by Kennedy Ryan
“Oh, I don’t?” He shoots me a look that is both disgusted with me and satisfied with himself. “Then why’d I already call the Stingers’ training facility to see if Caleb’s scheduled to work out today?”
I grin and pull on my seat belt. “This is why I keep you around.”
“And because I chauffeur your ass everywhere.” He pulls away from the curb and glances at my leg. “At least temporarily. How’s the leg?”
“Good.” It’s actually hurting like a motherfucker today, but I don’t want any lip from Jared about me overdoing it. I need my brother right now, not an agent.
“I’m taking you because I knew you wouldn’t rest until you got some answers,” Jared says, looking away from the interstate only long enough to catch my eyes. “But don’t get into shit with him, Gus.”
“I’m not,” I say defensively. “I’m just gonna make sure Iris is okay.”
“Oh, yeah. That won’t infuriate him at all.”
“Ask me how many fucks I got for that,” I snap. “Sylvia made Iris seem like some gold-digger who should just be happy she has a roof over her head.”
“Well . . .” Jared shrugs. “I mean, he did take care of her.”
I boil in scorching silence. Is Caleb some kind of warlock? Does he cast a spell so everyone misses what a complete asshole he is? He just skates through life without consequences. I saw it while we were growing up over and over. Son of a bitch breaks my fucking leg in front of the whole world, and he doesn’t even get fined.
And I’m not just saying that because he has Iris and Sarai.
Had Iris and Sarai. Maybe.
“In and out,” Jared says, breaking into my hostile thoughts.
“Huh?” I look over at him questioningly. “What’d you say?”
“We’re here.” He points through the window to the building where the Stingers train. “Find him, ask your questions, and get out. No fights. No scenes, bro.”
“I really hate it when you call me ‘bro,’” I say, matter-of-factly.
“I know. Why do you think I do it?” He studies me closely, the little bit of humor on his face fading. “You need me to come with you?”
“No, I needed a chauffeur, not a chaperone,” I say, climbing carefully out of the car. “Be right back.”
It doesn’t take me long to find Caleb. He’s pressing weights, spotted by a tall, lean man wearing a Stingers T-shirt. The guy looks up, his eyes widening when his eyes lock on me. Everyone in the league knows how bad the blood is between Caleb and me.
“Hey, you can’t be in here bec—”
I wedge myself between the trainer and the bench where Caleb is lying down. I grab the bar from Caleb’s hands and place it on his neck enough to cause discomfort but keeping the full weight from pressing down.
I bend over so he sees me upside down.
“I’m only asking you once, Caleb,” I say calmly, while his eyes bug and he starts to turn red. “Where is she?”
“He can’t breathe!” the trainer guy says, sputtering and pointing.
“That’s kind of the point.” I nod to the exit. “Get out. We got shit to settle. I promise he’ll still be in one piece as long as he cooperates.”
Caleb manages to shake his head, his eyes latched onto the trainer dude’s as he puffs air and claws at the bar I hold over his throat.
“I said, get out!” I yell at the indecisive trainer. He’s still looking back over his shoulder until he disappears through the exit.
I lift the bar just enough for Caleb to breathe and talk, but not enough that I can’t drop the full weight on his throat if he doesn’t give me what I want: answers.
“Fuck you,” he hisses, the blood vessels sprouting around his eyes.
“Wrong answer.” I drop the bar a little more, and he immediately starts gasping again. “I will break your fucking windpipe, Caleb, so I suggest you answer the question I already told you I would not ask twice.”
I lift the bar an inch, and his arms fly up, trying to dislodge me. I can hear Jared now if I actually fight this dude with my leg in its current state. Not to mention the insurance the San Diego Waves have on my body. I’m pretty sure there’s not a brawl clause in the multi-million-dollar policy. I step away and let him breathe while I compose himself.
“Answer the question,” I snap.
“What business is it of yours?” he rasps, sitting up and grabbing his water bottle to guzzle.
“I’m making it my business. Iris didn’t show up at the center, but Sylvia says she called to say she wouldn’t be coming back.”
He pauses mid-sip, narrowing his eyes at me. “Really concerned about finding another man’s girl, huh?”
“Not here for games, dude. Tell me what’s going on.”
He stands, mopping the sweat from his face with a nearby towel. “What is ‘going on’ is that she’s gone.” Bitterness corrupts the line of his mouth. “Iris left. Didn’t take her phone, so good luck calling it.”
I’ve seen Caleb with Iris—the way his eyes track her every move like he might miss something if he looks away. He would not just let her go. He’s as obsessed with her as I am.
Almost.
“Left and went where?” I persist, irritation pinching the muscles in my face.
“No idea,” he mutters, watching me down the length of his water bottle while he gulps. “She wouldn’t tell me.”
“And Sarai? You don’t know where your own daughter is? How to reach her? Them?”
Caleb turns away from me, shrugging while he sorts through the items in his duffle bag. He’s avoiding looking at me. This is some shit, but I can’t get to the truth. It’s like a puzzle with all the pieces on the table, but I can’t see how they fit together. I know I’m missing something. There’s a question I should ask or something I don’t know, and somehow, he’s hiding from me. Caleb is covering his ass, I’m sure, but why would she go along with him all this time? And he’s fine with her just leaving him?
Leaving him.
“You two broke up?” I ask, keeping my voice steady.
The way to Iris is actually clear for the first time since we met. He throws a piercing look over his shoulder at me, his smirk a forced lift of his lips when his eyes don’t smile at all.
“We’re not together anymore,” he replies. “But she doesn’t want to be found by anyone.” He turns to face me now and crosses his arm over his chest. “And that includes you, West. Did you think because she gave you a few minutes in the closet you meant something to her? You didn’t.”
A practiced smirk lifts one corner of his mouth.
“She has my money and my kid, so I guess she doesn’t need me anymore.” He shakes his head. “Who would’ve thought I’d let some swamp whore from Louisiana trap me? I suspect that Creole bitch even gave it up to my bodyguard while I was gone.”
I lunge for him, ignoring the twitch in my knee and slam him to the wall, then pin him by the throat.
“You’re a liar,” I grit out, tightening my fingers around his neck. “Say it again and I’ll break more than a leg, you entitled son of a bitch. You’re not good enough to touch her.”
“But I did touch her.” A demon’s smile teases the corners of his mouth. “Oh, I’ve touched her everywhere you’ve never gotten to. Fucked her in all the ways you’ve only dreamt about, and to top it all off? She had my baby.”
He cocks a brow, regaining his arrogance by the second. I hate his handsome face, his blond hair and blue eyes and tan skin. I hate everything outwardly appealing about him because inside he’s crawling with worms.
“Write her off, West,” he says. “She’s gone. She got what she needed, and now she’s gone.”
Iris is not like that. I know she’s not, but why didn’t she try to get in touch with me? If she’s gone . . . after what happened in the closet? Would she just leave without even saying goodbye? Without telling me how to find her? Was I that wrong about what we had? Maybe I’ve been misreading this woman since the night we met. I just kn
ew that what I felt, she was feeling, too.
You’re not fooling yourself.
She told me that. Her whispered words spark again in my memory, and all the feelings, the sensations, the perfection of those moments in the closet with her flood my mind. I wasn’t fooling myself. I don’t know everything that’s going on, but there’s one thing I hold onto even as I exit the training facility and Jared and I pull out of the parking lot.
I’ll see her again.
That thread that connects us, glowing neon, it’s still there. I may not be able to see it, but I feel it. It’s still wrapped around me.
Wherever Iris is, I hope it’s wrapped around her, too.
HALFTIME
“She remembered who she was
and the game changed.”
* * *
--Lalah Delia
34
Iris
One Year Later
MiMi says she was tutored by the bayou, by the Mississippi itself. She says that river is the blood meandering through Louisiana’s veins, and it casts a spell on all who love it.
I don’t know that I ever loved Louisiana. I never knew this Louisiana. I lived in the Ninth. On the bayou, a thick carpet of green grass squishes between my bare toes; in the city there was concrete under my feet, cracked and unforgiving.
An arch of cypress trees shelters the path from MiMi’s small house down to the river, but in my neighborhood growing up, power lines crisscrossed the sky like electric spaghetti. No, I didn’t love the Lower Ninth, but I think I’m falling for the bayou.
There are so many differences between the city and St. Martine. Being here the last year, I understand why Lo saw living with our great-grandmother as a blessing.
How she must have laughed when I claimed to know MiMi as well as she does. What a ridiculous notion. When we showed up on her modest doorstep, I barely recognized her. I don’t know exactly how old she is, but traces of great beauty still remain on her face, even past ninety years old. She has fewer wrinkles than she should, her skin carrying the patina of age, shined to a high polish.
And her eyes—those eyes can see your soul in the dark.
Lo hadn’t told her much about my circumstances, except that I needed to come home. But when I stood on the front porch and the blue door to MiMi’s green house swung open, her eyes probed mine in the dim porch light. That omniscient gaze sliced through the humid, heavy air, narrowing and softening with every new thing she read in my soul and dug out of my heart.
Her thin arms drew me close, and she whispered to me in French. I didn’t understand what she said. I didn’t need to. The power of her voice, the life in her words, winnowed to the bottomless pit where I hid my hurt. Before I knew it, my pain and disillusionment, my disappointment and regret, poured out of me into the silver braid hanging over her shoulder.
“Maman?”
Sarai’s sweet voice startles me and forces me to turn away from the bayou. She’s learning more words every day, half of them French, because people speak that here more than anything else, and the rest of them English, because that’s all I know to teach her.
“Hi, princess.” I bend and scoop her up. “Did you walk down here by yourself?”
She nods, bobbing the pigtails I scooped her dark curls into.
“Eat.” She clumps her fingertips together and presses them to her lips, making the sign.
“Time to eat?” I ask, waiting for another nod. “What’s MiMi got for dinner? Wanna find out?”
The patch from MiMi’s to the river’s edge is short, safe, and well-worn. This arch of trees provides the coolest spot for miles, and I find myself down here every chance I get. In the summer, humidity is the sultry breath of the south. I’ve given up on taming my hair since the moist air coaxes it into tight coils that hang down my back and around my shoulders. There’s a freedom to it.
Caleb liked my hair straight. He wanted everything a certain way. Wanted me a certain way. With distance and time, I realize I probably initially gave in to many of his preferences to make up for the fact that I just didn’t love him. Didn’t. Couldn’t. I’m not sure I ever did. If I hadn’t gotten pregnant, Caleb probably would have been “that guy” I dated in college who ended up in the NBA. Maybe we would have had a long-distance relationship for a little while that eventually ran out of steam and followed a path to a natural end.
But I did get pregnant, and everything changed.
I barely recognize the woman I’ve become, so different from that girl, fresh from college, driven to achieve whatever she set her mind to.
“Affame?” MiMi asks, lifting the top from a pot on the stove and smiling through a cloud of steam.
“Yes, starving.” I grab three plates from the hutch against the wall, silverware, and three of the linen napkins MiMi still eats with each night. At two years old, Sarai can barely reach the table, but she strains up on her little toes to set the forks down by each plate. She’s mature for her age. Bright. Observant. And so beautiful.
“Etouffe!” she says when we sit down to eat, her smile pegged with baby teeth.
“Grits,” I correct gently. I raise my spoon to taste and close my eyes to savor. “And shrimp. So good, MiMi. Mine never turn out this good.”
She has taken up my culinary education, which my mother never really bothered to do.
We eat in relative silence for the first few moments, but that won’t last. At MiMi’s age, her mind still races with questions, and her curiosity makes for lively conversation.
“You like Jerome, eh?” MiMi’s silver brows lift and fall suggestively over mischievous eyes. “He likes you so much, he may start delivering the mail on Sunday soon.”
“Oh my God.” My cheeks flush with embarrassment, and not from the heat in the non-air-conditioned house. “He’s our mailman, MiMi, so I like him fine as far as mail goes, but nothing else.” I attempt a stern tone, but my lips twitch at the corners and so do hers.
“You are beautiful, young.” MiMi narrows one eye at me before taking a bite. “You have needs.”
“I have needs?” I cock a dubious brow. “So . . . Jerome, the only man I see on a consistent basis, qualifies to meet these supposed needs of mine because he delivers our mail on time?”
There’s nothing like MiMi’s laugh. It starts as a cackle then swells to a guffaw, the sound booming from her small body and floating through the air like bubbles that settle around you and pop with energy. It’s the kind of laugh that invites you to join in.
“Besides,” I say when our laughter fades and we turn our attention back to dinner. “I don’t know if I do have those needs. I’m satisfied with a good meal and my princess.” I lean over to kiss Sarai’s silky mop of curls.
“You buried your needs with your pain,” MiMi says, her voice sobering and her eyes probing. “But they are still there.”
“Are they?” My index finger makes a circuit around the porcelain rim of my bowl. “Maybe once, but . . .”
I shrug and hope she’ll leave it alone. I have aches and scars from my life with Caleb, some visible and some hidden from the naked eye. This body kept all my secrets. My shame took sanctuary in its crevices and cracks. I’m not sure this body’s capable of pleasure anymore.
“Tell me,” she persists. “Your boyfriend, he hurt you, yes?”
The scorching summer’s day and boiling soup in the kitchen make the air like a wool blanket around my shoulders, hot and heavy, but I still shiver. Caleb is far away and has never so much as sent a text to the pre-paid phone only Lo knows about. He doesn’t have my number, and I don’t think he knows to search here, but I find myself on alert.
Some people are afraid a gator will crawl out of the swamp and emerge as a threat. My nightmares star a different predator. I dream Caleb will rise out of the bayou some day and eat me whole, and next time I won’t be able to pry his jaws open and escape.
“He took from you.” MiMi says it like she knows for sure. She probably does. “He took, and you think you’ll never want
a man again.”
I glance self-consciously at Sarai, but she is too young and oblivious, chewing on crusty bread with her little teeth and eating the grapes I put on her plate.
There was a man I wanted once, but if he knew all that’d happened to me . . . God, the thought of August finding out about Caleb and all that he did. I touch my neck. The idea of wanting a man again is hard to swallow when I still feel Caleb’s hand at my throat. Only it’s not his hand cutting off my breath, choking me. It’s shame.
My spoon drops, clattering in the bowl. I’m shaken by my memories, so visceral that after a year, I still feel Caleb shoving inside me like a battering ram. The sting of his belt buckle biting into my hip is still fresh. Yesterday’s regrets make today’s sorrows.
“You’ll want again.” MiMi covers my hand with her weathered one, the ringed fingers squeezing mine. “You need to be cleansed.”
She’s right. I’m dirty. How could I not be after that animal was inside me? After he subdued me like a rabbit he only left alive for sport? Even so, I don’t put much stock into the rituals MiMi thinks will make a difference.
“Meet me in the back after her bath.” She nods to Sarai, whose long, drowsy blinks send shadows on her cheeks.
After bath with bubbles in MiMi’s claw-foot tub, Sarai insists on a story. She loves fairytales, and I don’t have the heart to tell her that sometimes Prince Charming turns out to be an abusive asshole like her father, and sometimes his kisses bust your lips. When her lashes flicker and her breath slows into sleep, I turn off the lights in the small bedroom we share. Funny. We lived in a mansion, and every day I felt caged, claustrophobic. Now we live in a four-room house out in the middle of nowhere. We share a bedroom whose walls I can practically touch with each hand when I spread my arms, yet the sense of freedom is like none I’ve ever known.
I push back the curtain, studying MiMi’s “back room” with interest. I’ve seen people enter distraught and leave clutching their newfound peace and a mason jar or bottle of something from MiMi’s shelf of solutions. I don’t understand all that MiMi does—the potions people from town come to buy, the rituals she performs in the back of the house behind a curtain. I don’t know all that she does, but I believe every word she says.
