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Fighting a smirk, Ashira glanced my way again, murmuring, “Azmir Jacobs said something similar.”
A prism. The third time I’d heard it, but this time I had a better idea of the analogy. This was like what Ezra and Divine mentioned, but with a different twist. It hit different.
“Look a here, Shi-Shi. Don’t worry about ya momma. She need to make peace with herself before she gone make sense. I sa’pose it don’t feel good seeing ya only child you been away from for so long glowing like this. I sa’pose it’s always been hard to see you shine when she left you in the shadows. She love ya, baby. She do. But she got ta get right with herself first. Celestine is selfish. You gotta bit of that in ya, too, believe it or not. It just ain’t activate in ya yet ‘cause you ain’t got no chirren. But don’t wait on Celestine. Prepare foryourlife.” That’s when her face turned toward me. “I see just well, but not everything. You been given a promise, son. Alls I can say is fight for the promise. Wait. Just wait and wait some more.”
Promise. That was another keyword for me, but I needed time to think on it. Her words were coming so fast and her accent was something to adjust to, too.
“My aunt deals with spirits,” Ashira whispered apologetically.
“Mmhmm.” Rose’s eyes were to the sky again. “I’mma get on back to the house ‘fo it get too dark fa me ta see. But Shi-Shi, his activities in his sleep’ll pass.” She pointed to me. “You just keep reminding him of his reality. That’s you, baby. You this young man’s reality, come spring, summer, winter, fall. Ya hear me nah?”
Without another word, Rose slugged away. A young man ran toward her. He waved at Ashira then took to Rose’s side and walked off.
Ashira’s gaze hit me. “Well,” she sighed, “now we know why my mother didn’t spread out her toxicity over the weekend.” Her head hit my chest again and I pulled my arms around her.
“Y’all always been this way?” I asked, feeling like she needed to start unloading the negative energy set off in there instead of stewing in it.
I felt Ashira’s head shake against my chest. “My dad cheated on her. I don’t know how many times—even find it hard to believe because of how much he still worships her—but he did. The affairs weren’t anything grand or long term because my parents were able to keep them away from me. That was until Noelle was conceived. Her mother, Lattice, refused to abort the pregnancy. Whether she thought she’d hit a lick or was truly in love with my father, I never knew. It was a minor detail against my family splitting.”
She adjusted her head and lay her cheek on my chest as I continued rubbing her back. “My mother left us. Me. I’m not even sure if she asked to take me. I literally came home from school to my housekeeper breaking the news my father couldn’t. My mother had left. He was distraught, regretful. Jas, I was ruined. It was so bad that I was sent to a therapist and prescribed medication to address the extreme anxiety and depression I fell into. It took me years to regain my feet.”
“And you accepted Noelle.”
“I had no choice. She was adorable. The baby was a huge distraction while dealing with my mother’s absence. My father caught on to that and would have Noelle over just to see me smile. He may be a flawed man, but Noel Witherspoon is obsessed with the well-being of Celestine and me.”
“Not your sister?”
“I’m still working on that with him. I’m sure he loves her, but he’s so hands-off in a way he’d never been to me growing up. I really try to facilitate a bond between those two, feeling like Noelle will be the better for it. It’s another struggle of mine at the hands of Noel Witherspoon.”
There was silence for a while. Only the sounds of insects playing the background.
“So Ines’ your aunt?”
Her head moved against my chest. “Yup. She doesn’t like throwing the label out there and I’m sure it’s because of my mother’s rejection.”
“They grew up together and lost touch or something?”
Ashira’s head pulled back and she motioned the ground, pulling my hand to prompt me to sit next to her.
“When my mother left. She stayed here for a few years. Did a lot of traveling the world on my dad’s dime, of course—”
“Oh. Damn.”
“In retrospect, I don’t blame her. You cheat, you pay.” Ashira shrugged, shoulders and mouth. “That part of her DNAisin me. Loyalty is everything between family and lovers.” Her eyes were on me, communicating what I understood to be a warning. “Anyway, she’d call regularly and check in with me. I couldn’t travel with her much because of school and my dance competitions, but also, sometimes I wasn’t invited. She’d heard of my bonding with Noelle. It angered her.Butshe’d still call. And I’d see her here inDellaon the estate. This has always been my mother’s home base.
“Her contact with me slowed drastically when Ines turned up one year. I was grown by this time. She contacted my mother’s, father’s side of the family, doing an ancestry tracing online. Ines connected with a few cousins and they put her in contact with my mother and her brother, Gary. Gary flew to Michigan to meet Ines and there they took a DNA test, confirming their connection.”Damn. “My mother and Ines met one year. Ines flew down here toDellawhile my mother visited from Brazil. I so happened to be here, too.” She scoffed. “The meeting didn’t go too well. My mother refused to accept their relationship, denouncing the DNA results with their brother. She was so cold to Ines and, deep in my heart, I knew why.”
“Why?”
Ashira looked at me. “Because meeting Ines the way she did was too close to the betrayal she felt from my father having Noelle. It was a surprise ‘intrusion,’ a painful telling of her father’s lies and secrets. My grandparents—my mother’s parents—were married at seventeen and died months apart, they were so close. I’m guessing my mother felt her father betrayed their family just as my father had.
“Anyway, Ines left angry. She didn’t cry; I know her well enough to know she doesn’t express her emotions that way. She grew up with an abusive mother and went into the military right after high school. But the way her eyes blinked successively.” She shook her head. “Well, let’s put it this way: I’d been on the receiving end enough at that point in my life with my mother for the same reasons I felt she was condemning this woman.
“So, I snuck out after Ines and took her to a coffee shop in town to talk to her, unlike mother. She didn’t give me everything upfront, I guessed having her pride. But I soon learned she had no money and technically no home. After being in the military for over thirty years, she developed PTSD and for the most part roamed. That day, I put her up in a hotel room. Then flew her home with me the following day. To be honest, Ines may bitch every now and then, but her spirit is so light and loving in her own way that I’d come to depend on having an older woman in my home.”
“Because you didn’t have ya moms?” I studied her.
Ashira’s gaze swept up to the orange sky. “I think so. And she resembles my mother so much, just without the disdain for me. Ines never intended to live with me. She’d gotten several jobs as a cook—even took out a loan for culinary school, and is clearly good at it. But there are things about her brain…the way she processes things, we learned over the years, that would make it difficult for her to maintain her own place. It’s the PTSD, I know. So, I figured why push her out? I’d gotten so used to her presence.”
