Mekhi was sitting on the couch in a matching Polo set, scrolling his phone. He looked up when Bella wheeled me in and his face did that thing it always did when he saw me in the chair. That half-second flicker of grief that he thought he was hiding but wasn’t. My big brother. The one who set up this apartment, paid for my physical therapy, made sure the building had an elevator and wide doorframes and a shower I could roll into. He loved me. I knew that. And I was using his love to destroy the one friendship he valued more than anything else in his life.
I didn’t feel no ways ’bout it.
“What’s good, bro?” Mekhi asked, putting the phone away.
“I’m good. Livin’.” That was a lie and a truth at the same time. My legs were dead but the rest of me—aside from my dick—was more alive than it had been in months. Purpose does that. Gives you a reason to open your eyes in the morning even when your body don’t cooperate.
“You eating? You look thin.”
“I eat when I’m hungry. What you need?”
Mekhi leaned back, prepared to tell me something important. I could tell by the look in his eye. “I got some good news. The Freetown contract is locked in. Quest gave us the development deal before he left. We’re building the first phase, residential units, townhomes, and a mixed-use retail strip. It’s a multimillion-dollar contract, Zeph. This is the come-up we’ve been working toward.”
The come-up. Quest throws us a construction contract and my brother calls it a come-up. Like we were supposed to be grateful that the great Questor Rufus Banks decided to let the Black brothers build some apartments on his land. Like we didn’t help him get money while he was rebuilding that bullshit liquor company. Like we weren’t the ones driving those trucks and moving that product and taking the same risks while he sat in an office counting money and planning his empire. We helped build Banks Reserve and our reward was a construction contract. A subcontract, basically. We were working FOR him instead of WITH him and my brother couldn’t see the difference because Mekhi had always been content being second.
I wasn’t content being second. I wasn’t content being anything in Quest’s orbit. The man had everything. The casino, the liquor empire, the properties, the money, the woman, the baby on the way. And legs. He had legs. He could stand up in the morning and walk to the bathroom and take a piss without somebody lifting him onto a toilet seat. He could pick up his child. He could walk across a room without asking for help. He could run. He could fuck standing up. He could do every single thing I used to do without thinking and he did it all while sitting on top of a fortune that my family helped him build.
And now he was dead. And my brother wanted to build houses for a ghost.
“That’s good, Khi,” I said, keeping my face neutral. “When do we break ground?”
“When Quest gets back from his lil vacation. He wants to iron out the final details in person. Should be a couple weeks. Him and Mehar are out on some island doing the babymoon thing.” He smiled when he said it. Actually smiled. Like he was happy for the nigga. Like Quest deserving happiness was a given and not a debate.
I almost laughed. Almost blew the whole thing right there in the living room because the irony was so thick I could choke on it.When Quest gets back.My brother had no idea. He was sitting on my couch planning a future around a man who didn’t have one. Making schedules around a dead man’s calendar. Projecting revenue off a corpse’s handshake.
Quest wasn’t coming back. And when the world figured that out, the contract, the casino, the liquor, all of it, was gonna be up for grabs. And I was gonna make sure the Black family was positioned to take what we were owed.
“Can’t wait,” I said. “Tell Quest I said what’s up when he calls.”
Mekhi nodded and stood up and gave me a hug that I returned with one arm because the other one was resting on the armrest of the chair that had become my throne. My brother loved me. And I was going to use every ounce of that love until there was nothing left to use.
Bella watched from the kitchen doorway with Amara on her hip and said nothing. She knew better.
14
Mehar
I stopped counting the days because counting made it worse.
At first I scratched little lines into the rock near our fire pit. Tallied them up every morning like a prisoner in a movie, which was exactly what I was except my cell had a better view and my warden had a six-pack and knew how to gut a fish. But somewhere around day fifteen or sixteen the lines started blurring together and I couldn’t remember if I’d already marked today or if yesterday’s mark was actually from the day before. The whole system fell apart because time didn’t work here the same as it did in the real world. Out here there was no Monday or Saturday. There was just sun and dark and the hours between them filled with the same routine on repeat until my brain couldn’t tell one cycle from the next.
I talked to the baby constantly. Full conversations. Out loud. She was my therapist now, which was ironic considering my last therapist chained me to a ceiling, but I wasn’t going to dwell on that because Janelle didn’t deserve space in my head and this island was already crowded enough with two people and an unborn child and whatever wildlife Quest hadn’t killed yet.
I used to consider myself an optimist. I’ve often thought things could always be worse; even when living under my father’s or ex-husband’s thumb. But this was as bad as things could get. Stranded on an island, while pregnant. If I had to give birth here, there was no way that I would survive. With what medical equipment?! I thought by now we’d be rescued. But at this point, I bet Zainab was planning a body-less funeral. Justice and Prime were mourning Quest. They would eventually move on. And we’d be here, immortalized on this island. Quest had a better chance at survival. Me and this baby on the other hand…
“Your daddy is out there right now catching dinner,” I said, rubbing my belly while I sat on the flat rock near the fire pit. “And I need you to know that when we get home, I am never eating fish again. I don’t care if it’s sushi grade, pan-seared, blackened, battered, or served on a gold plate at a restaurant with a six-month waitlist. I am done with fish. Permanently. We are a chicken and red meat household from here on out.”
She kicked in response. Hard. Right under my ribs where she’d been camping out for the last week, pressing on organs I didn’t know I had until she found them. I took the kick as agreement.
The fruit situation was getting worse too. I’d eaten so many mangoes that the sight of one made my jaw tighten with a sourness that wasn’t even physical, it was psychological. My body was rejecting the repetition on a cellular level. The green fruit that Quest kept bringing back, the ones I couldn’t identify, were bitter enough to make my face fold every time I bit into one. I ate them anyway because the baby needed nutrients and I wasn’t in a position to be picky, but I fantasized about real food with an intensity that bordered on obscene. Oxtails over rice with gravy thick enough to hold a fork upright. Garlic bread with butter melting into the crust. A Popeyes biscuit with honey. I would have committed actual crimes for a Popeyes biscuit.
My body was changing faster now and I didn’t have a mirror to see it, just my hands and Quest’s eyes. My belly was enormous. Sitting was uncomfortable, standing was uncomfortable, lying down was uncomfortable, and every position in between was just a different flavor of uncomfortable. My lower back ached constantly. My feet were swollen enough that walking on the sand felt like stepping on hot marbles. And the baby was sitting so low that every time I stood up I felt pressure in places that made me waddle instead of walk, which Quest had the good sense never to comment on.
He came back from the shore carrying two fish on a stick and I looked at them and something inside me just snapped.
“I can’t eat that.”
“You have to eat, Mehar.”
