Page 63 of Justice

I got the chicken out the fridge and started pulling out what I needed for dinner, Dream perched up on a stool at the island narrating her future nursing career while I worked, and I didn’t look back up the stairs even once. Wasn’t nothing up there I needed to see right now.

33

JUSTICE

“What’s up lil nigga, what you want?” I said to Mehar’s little brother Bryce.

He had been wanting a meeting with me for the last weeks but I’d been so wrapped up in Freetown and her, that I hadn’t given him the time of day.

But he had really stepped up after that last mishap. I was proud of how far he had come. He was handling business around here and that didn’t go unnoticed.

“That nigga that you kicked out for touching that lady the other night…”

“What about him?”

“He’s threatening to sue.”

“That’s fine. I got lawyers to handle that. He assaulted a woman and that’s not the first time he’s been in here pissy drunk. If he wants to go to court, he’ll lose. I know that ain’t the only reason you came in here.”

“Aight, so Quest told me to talk to you about this. He said if you cool with it — he’s cool with it.”

“What is it?”

“I want an opportunity when Freetown opens. I been stacking bread. Making connections. I want to open a boutique sneaker shop. Like the ones in LA.”

“Hmmmm.” I looked at him.

“I don’t know…”

“Listen, I just need initial investment.”

“I respect the hustle. I really do. And I know you’re capable but Freetown needs lifestyle businesses when it first opens. We need family friendly spots. Froyo and matcha. Salad restaurants. Shit like that. If you come back with a prospectus for something like that, then we can def do business. I’m gonna need to hold off on the shoe store for a few years. Unless, you want to do it in Georgetown or something.”

He sank in his chair, chin to the ceiling, thinking about it. I saw a lightbulb go off before he redirected his gaze to me.

“Aight. I hear you. I’ll tweak my business idea and I’ll get back to you.”

“Sounds good,” I said as he left my office.

The day came to a close and I had gotten significant work done. I’d even hit up a few of those therapists Sloane suggested. None of them got back with me yet but it was just a matter of time.

The house was quiet by the time I got home after 10:00pm, everybody was tucked off in their own room except Rita, who was sitting up in the front room like she’d been waiting on somebody specific to walk through that door. Thankfully, Skye had placed the alarm on the door, so she would hear it if Rita tried to open the door.

“Al,” she said. “Come here, baby.”

Al…Alexander was my grandfather’s name. He had been dead longer than I’d been alive. I sat down across from her anyway. Whatever room her mind had wandered off to, leaving her alone in it felt worse than playing along.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Al, I’m tolerating her as much as I can, but you know I don’t do no damn disrespect. Not in my own house.” Her hands were folded tight in her lap. “If your sister can’t come at me correct, I’m gonna bury her next to my father. He couldn’t watch his mouth either, and I had to lay him down.”

I sat there a second not knowing what to do with that. Wasn’t the first time she’d slipped somewhere I couldn’t follow her, but it was the first time she’d said something that landed in my chest like a stone dropped down a well, waiting on a splash that never came.

I studied her face while I sat there, trying to figure out who exactly she thought she was scolding, whose sister needed correcting. Rita had four brothers and sisters of her own I knew about, all long gone now, and a father I’d only ever heard about in half stories over holiday dinners, a man everybody in the family got quiet about the second his name came up.

“Get that lil girl, Alvin, before I do.”

Alvin now, not Al. Whoever she thought she was talking to had shifted again without her noticing, and correcting her twice in one conversation was more than I could do. I just nodded, told her I’d handle it, and got her up out of that chair slow, one hand under her elbow all the way down the hall to her room.