“I know,” I said. And this time, I meant it.
His thumb brushed my jaw like he was memorizing the line of me. “You staying here?”
I glanced at Daddy’s recliner, the blanket still dented from my sleep. Home—but not where my heart was. Not right now.
“No,” I whispered. “I’m coming with you.”
Something eased in his shoulders—like he’d been bracing for me to say otherwise. He opened the door, and I stepped out first, locking it behind me.
The morning was crisp, borderline cold, the sky pale, warning us that the world moved closer to winter. Quentin’s truck waited at the curb. He held the passenger door open like it was more than habit, like it was a promise.
When I slid in, his hand lingered on my thigh before he rounded to the driver’s side. We didn’t speak right away. We didn’t need to. The hum of the engine, the warmth of his palm, the steady rhythm of us choosing—those said enough.
For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t running away from something. I was running toward it.
Chapter 29
The Dream of Fishes
Murder, She Wroteplayed low on the TV—Angela Lansbury catching liars with one raised eyebrow. The lamp beside Grandma’s recliner threw a honey circle over her hands, her rings glinting when she shifted. She had on her soft house dress and compression socks and that little gold cross that had outlived trends and funerals and heartbreak.
She didn’t look at me when I came in. Didn’t need to.
“Close my door, baby,” she said, eyes still on Jessica Fletcher. “You letting my warm air out.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I eased it shut and stood there a second, just breathing in the familiar.
“Don’t stand in the entry like you ain’t got a home,” she added, and that made my mouth tilt. Taking my jacket off and hanging it up, I dropped onto the couch.
We sat like that awhile—her watching TV, me watching her. That quiet wasn’t empty. It was a net. She cast it and waited. She’d been doing that to me since I had light-up sneakers.
Truth was, I still felt like that boy in her living room sometimes. The one who held Jada’s hand too tight the day they told us our parents were gone; the one Grandma collected from a neighbor’s porch with a paper bag of clothes and a spine made of grief. Thirty-something didn’t change that. A steady job, 401(k), a dozen shirts ironed in my closet—none of it touched the way her house could turn my lungs soft.
The commercials came on. Grandma turned the volume down with that careful thumb. “I dreamt of fishes last night.”
I blinked. “What’s that mean again?”
She didn’t answer right away. She looked at me the way she did when she wanted me to hear with more than my ears. “When I was a girl, my mama used to say if you dreamt of fish, somebody’s carrying. Not always you. But somebody in the circle is pregnant.”
It hit me low and hard, the way a truth does when you’ve been pretending you’re not standing right next to it.
“The last time I had that dream,” she went on, voice gone soft with old joy, “your mama and daddy had come byafter church. Your daddy had that shy smile he kept for her. Your mama sat right where you sitting, patting her skirts like she had secrets. I didn’t say nothing then. Two weeks later she called me—Ma, I’m late.I told her,Baby, I know.”
A smile worked itself across Grandma’s face like sun breaking a stubborn cloud. “Couple months after, they handed me you, and you stared at me like I was a puzzle you already finished.”
I swallowed. “Grandma?—”
She lifted one eyebrow. Waited.
“Rayna’s pregnant,” I said. “We found out. She’s… she’s scared. I am too, if I’m honest. But I love her.”
She let out a breath like a prayer had landed. “I wondered how long you were gon’ take to say it out loud.”
Grandma set the remote down, hands folding on the arm of her chair. “What you gon’ do?”
“Be there,” I said. Simple first. “For her. For the baby. Whatever she needs.”
“That’s the floor,” she said gently. “I asked you about the ceiling.”
