Page 22 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 4

“So,” Raven said, turning her attention to me with the particular gleam she got when she was about to enjoy herself at somebody’s expense, “you know Truth used to run a whole business out the back of Mama’s house when she was like nine?”

“Raven,” Truth said, already knowing where this was going.

“Nine years old. Selling ice Dixie Cups out the freezer, charging a dollar, and then when a customer complained the ice melted too fast, you know what she said?”

“I don’t remember saying nothing.”

“You told the little boy, and I quote, learn to eat faster.” Raven was laughing before she even got to the end of it. “Nine years old, running an unlicensed frozen dessert business with no refund policy.”

“I was building capital,” Truth said, unbothered, reaching for the cornbread.

“You were being cheap.”

“I was being fiscally responsible. There’s a difference. He sat that cup down and started playing. I watched him. I wasn’t about to give him nothing back.”

Honor pointed a fork at me. “You should be worried. That’s the woman raising your daughter. Girl gon’ come out the womb already trying to sell you something.”

“I can work with that,” I said, and the table laughed, Delphine included, though hers came with an eye roll that said she’d heard this story sixty times, and it hadn’t gotten less funny yet.

“Mama got her own stories,” Saroya said, glancing sideways at Delphine with a look that dared her to bring one up.

“Don’t start,” Delphine said.

“I’m just saying. You always telling our business to your friends anyway.”

Delphine set her fork down with the resigned expression of a woman who knew she’d lost this particular fight before it started. “Fine. Tell him about the recital.”

“No,” Truth said immediately.

“Which recital?” I asked.

“The one where she froze up on stage in front of the whole church and instead of finishing her line, she just started crying and pointed at me in the audience like I was supposed to fix it from twenty feet away,” Delphine said, cackling now at her own memory. “Eight years old. Whole congregation watching. She just stood there, pointed, and said ‘MAMA.’ One word. Louder than the microphone.”

“I was traumatized,” Truth said, but she was laughing too hard to sell the outrage.

“You were dramatic,” Raven corrected. “There’s a family theme developing here.”

“Nobody asked you.”

“Nobody has to ask me. That’s the beauty of being me.”

I sat back and watched it move around the table—story after story, half of them contradicting each other, everybody talking over everybody else, and nobody actually listening in the way I was used to conversations working, and somehow, it still all landed. Nobody got their feelings hurt over the noise. Nobody kept score of who cut who off. It just kept moving, loud and messy, and every few minutes, somebody’s hand reached across to fix a plate or pass a dish without being asked. The whole table operated on some rhythm they’d built over years that I was only now learning.

My family didn’t do shit like this. Our family gatherings weren’t about coming together and laughing. It was a damn war. This was different. I liked it. I think.

“Your turn,” Raven said, turning back to me with fresh energy. “Tell us something embarrassing about yourself.”

“I don’t do embarrassing.”

“Everybody do embarrassing. You just hiding yours behind all that money and them suits.”

“He does dress like he’s about to go to a funeral every time I see him,” Honor added. “Every single time. You own a T-shirt?”

“I own T-shirts.”

“When’s the last time you wore one out the house?”

I thought about it and realized I genuinely couldn’t answer that, which made the whole table lose it before I even got a word out.