Ayida #2
He'd changed too. Still dark. Still sharp around the edges.
But not as hollow. There was a vulnerability in him now, one he didn't hide as much.
Not just with me but with his family too.
He listened more. Sat longer. Let grief show without turning it straight into rage.
The man who woke up from that coma had been forged in anger, but the man beside me now he was learning how to live with it instead of letting it consume him.
I pressed closer into his side, breathing him in, whispering a quiet prayer of thanks under my breath.
For patience. For love. For the way spirit sometimes gives you what you need, even when it don't look like what you asked for.
Later that night, after all the guests had come and gone, we sat around the living room as a family.
The house had finally exhaled. Plates were stacked in the sink, half-empty cups scattered across the tables, the air still heavy with incense, food, and grief that hadn't quite decided where to rest yet.
Laughter floated through the room, soft and tired but real.
Stories got told. Somebody teased somebody else.
Somebody else laughed a little too loud.
And for just a second, I forgot we had buried a child earlier that day.
I leaned into Noles' side, my fingers resting on his thigh, feeling the steady rise and fall of him beneath my hand. Across the room, Jules stood alone in the kitchen, cup in hand, eyes drifting from face to face like he was memorizing us. Like he was afraid to blink and miss something.
I swallowed. "You checked on your brother?
" I whispered, nodding my head toward him without being obvious.
Noles glanced over, his jaw tightening just a touch before he looked back at me.
His hand slid up and down my leg slow, grounding his way of saying I got this even when things felt unfixable.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "He ain't talk much but he here. "
I watched Jules take a slow sip from his cup, shoulders stiff, grief sitting on him like a weight he didn't know how to set down yet.
He stood there like he was bracing for impact even though the worst had already happened.
Like if he relaxed even a little, his body might remember what it felt like to fall apart.
My heart ached for him. For all of them.
For the way Black men were taught to carry pain like silence was strength. For how nobody ever told them it was okay to scream, to sob, or to feel lost in emotion. They were raised to hold it. To swallow it. To drink it down with liquor and smoke and rage until it burned its own path out.
The living room was warm with bodies and voices, but underneath the laughter and low conversation there was still grief curling through the air, thick and stubborn.
It clung to the curtains, the furniture, the corners of the room like it had nowhere else to go.
Incense burned low on the coffee table, mixing with the smell of food and smoke and something metallic I couldn't name but felt deep in my chest.
I leaned into Noles' side, making myself comfortable. Then my phone buzzed. At the same exact moment, Noles' phone buzzed too. The sound cut through the room like a bell. We both looked down. Same notification. Ovulation window: high fertility.
I stared at the screen for a beat longer than necessary, my breath catching before I could stop it. The timing felt loud. Almost comical in the middle of so much grief. Life insisting on continuing even when death had just sat in our living room.
I looked up at Noles and he was already looking at me.
We locked eyes. And then unexpectedly, we laughed.
Not loud. Not careless. Just a soft, shared laugh that slipped out of us like a secret.
"They gon have to let us borrow the bathroom in this mutha fucka," he murmured in my ear, his voice low and playful, brushing my skin in a way that made my shoulders relax.
I laughed harder this time, covering my mouth so I wouldn't draw attention.
"I say we just try in different locations until we succeed," he continued, clearly entertained with himself now.
"Other people bathrooms, the grocery store, on balconies, on a plane, mm.
" He paused like he was really considering it, eyes unfocused, already gone somewhere else in his head.
"You're sick," I whispered, shaking my head.
"I'm on a mission, baby," he said calmly, lifting his cup like this was just another business plan.
I loved the way he refused to let the darkness swallow everything. Loved that even after everything we'd seen, everything we'd lost, he still believed in more. Still believed in us. In possibility. Still believed in life.
Before I could sink any deeper into my thoughts, Jules stepped forward into the center of the living room, clearing his throat.
The room quieted almost immediately, like everybody felt it at the same time.
"Aye... y'all," he started, his voice rough.
"I really just wanna say, from da bottom of my heart, I appreciate every last one of y'all.
" He paused, eyes dropping to the floor like he needed a second to steady himself.
"For being here for me... for the kids..
. for Nia." His voice cracked on her name, and he swallowed hard.
"This the most fucked up time in my life right now.
" He nodded slowly, jaw tight. "But I'm glad, real glad, to have y'all by my side through it all.
" Nobody spoke for a second. Then Pierre muttered something supportive.
Juste stepped closer and clapped him on the shoulder.
What stayed with me wasn't what they said.
It was what Jules didn't. The words he couldn't bring himself to speak yet.
The ones lodged deep in his chest like splinters.
I watched Nia from the corner of my eye.
She stood a little apart from everyone, arms folded tight around herself, eyes glassy but dry.
Grief hadn't hit her in waves, it had hollowed her out instead.
Left her standing in the aftermath, staring at the wreckage of her own choices, and trying to figure out how to live there.
There was a knock at the door. Firm enough to command attention.
Conversation fell off all at once, like somebody had turned the volume knob down on the whole room.
Even the air seemed to still. I felt it before I saw it, that sharp, sinking pull in my chest, the one that always came before bad news.
The one Madame Laurent used to call the spirit warning you before the mind catches up.
My heart dropped into my stomach. Beside me, Noles sat up straight, the warmth leaving his body in an instant.
His hand slid off my thigh slowly, deliberately, like he was already preparing himself for whatever waited on the other side of that door.
Nia was the first to move. She walked toward the door with her shoulders squared, chin lifted like she'd already decided nobody was coming in here to take anything else from her today.
When she pulled the door open, the porch light spilled inside.
The police chief stood there. Along with two uniformed officers behind him. My breath caught so hard it hurt.
For a split second, the room spun. I felt lightheaded, like I might faint right there on the couch. My ears rang. My palms went slick with sweat. Every prayer I'd whispered over the last few weeks, every candle, every offering, every plea, rose up all at once and collided in my chest.
"Can I help you?" she asked immediately, attitude sharp, protective, raw. "We don't want no trouble, Ms. St. Jean," Daniel said evenly. "We here to speak with your husband." The way he said it made my stomach twist worse. Men didn't talk like that unless something was already decided.
Saint moved before anybody else could speak.
"What the fuck y'all doin pullin up to my boy house like this?
" he barked, stepping toward the door, voice raised.
I'd never heard him sound like that before.
Ever. "This disrespectful as fuck, Daniel.
You know what today is." His voice was angry, loud and unfiltered.
I could feel it vibrating through the floorboards.
"Saint," Daniel said, lowering his voice, "I gotta do my job, man. We got a witness."
The word hit me like a slap. He handed paperwork forward, and Saint's hands trembled just slightly when he took it. He didn't read it right away just stared at it like the paper itself might bite him.
Then Daniel stepped inside. Cuffs already in his hand. Nia snapped. She rushed forward and slapped the cuffs out of his grip so hard they clattered against the hardwood floor, the sound echoing through the room like a gunshot.
"Don't put them on him," she screamed. "You not puttin them on him.
" Her body squared up instinctively, turning feral and desperate.
"Nia!" me, Chiana, and Amina yelled at the same time.
The sound of her name snapped her back just enough for Amina to grab her by the arm and pull her away, holding her tight as Nia sobbed and fought against her.
Daniel bent down, picked the cuffs up calmly, then straightened and looked directly at Jules. "Jules St. Jean," he said, voice firm now. "You are under arrest for murder and arson. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law."
The words blurred together after that. My ears rang again.
Jules turned slowly, like his body was moving through water.
His face didn't change. No shock. No fear.
Just acceptance. Like he'd been waiting for this knock all along.
He put his hands behind his back. "Can you do something?
" I whispered to Noles, panic finally spilling into my voice.
I didn't care how weak I sounded. I needed him to fix it. I needed someone to fix it.
"No," he said quietly, eyes never leaving Jules.
"We got procedures for shit like this. Just chill.
" But his jaw was tight. Jules nodded once at his brothers.
They nodded back. No words. No tears. Just that unspoken understanding Black men shared when they didn't trust the world to show them mercy.
The police led him out. The door shut behind them.
In an instant another piece of this family was gone. Silence flooded the house.
Later that night, after the house finally emptied, after the last plate was washed and the last light dimmed, I stood alone in our bathroom. I stared at myself in the mirror.
At the woman I had become.
A wife.
A healer.
A believer who had seen too much blood to pretend faith was soft. I lit a candle on the counter, the flame steady despite the heaviness in the air.
Sight ain't about seeing what you want, Madame Laurent's voice echoed in my head. It's about surviving what you're shown.
I placed my hand over my stomach instinctively. Whether life would ever grow there or not, I didn't know.
But I knew this much:
I loved Noles St. Jean beyond reason.
Beyond safety.
Beyond sense.
And whatever future waited for us curse or blessing, light or darkness, I would walk into it with my eyes open.
Because faith didn't mean the absence of fear. It meant choosing love anyway. Even when it hurt. Especially then.
In the end, I held on to faith the same way I held on to him, quietly, stubbornly, and without needing to know what came next, trusting that whatever waited beyond this moment would meet us exactly where we were.