Page 43 of Butterfly 6, Phase 1

“No reason, man. Daddy just needs a hug,” Ethic said.

“Aww, Dad,” Eazy complained as he un-clicked his seat belt and reluctantly got out of the car. “You gon’ make me die on my level.” Eazy tossed his Nintendo aside and climbed out to wrap his arms around Ethic.

The long-sleeve, athletic Nike shirt Eazy wore was torture to Ethic’s soul. He was pretty sure that Eazy didn’t have any scars on his arms, but the weight of the situation was playing mind games with him. He just needed to see his son’s arms to make sure. He didn’t want to make Eazy uncomfortable or to make him feel like he was in trouble, so Ethic resisted the urge to roll his sleeves up. He would have to wait until later, when he could create an environment where Eazy’s arms were bare.

“I love you, Big Man, to the bottom of my heart, son. I’m always here to heal a hurt, my boy.”

Eazy hugged him tighter. “I love you too,” Eazy answered.

Chapter 13

“Hard Part” by Teyana Taylor & Lucky Daye

Alani looked around the room. Expensive clothes hung out of open drawers. Ethic’s nightstand was completely cleared of its contents, its belongings, a scattered mess on the floor. She had gone through pockets of every single piece in his closet. She had even uncovered the safe behind his suits. She had tried so many different combinations that the front was now blinking red. Alani sat on the floor with her heart pounding from a mixture of exhaustion and adrenaline as she stared at the computer screen in front of her. When she searched Ethic’s name, nothing came up. Not even a high school yearbook picture existed. He was like a ghost. There was no digital footprint of him at all, and that only worried her more. She didn’t even know why she typed in her brother’s name next. Her fingers seemed to have a mind of their own, but she just had the urge to see his name in tangible form. His obituary pitted her stomach, and her hand shook as it hovered over the keyboard.

He was murdered, Alani thought, taking four fingers to her lips to cover her shock. As she kept reading, she recognized her cadence. “I wrote this,” she whispered. When she got to the final sentence, the room felt like it shrank. The walls boxed her in so tightly that she struggled to breathe.

Lucas Hill died with his niece in his arms. He was a loyal brother, loving uncle, beloved nephew, and friend to many.

Alani’s eyes were wide with stun, and saturated with sorrow as she put that puzzle piece in place in her mind. She read the words.

Again and again.

This isn’t right.

She read it again as she typed in more, trying to regenerate a search that pulled answers that made more sense. A second headline made it worse.

She couldn’t stop now. This must be in the local paper, she thought, fingers typing before she could determine if it were a good idea to know more.

When she dug further, the answer that she unearthed snatched her deniability away. She had wondered if it had been an accident. Had Kenzie died from some act of God, a car crash, or perhaps an illness? Had it been God’s complicated and incomprehensible plan? No. It was murder. Cold-blooded murder.

The headline read…

Local 3-Year-Old Victim in Double Homicide.

No, no. Oh my god, no, Alani dreaded.

Alani’s fingers ached as her mind tried to send warning signals for her to stop. Going further was dangerous. She felt it in the sinking of her stomach. In the ringing in her ears. In the tilting of the room as she lost her equilibrium. She felt the urge to vomit bubble inside her.

Oh, what impact this unkind truth had. This curiosity. This itch to know more. This burning to put together the puzzle in her mind, collecting tiny pieces at a time, had backfired. She just wanted clarity. Her mind was so foggy at the edges. Ethic, Bella, and Eazy were clear because they were her center, but the edges of her mind were blurred like an aged photograph. It didn’t feel good that whole periods of her life were dark. Bella and Eazy spoke carefully, like they were walking around shards of broken glass, and she couldn’t help but wonder if the pieces she couldn’t quite identify would cut her. This one did. This piece split her artery, and an invisible bleed threatened to end her.

The headline made her stomach turn, and her heart pounded as adrenaline coursed through her. Her emotions recoiled inside her, and she jerked violently, like a punch had knocked the wind out of her.

The deepest ache filled her. It was so primal, or raw, that it felt animalistic. It was as natural as the tightening of a woman’s breasts when she heard her newborn cry. A feeling she didn’t remember earning folded her forward as she sobbed. Even without her memories, she knew that her baby didn’t deserve this. Her soul knew that this was unfair, and that there had to be some mix-up without even knowing that she was sleeping with the shooter. The articles did nothing to answer her questions. The revelation was horrifying. She should have closed her laptop, but just like a woman, she dug for more. When her search brought her to Kenzie’s obituary, Alani lost it. The cry crawled from the grave in the deepest part of her soul and was so wrenching and deep that she couldn’t give a voice to it. Air and devastation pushed out of her as tears soaked her face. She trembled like a lonely leaf hanging onto a withering branch on a stormy night. Her heart couldn’t take much more. There was a reason they called it heartbreak. It was a real thing, a physical injury, and it was killing her. Just stop, she thought. She knew better than to dig. Sometimes, it was better to turn a blind eye, but Alani was too deep in the rabbit hole. She couldn’t even see the light anymore. Love Okafor was her next search.

A short obituary, less than a paragraph long, was all that proved her baby ever existed. He hadn’t even taken one breath, and Alani couldn’t even remember him. It felt like she was scratching on the surface of something disturbing, and she couldn’t get it off her mind. She reached for her cell phone, dialing Nannie’s number by heart. There were certain things she just couldn’t forget. She wondered why some memories were so hard to recall, while others were as fresh as the day she had lived them.

“Larry, turn my beans down on that stove, please!”

The old woman answered the phone, shouting and fussing before she even offered a greeting. “And don’t take the lid off trying to taste them cuz they ain’t done. Don’t be letting out my steam! I’ma know if you dipped your spoon in there!”

When Nannie was good and ready, she said, “Hellur?”

“Hey, Nannie,” Alani greeted.

“Hey, baby, you all settled in?” the old woman asked.

“I don’t know if it’s possible to settle in a house this size, but this is home, I guess,” Alani responded. There was something about a maternal line. Their instinct never failed them. Nannie could tell something was awry.