CHAPTER TEN
JACKIE
Jackie’s phone buzzed on the counter…face down.
She almost ignored it. Unknown numbers were never good news. It was either bill collectors, spam, or worse, Marcus calling from another line just to ruin her day. Still… something about it made her reach for the phone and flip it over. One text. No name saved. Three photos attached.
Unknown Number: Regardless of any beef we got, I’m a mother first.
Thought you would want to see these. You welcome, bitch. P.S. Remove my number. And it should be obvious, you never saw these. —Nefertiti
Jackie opened the message and her breath caught.
Marcus Jr. Her baby. Her firstborn. Her reason for everything.
He stood tall and clean-cut in his cap and gown against a generic senior-picture backdrop, with a bold Class of 2025 banner hanging behind him.
He was smiling, but not the big goofy grin she remembered.
This one was tight and practiced, like the world had already shown him more than it should have.
Jackie knew Nefertiti had sent them behind Marcus’s back.
If it were up to him, she never would’ve seen a thing.
As messy as shit had been between them over the years, this was a quiet act of mercy.
From one mother to another. That’s when it hit her, just how much time had really passed.
And how many moments she’d missed. Jackie wiped at her face, the tears came hot and steady now.
A shaky laugh broke through, half anger, half heartbreak.
The ache in her chest wasn’t just sadness.
It was grief stacked on guilt, heavy and mean.
Because somewhere out there, her son was growing into a man, and she was barely catching it in snapshots.
Proof that life hadn’t stopped just because she couldn’t be there.
The sob that tore out of her chest was sharp, wet and ugly.
It ripped through her so violently her ears rang.
The cry that escaped her lungs left her breathless.
She clapped a hand over her mouth, but it was useless.
The noise still broke free, echoing through the quiet kitchen.
Her knees hit the cold tile as she slid down the cabinets to the floor, pulling her legs in tight.
She clutched the phone like she could hold her son through the glass.
Her hands shook as she unlocked it again, thumb slipping over the screen until it landed on Kormia’s name.
It only rang once. “Hello?” Jackie couldn’t get a word out.
The only sound that made it through was a raw, jagged sob.
By the time she came up for air, her head was pounding and her whole body felt wrung out.
She stayed like that for hours—stuck on the floor, silently sobbing.
Kormia didn’t ask questions. Didn’t press.
She just stayed on the line, quiet, letting Jackie breathe through it, cry through it, fall apart until her body finally started to slow down.
When Jackie’s breathing evened out, Kormia spoke, low and steady, like she’d been waiting for the right moment.
“After you pick Max up from school, bring him by the salon. I got some new polishes he can help me sort. That should keep him busy until I finish my last client. Then we can do homework. Don’t worry about dinner—I got that.
That way you can stay home, get a nap, light a candle, put one in the air, and relax.
” Jackie laughed wetly through her tears, shaking her head.
Kormia always made it sound so casual, like looking out for her wasn’t a big deal.
But it was. “Thanks, Mia.”
“You already know.” When they hung up, Jackie felt a little steadier. The devastation was still there, lodged deep inside her heart. But at least she was steady enough to stand again.
That’s when she remembered her first parental breakout session with Dr. Nigel was today.
She thought about calling the school, canceling, and crawling back into bed.
God knows she was in no mood to talk about shit right now.
But she couldn’t. Not when Max still needed her to show up, physically and emotionally.
So, whatever she felt in this moment would have to take a back seat.
Jackie wiped her face, peeled herself off the floor, and put on something simple: fatigue cargos, a cropped tee, a chunky knit cardigan, and brown Crocs.
The forecast called for light rain, so she wrapped her hair smooth and flat, secured it with duck clips, and tied a silk scarf over it before stepping out.
She slid on her dark-tinted aviators to hide the damage the crying had done to her eyes.
She had no idea what to expect from this session.
All she knew was that she hadn’t spoken to Dr. Nigel face-to-face since their initial meeting two weeks ago.
Apparently, it was his and the school’s recommendation that Max go on a therapeutic behavioral plan—twenty sessions of therapy, two a week for the next ten weeks.
The email from Dr. Nigel had been full of therapy jargon and five-dollar words: “utilizing different modalities,” “family engagement,” “targeted behavioral interventions.” There was also a mandatory third breakout session once a week for parental support, resources, and reflection.
That made Jackie uncomfortable because it sounded an awful lot like parenting class or worst talk therapy.
The only highlight of the email was that Dr. Nigel had given her the option to sit in and observe. She appreciated that, because she wasn’t about to let anybody plant shit in her baby’s head, no matter how well-meaning they seemed.