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“I love her! I listen to her podcast all the time! I didn’t know you knew her, Samuel.”
“Xavier is her brother.”
“Shut up! Now that you say that, I can see the resemblance! Wow! Saint Louis is so small! I also follow her fashion blog.”
“I’m always calling and asking her for fashion advice. Especially when it comes to the trendier things,” Elisa said.
“I know, right? She has a great eye for fashion.”
“We are having dinner with Averie’s family, so we have to get going.”
“It was nice meeting you Averie,” Elisa smiled and reached for another hug. I was more than happy to oblige.
“It was my pleasure.”
Samuel
Averie gave me directions to her parent’s home. They lived in a part of the County I hadn’t been to in years. It wasn’t too far from where I lived when I was arrested. She pointed me to the blue house on the right with the cars in the driveway.
I grabbed the flowers from the backseat I’d purchased for her mother and the bottle of cognac I’d purchased for her father. We walked to the door, and Averie used her key to enter. I followed her down the narrow hallway to the back of the house. Along the way, we walked past pictures of Averie and her sisters from infancy to the present. I saw Averie in her royal blue dress at prom hugged up with some clown-looking dude. I smiled at her pictures chronicling her journey of losing her teeth. She smiled brightly in each picture with at least one tooth missing per photo.
She has the same smile.
“You had a mouth full of metal,” I whispered when I saw several photos of her in braces.
“We are comparing adolescent pictures, head-mo-lotty?”
She’d seen some of my pictures as a kid at my mother’s house. She didn’t mention it then, but I guess she’d noticed my head was rather robust before I had a growth spurt.
“I grew into it,” I whispered back.
“Basically,” she looked at my head then into my eyes. “Momma!” she called ahead.
“Ahhh, bet. You’re paying for that one,” I laughed.
“We are in the kitchen, Vee,” a familiar voice responded.
We turned the corner and found her sister Keeva and a beautiful woman who I assumed was her mother. She had flawless, wrinkle-free caramel skin with big luminous eyes like Averie. She wore her hair in a shortcut as well but not shaved like Averie. She rushed to Averie and gave her a hug.
“I’m so glad we had that talk,” Averie’s mom whispered to her.
“Me too, Mommy.”
She looked around Averie and locked eyes with me. I smiled and moved forward.
“Mommy, this is Samuel Valentine. Samuel, this is my mother, Estelle Patterson.”
I handed her the multi-colored tulips I’d purchased for her.
“Are these for me?” She said beaming.
“Yes, Ma’am. Vee said you had a green thumb and could make flowers last for weeks.”
She accepted the bouquet from me.
“I can, and I adore tulips. Thank you, Samuel. It’s nice to meet you.”
“The pleasure is mine, Ma’am.”
