Page 61 of Justice

“That’s it, baby girl,” I said. “That’s Freetown, right there.”

My voice caught a little on the last part, thinking about Rita at home instead of standing here with us, her mind slipping a little more every week, missing the one afternoon she’d probably worked the hardest in her life to see happen. Quest caught it too. He put a hand on my shoulder and didn’t say anything.

Roman found me again before we left, shook my hand a second time and told me Harlow’s crew would break ground for real come Monday. I thanked him, told him the Banks family didn’t forget who showed up when it mattered. We talked timelines another few minutes, nothing that needed remembering past the day itself.

Storie was quiet on the drive home, staring out the window with her phone in her lap, and I let her have the quiet. Legacy day. My grandmother’s empire going all the way legitimate, dirt in the ground with my own name on the deed and my brothers standing shoulder to shoulder with me to see it happen. My daughter beside me acting like a daughter again, the one who turned the first shovel of it herself.

We got home a little after seven, and once Storie disappeared upstairs I went looking for Skye.

I found Skye out back, sitting on the porch steps with a cup of tea she hadn’t touched, staring off at nothing in particular. This was the first time I’d gotten her alone in days. I’d been working late and then she was straight up avoiding me by always being near Dream or Rita.

“You good?” I asked, easing down onto the step beside her.

“Long day with Rita.” She glanced over at me, and whatever she saw on my face made her sit up a little straighter. “Something’s got you looking lighter.”

“Broke ground on Freetown today. Storie turned the first shovel herself.”

“Justice, that’s huge.” Her face opened up, genuinely happy for me, and it hit different than anybody else’s congratulations had all day, because this was a woman who had no reason on this earth to care about my business and cared anyway.

“I’m surprised you all didn’t have a party for this.”

“We will. There’ll be so many celebrations in the future for that place. But we’ll have a ground breaking party soon.”

“This is so exciting.”

“Come here.”

She didn’t argue. She climbed into my lap right there on the back steps, her arms going around my neck, and I kissed her slow at first, then not slow at all, a day’s worth of wanting her finally getting somewhere to go. She kissed me back just as hungry, her fingers already working the buttons on my shirt before I’d even gotten both hands full of her.

“Somebody could see us out here,” she said against my mouth, not stopping.

“Then let’s not stay out here.”

“I can’t. One of those days…” she said, alluding to her period. Which I didn’t give a fuck about, but I let it slide.

“Stop fighting me.”

“I’m not.”

“Uh huh,” I said as I leaned back. She was building a wall up around me and I would stop at nothing to tear it down.

32

SKYE

I’d gotten good at putting distance between me and Justice, and I hated exactly how good. A period was the best excuse I could come up with. But what would happen when I had my real period? I hated lying to him. But I had to stay steadfast. Easier to keep a wall up around somebody who pushes at it. Harder to keep one up around a man willing to just wait you out.

I’d counted the days again this morning, out of habit more than anything. Six weeks had already slipped down to five without my permission. Time does that when you’re not paying close enough attention to it. Five weeks left to save what I needed. Five weeks left in a house I’d started thinking of like it was actually mine. Five weeks left with a man whose hands I could still feel on my hips a full day later, no matter how many times I tried not to think about it.

Avoiding him yesterday had been easy enough. A house full of people to hide behind, Rita’s pills to count, laundry to fold, a dozen small tasks that kept me moving in a direction that wasn’t toward him. But five weeks was a long stretch of avoidance to keep up, and some small, honest part of me already knew I didn’t have that kind of discipline in me. Not with him.

Rita and I had spent most of the afternoon on the porch, her going through an old photo album she kept insisting was new even though the pages had turned yellow years ago. Half the pictures she couldn’t place anymore, faces she used to know. But now she’d just laugh it off and flip past them out of embarrassment. I knew better. I let her tell me the same three stories twice each anyway and didn’t correct a single one of them. Some days that’s all the job is. Just letting somebody be right about their own life, even when the details keep sliding around on her.

“This one here,” she said, tapping a photo of a woman in a church hat, “that’s my sister Lorraine. Rest her soul. Could sing like nobody’s business.” She’d told me that same story an hour earlier about a different woman entirely, but I nodded along just the same.

I heard the front door around four thirty, backpacks hitting the floor, Dream’s voice loud before she was even all the way inside.

“Skye! Skye, guess what! We’re having a career day at school!”