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“You’re right, Ma. I just needed to get my head back in the game. Between finding out about Terry one year and Daddy the next, I just felt like New Year’s Eve was cursed. I just took it as a sign that I needed to stay in for the night.”

“Sweetheart, you and I both know that a person can be a prisoner of their own thoughts. Sometimes we’re our own worst enemies. I can see how finding out about Terry would be humiliating, but truthfully it was a blessing. And your dad lived a full life. It was just his time to go. You can’t feel guilty for not grieving for the rest of your own.

“It’s okay to close the door to grief, unhappiness, and loss and open a door filled with happiness, love, and joy. Your father would have wanted that for you. You don’t need permission to be happy. You deserve it,” Linda said truthfully.

Tears filled Myla’s eyes as her mother pulled her in for an embrace. This was what she needed to hear. She had preached to her patients that they didn’t need permission to move on from grief. Yet, permission was the very thing she needed.

“Thanks, Ma,” Myla said as silent tears streamed down her face.

“No need for the tears. You’ve already shed enough. It’s time for you to get back on the scene. I will be calling you bright and early to get the deets.”

“Deets?” Myla repeated and laughed. It was obvious by her choice of words that Linda had turned over a new leaf. Slang was never in her vocabulary.

“That’s right. As I said, I’ll be calling you bright and early in the morning. Go home, get dressed, and get ready to start the new year off right.”

3

Miranda stood in the doorway of Myla’s bedroom, watching her dance in front of her floor-to-ceiling mirror to nonexistent music. The sight before her was by far the most horrific thing she’d ever witnessed.

Next to Heaven, Myla was the most talented person she knew. She was capable of doing many things, except dancing. God just didn’t bless her with rhythm.

Doing HIIT three days a week, along with strength training and genetics, had sculpted Myla’s body into something spectacular. Though she had a stripper’s body, she didn’t move with the fluidity of a dancer.

Miranda stifled a laugh because even though Myla looked a complete mess doing a mixture of the original Dougie, the butterfly, and some other dance moves that made absolutely no sense, she knew this catastrophic dancing meant Myla was excited. Yes, this was her happy dance.

“Myla, please stop. I can’t watch you dance anymore.”

“What’s wrong with the way I dance?” Myla asked as she continued to dance in the most awful of ways.

“Let’s start with the fact that you can’t. You claim to be dancing, but it looks like you’re having a medical emergency. I don’t know if you’re having a stroke, seizure, or a mild heart attack. Too many of your limbs are flailing around. Heaven teaches hip-hop to the three-year-olds at the dance center. Please sign up for her class pronto. I’m sure she’ll be glad to teach you.”

Myla burst into laughter at the thought of her big ass standing in a dance studio filled with toddlers attempting to learn a basic two-step. The thought was comical to her.

“Girl, whatever. Lucky for you, I’m ready to show off my dance moves to a crowd of people that will appreciate me. A room full of drunken men and women is my target audience for tonight,” Myla joked as she continued to gyrate and dance in ways that made no sense.

“I guess we’re reading from the same book because that’s my target audience too. Let’s get out of here and have some fun!” Miranda said excitedly as she linked arms with her best friend.

She couldn’t hide her excitement. After four years, she was so happy that she and Myla would be attending the New Year festivities together again.

Miranda had tried her best to entertain herself during the New Year’s festivities, as Myla grieved, but it hadn’t worked. In a room full of lively individuals, Miranda sipped ginger ale and scrolled Facebook. Without Myla, she was bored out of her mind. So bored that after a few shots, she had driven home and watched the Macy’s New Year’s countdown on NBC.

Since the age of fourteen, when she and Myla met at youth camp, they had been joined at the hip. They spent every birthday, special moment, and holiday together. Sadly, catching her ex in a ménage à trois and the death of her father a year later had changed things.

“I’m so ready to get some of these spirits back in me, now that my designated driver is back on the scene,” Miranda laughed. “I thought I was going to have to replace you with Mama Linda. She knows how to have a good time, and my girl is aging backward. We went to brunch, and the server thought she was my sister. I was like, hell nah. This is my mother,” Miranda said with a twisted face.

Miranda despised it when men, especially the YNs, took an interest in Linda. She was not ashamed to admit that she was overprotective of her. So much so that few people knew they weren’t biologically related.

“Girl, fix your damn face,” Myla joked when she saw the look of disgust on Miranda. Though Miranda’s look was comical to her, Myla couldn’t deny that the extra glow and pep in her mother’s step since her father’s passing had been extremely noticeable.

“I didn’t want to call any attention to it, because I was hoping that I was imagining things, but Ma does look like she’s grown new skin since Daddy died. Her entire style has changed. Her hair, her clothes, her attitude. She threw out her pantsuits and blouses and purchased all-new chic and modern pieces. She even changed the way she gets her nails done. She went from short French manicures to long red coffin-shaped nails. I don’t like it,” Myla admitted with her face as twisted as Miranda’s was.

The doctor in her knew that most women tended to step outside of their comfort zone when they were entering a new chapter in their lives. Subtle changes to their hair, nails, and clothing were a common way of finding their new identity and relearning themselves. It was also something that she encouraged her patients to do.

However, the daughter version of herself hated it. To her, the change in her mother’s demeanor came so quickly after her father died that it seemed like her mother had simply been waiting for him to die so she could step into the new version of herself.

“Do you think Ma really loved Daddy? Do you think she was having an affair when he died?”

The question slipped out of Myla’s mouth so fast that she hadn’t realized what she asked until she saw the look of horror on Miranda’s face.