional speeches. She gave wisdom in the middle of cooking, fussing, or cursing at the television, then moved on before anybody could make a scene out of it. She released my hand and reached for the spoon again.
“Now eat before this get cold. Don’t be getting all skinny after this divorce.”
I looked down at myself knowing damn well I wasn’t skinny. “I’m nowhere near skinny.”
“You look thin in the face.”
“I look exactly the same.”
“You don’t. Your cheeks used to sit up higher.”
“That was when I was eight Lulu.” I laughed.
She furrowed her brows. “And they looked healthy.”
I kept laughing as the television audience in the living room erupted into applause over something that judge Mathis had said on one of the old rerun shows, and Lulu turned her head toward the sound as if she might need to intervene. When nothing else happened, she faced me again.
The question sitting in my mind had been there since the waterfront house, although I had tried not to give it enough thought. Twenty-four hours had passed, and my thoughts still felt tangled around Lev, Marv, the debt, and everything that could go wrong if I allowed myself to want something I hadno business wanting. It was a big ass loop of tangled lies and betrayal.
“Grandma?”
“Mhm.”
“What do you do when you think you might like somebody you should probably stay away from?”
Her eyes snapped toward me so quickly I almost regretted asking. “Who?”
I smirked. “It’s hypothetical.”
“Ain’t nothing hypothetical about the way you just dropped your voice.”
