Roberto ended the conversation. He wasn’t coming in so that Nina could be slick and get him drunk, only to ask him a million damn questions like he was on the stand defending Jiorgio Gotti to her.
He also had plans tonight that he’d been looking forward to all week.
“Whatever.”
She rolled her eyes and stomped into the house, mad and alone.
Nina had been an empty nester for a while now, but it hit different knowing that there was no Jio coming to see her in the midnight hour. With the way his illness overtook his body, their lives looked very different over the past two years. Nina spent more time in a chair next to his bed than lying beside him as they’d done for almost thirty years.
But still, she’d been comforted in knowing that at least he was close.
Now, she was alone for real.
The text messages and phone calls were going to fade eventually. People only checked on you for a little bit and then they went back to their regular scheduled program. The one who loved the hardest took the longest to heal. But now Nina wondered whether that would be her or Carrington Strozier?
η
The night was long. She tossed and turned. She was up and then she was down. She cried. She screamed. She drank. Nina barely ate these days. Food just didn’t do it for her anymore.She paced the floor. She flipped through photo albums. She sang songs that she and Jio loved. She smelled his clothes that hung discreetly in the closet. She even found a pair of his smelly socks. No one’s feet reeked as badly as his did, but only God knew what she would trade to smell his feet for only a few seconds. The things we miss when our lover leaves us. She wanted to hear his cough after smoking one more time, although it was the one thing that used to drive her up a wall. She wished to hear him talk shit on the phone while he used the restroom. She missed the days when he would wake her up in the middle of the night with a whole carry-out plate talking about, “Babe you want a bite?”
No one fed her, cared for her, doted on her, and truly made it their daily commitment to ensure that she had everything she needed.
Nina wondered could she move on. Would she stop crying? Would sleep ever find her again?
“FUCK YOU JIO!” she shouted from the top of the steps.
Tears ran down her face as she took the stairs one by one to refill her glass.
“YOU SORRY, LYING, CHEATING, SLICK, WANNA BE PLAYER ASS LAME ASS NIGGA!” she dogged him as if he was standing right there waiting on her to tackle him.
“YOU GOT THIS HOE COMING TO MY PLACE OF BUSINESS NIGGA! TALKING TO ME ABOUT SOME ART! WHO THE FUCK DID SHE THINK I WAS? YOU OUGHTA BE SHAMED! I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU TOLD HER TO ASK ME FOR MY GUNTENBURG. I TOLD YOU ABOUT GUNTENBURG NIGGA! YOU DIDN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT A GUNTENBURG WAS BEFORE YOU MET ME!”
Nina’s body shook as she recalled the conversation from a few hours prior.
It was nothing but the grace of God that had kept her feet planted firmly on the ground.
The grief in the room was thicker than honey. It was fresh because they were still trying to process that their lives had changed and would never ever be the same.
Nina didn’t take time to process his death. She had too many deals to close before tax season rolled around. Unfortunately, her pain mattered but not more than her company. Her legacy was priority over losing the love of her life. Jio was the only man that she’d given her heart to and he’d done a good job of protecting it too.
Ever since Jio’s funeral, people had been crawling out of corners that she didn’t even know existed. Men swearing their loyalty. Women claiming to have loved Jio. Old business associates wanting their deals honored and new niggas wanting territory that didn’t belong to them. Flowers arrived daily from those who knew the real. Nina wasn’t his widow, at least not legally anyway.
The reality of it all made her jaw tighten.
After all those years filled with love and chaos, they never married. He’d tried a few times, but declined profusely without hesitation. He knew that they couldn’t become one for real. Even now and especially with this girl having the balls to claim him to her face, she still didn’t regret her decision. Marriage was replaced on her bucket list with multi-millionaire until she became a billionaire, which happened a while back. But somehow, even in death, that fact haunted her in ways she hated admitting out loud.
“I grew up in the art world,” Carrington said after a moment. “My mother was a dealer. She was in all the Art circles. You know the ones with collectors, museums, private auctions…”
Nina listened quietly.
“We sold many pieces to Jio over the years.”
The information caught her attention because suddenly certain things made sense.
The Basquiats.
The rare photography.
The sculptures.
