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His turn to drop a bombshell.

“The company is in the shitter, okay? Poppy left me a total and complete disaster. Like bankruptcy. I haven’t even earned a salary in months! I’ve been dealing with some real-life crap. On my own. I was shielding you…”

“You mean, you were lying to me?”

“You don’t really have a leg to stand on there, Simone. I was protecting you until I could fix this. And I did. I found a buyer. A good deal. One that will not only save the company but give us a nice buyout. But if you let these vicious, unfounded rumors about Poppy get out, that will be ruined. We will be ruined. Do you hear me? Ruined.”

The gossip and the whispers. His grandfather sitting in a courtroom, his twiglike wrists encircled in handcuffs, or in a hospital bed surrounded by police officers, when he barely has any time left. The sordid headlines in the Sentinel calling Poppy a monster, a racist, never mind if it isn’t true. In Alex’s mind’s eye, he sees it all, their entire life, reputation, and family legacy destroyed.

He can’t let that happen. He won’t.

“Poppy is a pillar of this community. He was Sawville Man of the Year. Jesus Christ. He didn’t hurt anyone. He’s never hurt anyone.”

Simone is quiet for so long, Alex lets himself believe he’s persuaded her. That she’s come to her senses. He’s sure the next words out of her mouth are going to be an apology for even coming to him with this outlandish theory.

“Alex. Something happened,” Simone says slowly, carefully. “We need to know what he did.”

“What he did? Wait a minute! Is that why you came here? It wasn’t to check on Poppy! It was to interrogate him, wasn’t it?” Alex doesn’t let her answer because he already knows it. “Jesus!! He can’t tell us anything anyway. He can’t even tie his shoes! You know that. I only wish he could so he could tell you you’re full of shit himself. The man can’t even clear his own name or defend himself!”

Poppy appears, small and frantic, in the doorway, head swiveling between the two of them like they’re his parents and he’s a teenager who’s about to be busted for skimming from the liquor cabinet.

“Is everything okay?”

It’s so fucking far from okay, Alex doesn’t even remember what that is anymore.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN KWAME

Is everyone obsessed with death or just him? It’s a subject Kwame thinks about way too often, especially lately with all the ghosts of his past kicking up, with all the reminders of all the things that can die—dreams, people… love. Or maybe it’s a hazard of his career as a journalist, too many years covering senseless tragedies and suffering. Or maybe it’s a universal human instinct and everyone else is just as preoccupied with their mortality as he is. But it’s not like you order a coffee in the morning and ask the barista, “How many times a day do you think about how it’s all gonna end?”

At least it makes sense why death is top of mind at the moment—he’s standing smack in the middle of a sprawling, creepy-ass cemetery. Cedar Grove Memorial Park extends for some twenty city blocks around him, with headstones like jagged teeth scattered between dirt and grass battling for every square inch. Even when it comes to cemeteries you can always tell which ones are for the rich folks and which are for the poor. Capitalism to the death.

He can’t say he loves these visits, but Devon needs to come to his mom’s grave on the regular and hates doing it alone.

This is the very first place he’d wanted Kwame to bring him the day he was released from prison—Freedom Day. Before getting a good meal or getting laid. Kwame had been prepared to be his wingman, take him to a strip club with one of those champagne rooms. It just seemed like the right thing to do, or maybe he’d watched too many movies about people getting out of prison. But Devon didn’t want women, steak, or even a hot shower. He insisted they drive straight here when Kwame picked him up from the desolate, mostly empty lot outside the prison gates. It was freezing that day, even colder than it is right now, and Devon didn’t have a warm-enough coat yet. But he seemed oblivious to the frigid conditions in his corrections-issued flimsy gray sweatshirt, bawling like a baby, tears dripping onto the frozen dirt.

Just when Kwame thought his heart couldn’t break anymore, watching his boy all snotty and sobbing and flailing like that, Devon asked him to deliver the eulogy Kwame had given for Mama Rhodes on Devon’s behalf when he was denied compassionate leave to attend her funeral. Kwame always thought Devon’s mom had mostly died of a broken heart, that she couldn’t bear to see her son behind bars a second longer. Devon claimed it was just as well they wouldn’t let him out to go to the service because it would have been a disgrace to be all chained up at his mother’s funeral. Kwame had barely gotten through the speech the first time, and he absolutely didn’t want to do it again. But then Devon damn near started begging.

“It kills me that I never got to say goodbye. I didn’t get to be here to see her go in the ground. I just need to hear you say it. Come on, man… please?”

How could he say no? Kwame pulled up the document on his phone and delivered the whole thing again as the two of them stood side by side alone in the cemetery, his breath billowing in white clouds and his own tears freezing to his face. It was brutal. Beautiful too, when he thinks about it now. It was an honor to pay respects to Mama Rhodes, and Kwame had labored over what he was going to say for days. But these memories, warm as they are, are not doing anything to raise the temperature of his actual ice-cold body, and he wishes Devon would hurry up saying whatever he needed to say to his mama so they can get in front of some heat.

Kwame also doesn’t want to be late to meet Sylvester at a pizza place in the Loop. The man is clearly hesitant enough to talk as it is. If Kwame stands him up, he won’t get another chance. But he had to do this with Devon first. These monthly outings—visiting Mama Rhodes’s grave—have become a sacred ritual, and he would no more bail on them than he would let Devon live on the streets.

Kwame hops from foot to foot and paces a little bit to try to get the blood flowing, but not aggressively enough to distract from Devon’s time with his mother. His friend is crouched by the left-leaning tombstone, clutching the limp collection of flowers he’s brought—tulips, always tulips. Kwame keeps a respectful distance because who knows what private thoughts Devon is sharing, but he can see his lips moving fast.

It reminds him how Devon and Mama Rhodes used to sit on their front porch and chitchat for hours. Other kids—Kwame included—were playing video games, shooting hoops in the driveway, or watching Yo! MTV Raps. But Devon and Mama Rhodes would be posted up in those wooden rocking chairs kikiing it up with lemonade like two old ladies. Kwame had mad love for his own mom too, obviously, but their talks were limited to what was for dinner, the chores Kwame was slacking on, and debating the best R&B divas of all time. Here and there, Kwame might let on when he was nervous or confused about a big decision, but he generally kept his sharing to a minimum. When you open up, you give others an in to share thoughts, feelings, and opinions about you and your life choices, and that’s always been tough for Kwame to stomach—even when it came to his own mama, who was maybe a little entitled to them.

Devon trudges over, looking sad as a hound dog in the rain, as his mama would say.

“You good, fam?” Kwame asks.

“Nah, but I will be. I just miss her is all. Even after all these years.”

“Yeah, I don’t think there’s a time frame on that.”

“You think she knows I come here? Like, she can feel it?” Devon asks this in the same small, hopeful voice Kwame’s niece asks about Santa Claus every year, with the same hope that the answer will confirm something precious and essential about how life works.

“She does. No question in my mind.”