Ayida
A few days had passed of me following the same routine.
It was finally the end of the week. I sat at my altar and lit the candles, letting silence take the room first so it knew who it belonged to.
Flame by flame, the house began to breathe different, low, and full.
The wick hissed like it remembered my name.
Madame Laurent always said that's the sign the door slicked open a crack: when the wax talks back and the room leans toward you like family leaning in to hear the secret.
Altar work been part of me since I was little, knuckles ashy from chalk, knees dented from kneeling on wood.
Madame made sure of that. "Si w bon ak zansèt ou, y'ap bon ak ou tou," she used to say.
If you good to your ancestors, they'll be good to you too.
I put my hand on the table to feel it steady.
The cloth under my palm was clean and pressed; the lace edge curled like a white wave.
I set a plate: two slices of orange, a little bowl of rice sweetened with condensed milk, three coins stacked on a saucer.
The wine I poured slow. The room smelled like prayers that had lived here a long time.
I had come home from the hospital just after sunrise and crashed across the bed like someone had reached out of the sky and turned off my switch.
When I woke up, it was late morning and my body felt like I had carried a roof on it.
I barely slept these days. Barely ate. The mirror had been unkind for weeks: dark half-moons stamped under my eyes, cheekbones too sharp, my mouth set like I'd misplaced my softness and wouldn't admit it.
I snuffed two candles with a pinch, then went to the bathroom and stared at the woman looking back.
Not having my husband had drained me in a way no fast could feed.
His towel still hung over the shower rod where he left it last time he bathed here, one corner twisted like his hand had been there just yesterday.
His house shoes waited by the mat, cocked to the side the way he always kicked 'em off.
I ran water over my wrists to cool a heat I couldn't see .
I felt my eyes fill again, hot, and foolish.
The doorbell cut through the quiet. That sound made me straighten like a girl getting caught crying and wiping her face on the back of her hand.
"One second!" I called, voice rough. When I opened the door, Chiana stood there dressed down, Nia in big gold hoops, and Amina with her hair pulled up and her mouth set for business.
My chest tugged. I stepped aside. "Come in," I said.
They came in all at once pulling me into a deep hug.
I didn't even realize I'd been holding my breath till it slid out against their shoulders.
We'd seen each other in hallways and parking lots, exchanged quiet nods at the hospital by the coffee machine, but I hadn't let them sit with me proper.
If I wasn't at the hospital, I was face-down asleep or at the altar with my hands black from smudge.
"We came to cook breakfast and have mimosas," Amina announced, sitting down two grocery bags.
She went straight for my cabinets without asking, pulling pots, finding the skillet I for the bacon she had started to pull out of the bag.
"Ayida, open these blinds, baby," Nia said, shifting around the living room like sunshine itself had hired her.
She snapped curtains wide. Light poured across the floorboards in long strips.
Dust brightened then settled, polite again.
Chiana touched my elbow, eyes flicking to the altar, then back to me.
"Here, drink this mimosa and sit back. Let me paint your nails and toes," she said.
Not a question. A blessing that sounded like an instruction.
I sat down on the couch, letting the cushions sigh beneath me.
The glass was cold against my fingers, condensation running down my wrist. The first sip burned sweet, champagne and pulp tangling on my tongue, bubbles rising like a tiny resurrection.
I didn't realize how empty my body had been until that first swallow settled in.
Amina moved around the kitchen, hips swaying to what about your friends by TLC floating low from Nia's phone.
Bacon popped, eggs hissed, and the smell of buttered biscuits filled the air so thick it it made your stomach growl when you breathed in.
For months this house had smelled like candles, ash, and grief.
Now, it smelled like women. Like laughter and life trying to crawl its way back into my walls.
Chiana sat cross-legged on the rug in front of me, her braids swinging forward as she started rubbing the chipped polish off my toes with a small cotton pad.
The scent of acetone mixed with vanilla lotion floated through the air as she moved her wrist, wedding ring shining when the light hit it.
She didn't say much, just hummed under her breath.
Every few minutes, she'd look up, smiling soft.
"You need some color," she said. "Something bright.
Sunshine yellow or wild coral something to brighter up your skin.
" Her voice brushed a tender place inside me I hadn't touched in a while.
I smiled, faint. "You think so?" She chuckled.
"Girl, you know I got you." I dropped my gaze.
Nia floated through the living room with a duster in her hand, humming loud enough to fill the silence I was too afraid to break.
The scent of lemon pledge and orange tangled together as she wiped down the picture frames, dusting off the faces of my mama and Madame Laurent on the wall.
It made me realize how long it'd been since I'd cleaned up, since I'd cared.
There were ashes from burned-down candles on the coffee table, rose petals dry and curling to the floorboards, and cups from the hospital that I never threw away because they still had his name written on them.
I was losing myself trying to get Noles back.
Piece by piece, day by day, I'd been trading my own reflection for his.
It was breaking me down, mentally, physically, spiritually.
I'd been walking through this house like a ghost trying to haunt her own life.
I sipped the mimosa again, slow. It was sweeter, too sweet.
The sweetness hid a bitter aftertaste. My hands trembled as I moved to sit it down, then I felt myself lose complete control.
The glass cracked in my hand before I even realized I was holding it too tight.
A soft pop, a shimmer of sound, then a sting.
"Ayida!" Chiana's voice shot up, breaking through the music, through my trance.
I blinked, and the world came back in flashes.
The glass stem snapped, shards glittering against my skin.
Blood ran down my arm, thin and bright as the morning sunlight.
It didn't hurt at first, it just looked unreal.
Like something spiritual had split open.
My chest rose and fell too fast. My throat locked.
"Ayida, gurl, you bleeding!" Amina rushed over from the kitchen, towel in hand, her calm switching straight into mama mode. She wrapped my arm tight, pressing down on the cut until the blood slowed. Nia dropped the duster and came running too, her bracelets clinking like a warning bell.
I didn't say anything. I couldn't. I looked from one to the other, my lips parting but no words coming out.
Tears started to spill before I even knew I was crying.
One blink, then another, and they fell fast and hot, sliding down my chin, catching in the curve of my neck.
My body gave in. The sob that came out of me didn't sound human.
It ripped through my throat raw, shaking something loose that'd been living in my chest since the night they called to say he'd been shot.
Chiana climbed up on the couch beside me and pulled me into her arms. Amina slid in on the other side, hand firm at my back, rubbing slow circles.
Nia wrapped her arms around all of us, whispering, "Let it out, gurl.
Go on, let it out." I did just that. I cried a cry that it had been holding on to for weeks.
It was the body-breaking kind of cry. The one that makes your shoulders quake and your voice stumble.
My chest felt like it was splitting open, my breath coming in gasps between sobs.
Every bit of me that had stayed still for too long finally moved.
"I'm so tired," I whispered, choking on the words.
"I'm so damn tired." Amina's voice was low, steady.
"We know, love. You been carrying too much alone.
" Chiana grabbed my free hand to get my attention.
"You not by yourself no more, you hear? We right here. "
But part of me wasn't here. Part of me was still back in that hospital room, whispering Creole prayers into candlelight, begging my husband's spirit to remember the way home.
Part of me was still kneeling at the foot of his bed, tracing veves with trembling hands and daring for whatever was after him to take me instead.
The blood on the towel looked like paint. I stared at it, shaking, watching it bloom red and dark, spreading like a secret I couldn't hide. "You cut deep?" Nia asked. I shook my head, sniffling. "No. It's no that deep. Just... surprised me."