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Celestine scoffed, “And with perfect timing.”
“No.” Ashira’s head fell to the side. “With unfortunate circumstances. I showed her humanity at a time she needed it.”
“Does she still need it, Ashira?” Celestine challenged, sarcasm glistening in her eyes. “Because I can guarantee she still lives there and rent-free, too. You think because you installed a new phone line she doesn’t have access to I would think she vanished?” A breathy snigger pushed from her stomach it seemed. “Of course, she hasn’t left. You live in a twenty-two hundred square feet high-rise luxury apartment, paying nearly four thousand a month—alone—why on earth would that vagabond leave you, dear?”
“Maybe she doesn’t share the abandonment DNA with you.” Ashira was damn near shaking in her chair with clenched fists.
This was getting out of hand and so soon.
Celestine’s head flew back and she raised the back of her hand to her forehead dramatically. “Is that what you tell that overpriced shrink you see, dear? That I abandoned you?” She clicked her tongue. “Oh, but if she knew how disloyal and simpering you are. How you fawn over your father to the point of sacrificing your youth on manifesting his dream. We both bore a child. What did Noel get from ouronlyoffspring? A workhorse to run his company and caretaker for the bastard child he ruined our marriage with. What did I get? A caretaker of an alleged sister against my wishes.”
“You left,” Ashira argued. “Not me. Not Dad. You!”
“What other choice did I have? What reason did I have to stay? To watch you take in strays like the local animal shelter?”
Ashira pushed back from the table. “I’ve had enough of this.” She looked across the table. “Sorry, Aunt Rose. I really am. I thought I could endure two days again, but I see I’ve outgrown being the punching bag to all of this toxic rhetoric.” Rose never regarded her, but Ashira then rolled her eyes at her mother and took off from the table.
“Oh!” Celestine chirped. “Toxic. Is that what you claim now to your shrink?”
This was some ol’ sitcom energy happening here and Ashira’s storming out was my cue to follow. I dropped my fork and pushed back from the table, too.
Just as I stood, Celestine pulled on my arm again. Her beautiful face strained with anger as she murmured, “There’s no way Noel knows about you two. His pathetic, begging ass would have called me, bitching about it by now. Then she would have decided against you, taking on his influence instead,justas she has me. Tread lightly with that one.” She used her forehead to point into the direction Ashira had left the room in. “She may be glittering and supple on the outside, but on the inside she’s too soft, too selfish to be understanding of a history like one of yourself. Beware.”
The pinch between her eyes was as mesmerizing as the chick who had my balls sewn up for life. The swelling of her narrow nose and the determination in her tanned lips and straining chin reminded me of the feisty woman I’d been sharing a bed with for weeks. Still, I had nothing to give Celestine. My loyalty was with the bad ass, judgmental, smart, generous, and upper-crust daughter.
“Yo!” I called out to Ashira powerwalking away from the house. “Wait up, girl!”
She didn’t slow. I followed her to the lake where she hiked alongside the water as the sun began to set. She stopped under a willow tree, its branches nearly reaching the ground.
She paced toward me, head arrowed to my chest. “I’m so sorry. So sorry I dragged you down here. I thought I could take her this time…maybe she’d put her focus on you enough not resurrect the same narrowed point-of-view narrative she’s spewed for years.”
I wrapped my arms around her, chin over her bowed head as I rubbed her back. “I’msorry, baby.” That’s all I had.
“I’m just so sorry. I’m not weak, I swear to you,” she cried into my chest. I knew Ashira wasn’t weak, even after the number her mother did on her in there. It all made sense to me. Now, I understood why Ashira never spoke of the woman, why she had so much anxiety coming down here. “It’s just…she—I just don’t understand her.”
“Why was she so incensed right out the gate?” The enormity of the situation was coming clear in my head.
“Shi-Shi!” We turned at hearing her name. It was her aunt, Rose. The woman walked, dragging a leg and seeing with what still looked to be one eye. We began her way. I wanted to be sure she didn’t fall. We hiked up the small hill to avoid her risking a fall to come down. “You don’t let that foolishness get to you now.”
“It’s okay, Aunt Rose. I’m not going to brave through it. We’re leaving in the morning. I’ll find us a flight out soon. I just needed a moment out here by the lake.”
“I just wish Celestine wouldn’t be so hard on you. It ain’t you she mad at.”
“Then what is it, because I’m getting too old to continue to catch it all.”
Rose’s eyes, even the one that appeared missing, rolled up toward the sky. “She mad at the glow.”
“What glow?”
Rose’s attention remained skyward. “The one from this young man here. I knows why you ain’t with that boy no more. I knownt all this time he wasn’t gone be in your destiny fa long.”
Ashira’s head dropped. “You told me that when you met him.”
“Mmhmm. That’s neither here nor there. Your momma need to deal with her own mess. I just wanna tell this young man I can read his spirit.”
Nervously, Ashira’s gaze swung up to me. “Jas is wonderful, Aunt Rose. He really is. He’s nothing like he appears—an—and nothing like Austin. He may be rough on the exterior, but he’s so soft on the inside. He’s so damn smart. The smartest man I know, in a worldly sense and intellectual. He reads every chance he gets and is unbelievably articulate. His emotions are even balanced. And he’s the most protective man. He’s fixated on it. Really!”
“Mmmhmm.” Her lashes fluttered, gaze still in the air. “I knows those things and lots more, too.” I was picking up vibes I couldn’t put a name to with this lady. Ashira’s arm around my own squeezed, telling of her anxiousness. “I knowed you a man with a spotty past. A man fighting to be normal, but you ain’t. You ain’t never gone be because that’s not the way the good Lord made ya. You’re peculiar, young man. Ya can’t fight that. The sovereign God made you like a prism: two feet planted and one head toward the heavens. You ain’t swayed by circumstance. Things—people—isallone way for you.” She looked over at Ashira and pouted. “Well, until now.”
