Page 50 of Justice

Storie stood there and let it happen. Her arms stayed at her sides. She didn’t push my baby off, she just didn’t give her one thing back, and after a second Dream let go and stepped away with her smile faltering. Then Storie turned and hugged Kira. Real one. Both arms, head on her shoulder, holding on.

Kira wrapped her up and looked straight at me over the top of my daughter’s head.

Down by the ring, Skye lifted a hand and waved at them. Neither one waved back. She took Midnite’s lead from the handler without a word and started walking that horse toward the new stable, giving us the yard.

She’s good at reading a room.

“I thought she didn’t work on weekends,” Kira said when I came up the steps.

“Did that look like work to you?”

The air on that deck went to ice.

“Whew, chile.” Rita closed her crossword book with a snap. “Storie. Dream. Come on in here with me, we gon’ make some lemonade.”

“I’m good,” Storie said.

“I said come on.”

Storie sucked her teeth loud enough for the neighbors I don’t have to hear her, then peeled off Kira and followed my grandmother inside with Dream skipping along behind. The door shut.

Then it was just me and Kira.

“So are y’all a thing now?” she asked.

“That’s none of your business.”

“Those girls are my business.” Her voice was climbing. “You can’t be dating the help in the same house those children live in, Justice. Storie told me y’all been getting close. Late night talks. Sitting up out here by the fire when everybody else is sleep⁠—”

“Storie told you that.”

“She notices things.”

I stood there a second and let that sit. My fifteen-year-old had been reporting my movements to this woman. I’d deal with that later, when I had my head right.

“Kira.” It took more than she’ll ever know to say it that calm. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for my girls. I mean that. But I think it’s time you take a little break from us. Aight? What goes on in my house ain’t your business. It never was.”

She rocked back like I’d slapped her.

“Wow.” Her eyes filled fast. “Monica was my best friend, Justice.”

“And she’s gone.” It came out harder than I meant but I didn’t take it back. “Those are my kids. Mine. I know what’s best for them, and I’m the only one who gets a vote in it.”

She stared at me. Then her face settled, went quiet, went somewhere I couldn’t follow.

“You better hope you’re right,” she said.

She snatched up her purse and went down my deck steps, then out around the side of the house without another word to anybody. A minute later I heard her car door slam hard enough to rattle. Then asphalt under her tires, going too fast down my drive.

I stood out there by myself a while after she was gone.

Down at the far end of the property, Skye was leading that black horse into a stable that still smelled like fresh-cut pine. Dream’s laugh came muffled through the kitchen window behind me.

It had been a perfect day. It had been the best day I’d had in three years.

Kira was hurt, that’s all. Hurt people say things. She’d cool off eventually and move on. Maybe in a few months, I’d let the girls resume a relationship with her — maybe.

I went on in the house to get some lemonade with my girls.