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“I don’t know… the house? Cars? Savings? If we go into bankruptcy, the banks could take it all to pay for debts.” Simone looks down at her diamond tennis bracelet catching the light and her equally sparkly wedding ring, picturing the keepsakes on the counter of a seedy, cluttered pawn shop.

“And you had no idea?” Simone can feel Donette’s disapproving glare, even as she’s making a point to look straight into the distance.

“No, I didn’t. I don’t even think Alex did till recently, but now…”

“Simone Carlisle Morrison. What have I always told you? You have got to always be about your money! Do you even know how much money is in your investments? Your savings?”

Her mother refuses to use her married name, and Simone has never decided if it’s sentimentality or protest. In this moment, it’s probably the latter. She’s too ashamed to answer her mother’s question, to admit she has no idea, but her silence says it all.

“Jesus, help me. I didn’t raise you to be this foolish.”

Donette is always direct to a fault and has made the act of “telling you about yourself” an art form. It can be a little much for people who don’t want the true answer to questions like, “Does this outfit look good on me?” or “Do you think I’m making a mistake?” Simone can usually withstand her mother’s radical honesty and direct feedback, the tough love, but today her mom’s disapproval threatens to overwhelm her. That’s what happens when someone reminds you that you know better and you have to face the fact that, indeed, you do.

“I knew this was a mistake,” Donette says, shaking her head so vigorously her stiff curls bounce.

“What’s a mistake? My marriage?”

“Well, if I’m honest… yes.” Donette says this with the conviction of someone who’s been looking for an opening to say as much. “Y’all moved awful fast, Simone. You broke up with Kwame and before I knew it, you were living on another continent, then pregnant and engaged, and I met this guy all of once.” The octave rises with each word, years of bottled concern bubbling up and over. “I barely knew him. You barely knew him. And you were too dang young to be out here having a baby. You were a baby.”

“Mom, I was well into my twenties!” Simone throws up her hands in exasperation. “Above the average age that most women have children in the world.”

“I’m not talking about the world, I’m talking about you.” Donette adopts a slightly more tender approach now, but with no less conviction. “You had a good career going, and the way I see it, you gave it all up for Alex. To go gallivant around Spain on a whim with a man who was clearly running away from his problems. And now you’re playing June Cleaver to this white boy and being a nursemaid to some geezer who may be a murderer… I don’t know, I pictured different for you is all. And it would be one thing if you were happy, but I’m not convinced you are.” She reaches out to touch Simone’s cheek, her palm warm and familiar. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Simone can’t do that. For one, because she’s paralyzed by hearing her mother second-guess all of her life choices that every single muscle that’s holding her upright decides to stop working at once. She abruptly collapses onto a bench at a bus stop, unable to take another step.

Had she and Alex moved too fast? Simone remembers feeling caught up in the whirlwind of it all—the impulsive move to Spain, the hot and heavy period of travel and frivolity, then the positive pregnancy test, Alex’s immediate proposal, the rushed wedding before she delivered. She’d taken the speed of their relationship as a sign of their undeniable connection, their haste was romantic, not delusional. But now, sitting at a bus stop that smells vaguely of urine and cigarette smoke, she wonders if they did move too fast, if she did give up her career too easily, if she did use Alex as a way to soothe her bruised heart. Surrendering to him and his love was like slipping onto a raft on a lazy river on a bright-sky day—smooth, frictionless, and comfortable. Easy. It was easy.

She’s not so sure if she was in a rush to love Alex, or the escape he offered to her just as she faced the brutal realities of trying to make it in the “real world,” one where she could avoid ever having to fend for herself, or be alone, or grind or hustle or prove herself. It was an irritating proposition to have her mother judge her choices; it was a downright terrifying prospect to question them herself. There was bound to come a point, though, Simone was coming to understand, where it was also inevitable. Leave it to Donette to show Simone that that moment is now.

“I’m going to go back to work, Mom, get my career back on track. I always planned to.” Simone isn’t so sure that’s true, and her defensive lilt confirms that.

“Mmmmmm-hmmmm.” Donette’s response reveals the same skepticism. “Look, all I’m saying is it’s a risk to count on a man, any man. Not even just because they could leave you. But they could up and die on you. When that happened to me, the thing that saved me was my self-reliance. I raised you as a single mom to think the same way. I never wanted to see you depend on a man, no matter how rich or princely or charming. And I most certainly never wanted you to feel kept, because then you can’t leave.”

Simone has never felt kept, or dependent on Alex, necessarily, but maybe that was just a state of mind. He did earn all the money, or at least he used to. And he hasn’t exactly been all that eager for her to go back to work, as if he’s worried that it will take away from her role of boosting him up and soothing his anxieties, which is a full-time job. Simone picks up her pace down the wide boulevard where she’d learned to ride a bike, like the answers to her problems will be generated by the energy of their feet pounding the cracked concrete.

“And what does Alex have to say about all this?” Donette asks. “I’m guessing he wants you to shut your pretty little mouth and let it lie, whatever his grandfather may or may not have done?”

“Who cares?” That’s what Alex had said when she confronted him with what she’d learned from Marjorie. Who cares about what happened to some stranger before we were even born, over what we need to deal with right now?

Simone blamed the alcohol, and the jarring nature of the bombshell she’d dropped on him, for her husband’s reaction, but that’s part of what had sent her fleeing here to Detroit, that she married a man who would respond like he did—so callously. There was also the fact that his wild jealousy, which he couldn’t hide if he tried, kept him from thinking clearly, and that was partly her fault. Especially since Simone was so angry storming out yesterday that she purposely withheld any soothing assurances that there was nothing going on with Kwame.

“I don’t know. He doesn’t have much to say. He’s spiraling.” At least all the booze on his breath these last few weeks makes a little more sense. The problems with the company don’t justify it, or make Simone feel one iota better about it, about him sneaking stops at bars on his way home like she’s some fool without any common sense… or a nose. But she can chalk the drinking up to stress, and she can chalk the stress up as situational. If only the block of concrete that’s taken up residence in her stomach were convinced by her rationalizations.

“That figures.” The dig slides right through Simone until it collides with said concrete block.

“I didn’t come all this way for you to judge me or my marriage, Mom.” Though Simone knows it was probably unavoidable. “I need your help. I don’t know what to do.” The Morrison women weren’t criers; Simone doesn’t know if this is owing to genetics or the models of fortitude presented generation after generation. But she breaks with tradition now and lets the tears flow.

“Oh hush, baby, hush.” With their thick coats, and the fact that her mother is a full head shorter than her, it’s awkward for Simone to bend into her mom’s embrace on the narrow metal bench. It’s also the most comfortable she’s felt in weeks. “We’re gonna get this all figured out.”

We. Simone is instantly soothed by that simple pronoun. Donette has never been like her friends’ moms who wanted to be their kid’s “best friend.” Simone’s mother didn’t want to share secrets, or get manicures, or heaven forbid, hear a single word about Simone’s sex life, but she was the mother who always had your back and would fight with the ferocity of a rabid wolverine. “I got you” was something Donette said often and in lieu of “I love you,” but it meant the same.

“I’m trying, Momma. But how do I know what’s right? Getting Poppy to confess? Begging Kwame to please forget this whole thing?”

Kwame’s called her four times in the last twenty-four hours and sent two texts imploring her to call him, but she can’t—or won’t—until she figures out what to tell him about what she learned at Marjorie’s—there’s a body. Or until she can face whatever he meant in his last message by: I need to tell you something.

“Doesn’t sound like that’s possible. You can’t squeeze toothpaste back in the tube. If I know Kwame, he’s not letting this go.”

“I can’t help but think he’s doing this to punish me. Like he went digging for a story that would blow up my life and my marriage on purpose. I mean, what are the chances? I’m supposed to believe this is just one mind-blowing coincidence?”