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“Tahari!” she called.

He gently nudged me on the lower back, and we kept walking.

“Tahari, wait!”

Her voice cracked, and when I glanced back again, tears were running down her face. She bent to retrieve the vodka bottle from beside the curb, then lowered herself onto the sidewalk. She wiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand before bringing the bottle to her lips and drinking what was left. I turned away because honestly, it was hard to watch. She looked like a woman who was broken and didn’t know what else to do in life. Tahari opened the passenger door for me, and I climbed inside without saying anything. He closed it, walked around the front of the car, and got behind the wheel.

For a moment, he sat there with both hands resting on it while looking straight ahead. I wanted to ask him a hundred questions. I wanted to know how long it had been since he’d seen her and what had happened between them that made him look at his own mother like she was a stranger. But I remembered the only thing he’d ever told me about her, and that was that his father had put her out before he died. Whatever the rest of that story was, I knew it wasn’t mine to pull out of him in a grocery store parking lot. After glancing at his mother a few more times, Tahari backed out of the parking space. He didn’t look back toward the store as we passed it, and he didn’t say a word when we pulled onto the road.

I watched him from the passenger seat. His jaw was set, and both hands were wrapped so tightly around the steering wheel that his knuckles looked lighter than the rest of his skin. The coldness I’d seen in his eyes when he spoke to her was still there, but I’d also seen the way his vision blurred when he first recognized her. I couldn’t forget that. I reached across the console and rested my hand on his shoulder.

“Whenever you want to talk about it, baby,” I said softly.

I rubbed his shoulder with my thumb and left my hand there. Tahari kept his eyes on the road. He didn’t answer, but after a few moments, one of his hands loosened around the steering wheel. As we made our way back to my house, I didn’t ask him anything else.

Chapter 16

Bleek

“Straighten up a little more, Mr. Browne. That’s it. Keep your weight even.”

I tightened my grip on the walker and did what the physical therapist, Andre, told me. My arms were already working harder than I wanted them to, and I hadn’t taken a single step yet.

“Don’t lock your knees,” he said. “You’re standing. That’s what we want right now.”

I looked down at my feet. Both of them were planted on the living room floor, but standing didn’t feel the way I remembered it. My legs trembled, and I had to think about keeping my balance. Before I got shot, I could’ve gotten out of bed, walked downstairs, and made it halfway through my day without giving my legs a second thought. Now I had a man standing beside me telling me how to stand in my own damn house.

“You good?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

I glanced at him with my face screwed up. He smiled like he was used to my attitude. He’d been coming to the house five days a week since I got home, so by now, he probably was.

“Okay,” he said. “You ready to try a step?”

I looked toward the kitchen. Eternity was standing at the counter with a glass of water in her hand. She’d been pretending to mind her business for the last ten minutes, but every time I looked over there, she was watching me.

“You hear him?” I called out. “He finally letting me go somewhere,” I joked.

I turned my attention back to Andre.

“Let’s do it.”

He moved closer to my side.

“We’re only going as far as you can safely manage. I want you to shift your weight first.”

I followed his instructions, putting more weight through my arms as I tried to move my right foot. It didn’t lift as easily as I wanted it to. For a second, I thought I was going to have to put it right back down.

“Take your time,” he said. “You’ve got it.”

I moved my foot forward a few inches and set it down.

I took one step, then let out a breath and looked at him.

“Does that count?” I asked.

“That absolutely counts. Now let me get another one.”