“Maybe not,” I said. “But you gon’ tell me anyway. My mama lying. Hell, shorty might be betraying me. I know you not gon’ do the same.”
His shoulders sagged like somebody pressed a weight on his back. The fight drained out of him.
“If I tell you the truth…” He hesitated, voice cracking. “Promise me you won’t do anything crazy.”
“I can’t promise shit till I know what I’m hearing.”
Another long, shaking sigh.
“Time, Unc. We ain’t got a lot.”
“Your mama and I… we had an affair,” he finally said. Just dropped that shit like that. “Long time ago. When your daddy was still alive.”
I froze, the air thick and hot, my ears buzzing. My father’s brother. My mother. Traitorous.Treacherous. Rage shot through me so hard I couldn’t speak. Hell, I could barely breathe. I don’t think Medgar even noticed. He kept going, like he needed to empty the shit out.
“Mekhail found out. He came at us. He was furious, son. Gillian… she was scared. Something happened that night after I left. She told people it was a break-in.”
I felt my stomach twist. “It wasn’t?”
He glanced toward the camera in the corner but didn’t answer.
The silence said enough.
Suddenly, everything I’d ever wondered about my father’s death—every hole in the story, the way Gillian avoided talking about it—rearranged itself into a picture I didn’t want to see.
I forced the words out. “You saying my father’s death wasn’t no accident?”
He looked at me then, eyes glassy, guilt all over him. He didn’t speak.
He didn’t have to.
He swallowed, changed the subject. “You remember my boy? KeAndre?”
I nodded, frowning. I did, now. I hadn’t thought about him in years. “Yeah. Couple years older than me.”
“He was a good kid. Loved his little cousin, too.”
Medgar’s voice cracked a little. A chill crawled up my spine. I didn’t answer. I saw the set up coming.
Medgar rubbed his wrists. “After your mama and I… after everything came out… his mama left. Her daddy was a powerful man. Hated me. Helped her disappear. New name. New papers.Whole new life. And she took my son.” He paused, voice falling to a whisper. “She took my boy. I couldn’t find him. Then, the feds found me. I haven’t seen my child in so long. So long…”
Part of me, the part Farrah called mean, had little sympathy for him. He’d caused himself to lose his son. But his wife didn’t have the right to do what she did. I didn’t have time for this particular walk down memory lane though.
“Unc—”
“His middle name was Kentrell,” he announced in a rush. “Before she changed everything, his middle name was Kentrell.”
For a minute, it felt like time stopped. All the air left my lungs. “KeAndre Kentrell,” I repeated quietly. “Trell.”
Medgar nodded, miserable. “He always had his mama’s temper. And my stubbornness.”
And a death wish.My own blood?
“He coming for me over some shit y’all did?”
Medgar shook his head hastily, his eyes begging. “I’m telling you who he is so you don’t… so you think about that when you see him.”
I didn’t respond. Couldn’t. Fury burned slow and hot in my chest, a sense of betrayal I didn’t have a name for. This was so-called family doing this? Putting targets on me and the woman I cared about?
