Chapter 30 Abeni Mensah #2
We moved along the side of the mansion where the staff had been planting new flowers for the season.
The beds were fresh and dark from being turned, and the new blooms were starting to open, one by one.
Treasure leaned slightly toward the flowers as she looked, and she smiled in a way that made her look younger for a moment.
“These are beautiful,” she said. “You always know what to put where.”
“I have people who know,” I replied, keeping my hands folded loosely in front of me. “I only approve what speaks to me.”
Treasure gave me a look that made it clear she noticed the change in me.
She didn’t press right away. She never rushed me, and they was part of why we had lasted as friends for so long.
She could sit in the quiet with me without trying to fill it, and she could also look at me and see what I refused to say.
We continued down the path, and the sound of our heels on stone was soft and even. The air carried a clean scent from the garden, and somewhere farther back I could hear water running from the fountain near the east wing.
Treasure glanced at me again, and her voice lowered. “You are quiet today.”
I kept my gaze forward. “Am I?”
“You are,” she said gently. “And it is not like you.”
I allowed a small smile to touch my mouth, more out of habit than amusement. “I assure you I am fine.”
Treasure stopped walking, and I stopped with her. She turned her body toward me fully, the way she used to do when we were younger and she needed me to understand she was serious.
“Abeni,” she said, calm but firm, “you have told me you are fine more times than I can count. You only say it when you are not.”
I held her gaze and stayed composed because composure was a language I spoke without thinking. Even when my mind was crowded, even when my heart was heavy, I had trained myself to look the same. I had been doing it for decades.
“I have a great deal on my mind,” I admitted, choosing honesty without offering too much.
Treasure nodded like she already knew. “Is it Kojo?”
“No,” I said. “Kojo and I are fine.”
“Is it Pressure?” she asked.
My throat tightened slightly at my son’s name, although I did not show it. “Pressure is well.”
Treasure waited. She gave me the kind of patience you only give to someone you love.
I turned my attention back to the flowers to give myself something else to focus on. The new blooms looked delicate, almost fragile, and it made me think about how much strength it took for anything soft to survive in this world.
Treasure followed my gaze and then she spoke again. “What is it, Abeni?”
I wanted to dismiss her. I wanted to smile and change the subject and continue walking, but something about the quiet of the yard, and the way the sun was lowering, made it harder to pretend.
The truth had been sitting in my spirit for months, and lately it had been pressing heavier.
It was not guilt in the way people like to imagine guilt, with crying and panic and regret spilling out.
It was a quieter thing. It was a pressure behind my ribs that did not leave.
I exhaled slowly. “Pressure and Pluto visited with the children a few days ago.”
Treasure’s expression remained calm, but her eyes sharpened slightly. “And?”
“And my son mentioned Kashmere,” I said.
The name settled between us. Treasure did not react the way most people would react because she knew too much about my life. She had seen things, and she had held things, and she had carried them without letting the world touch them.
“What did he say?” she asked.
“He said Kashmere texted him,” I replied. “He said he didn’t respond, but he said it with a certain awareness, as if the message itself was not the only thing on his mind.”
Treasure’s lips pressed together. “Because he remembers you were looking for her.”
“Yes,” I said lowly.
Treasure didn’t need me to explain why. We both remembered the night Pressure was shot.
We both remembered how close I came to losing him, and how the world narrowed into a single point of rage inside me.
I had survived many things in my life, but nothing had ever prepared me for that moment.
Nothing had ever made me feel so helpless and so violent at the same time.
“What did you tell him?” Treasure asked.
“I told him I did not know why she would reach out. I told him perhaps she was seeking closure, or perhaps she was seeking to disturb his peace. I gave him the kind of answer a mother gives when she doesn’t want her child to look too closely at her hands.”
Treasure’s gaze stayed on me. “And he believed you?”
“He did not challenge me,” I replied. “But my son is not foolish.”
Treasure nodded slowly. “No, he is not.”
We started walking again, moving deeper into the yard where the grass was trimmed so neatly it looked like fabric. I could feel Treasure’s thoughts beside me, but she didn’t interrupt me.
“I haven’t told him,” I said after a moment.
Treasure didn’t ask what I meant because she already knew what I meant.
“I haven’t told him about the baby,” I continued. “I have never told him that Kashmere’s child has been under my roof.”
Treasure’s eyes softened, but her voice stayed steady in its gentleness, and I noticed that she was careful with her tone the same way you are careful when you touch something fragile.
“And he is still with you?” she asked. “Preslan is still here?”
“Yes,” I replied.
Treasure took a slow breath. “Abeni, it has been a year.”
I didn’t respond immediately because responding would mean acknowledging time, and time was the enemy in situations like this. Time made things harder to undo. Time made wrong decisions feel permanent, even when they were not.
“I told Kojo I would do the right thing,” I said, almost to myself. “I told him this was temporary. I told him we would find a suitable home. I told him what he needed to hear so he would allow me to handle it quietly.”
Treasure’s voice lowered. “And what did you tell yourself?”
I did not answer right away because that question was the one that haunted me most.
I turned slightly toward the flower beds again. The petals were opening slowly, and I could see how the plant held itself up even when the stem looked too thin. It reminded me of motherhood, how it could make you strong and exposed at the same time.
“Abeni,” Treasure said, “you want to tell me why he is still here?”
I swallowed once. “Because I could not let him go.”
Treasure did not react or judge me with her face. She simply waited.
“I have had losses in my life that no one speaks of,” I said, keeping my voice calm.
“Losses I learned to bury because I had work to do, and a family to lead, and a public image to maintain. I have miscarried more times than I ever wanted to admit out loud. By the time I carried Pressure to term, I lived in fear for nine months, and once he was born, I told myself I could never risk that pain again.”
Treasure’s expression shifted, not in surprise, because she knew. It shifted in understanding, because she also knew what it meant to love a child until your whole body ached with it.
“And Preslan woke something up in you?” She asked softly.
“Yes,” I admitted. “Holding him has been… unsettling.”
Treasure gave me a small look, almost like she was trying not to smile. “Unsettling is not a word I hear you use often.”
“I am choosing my words carefully,” I replied.
Treasure let out a quiet breath that sounded almost like a laugh, but it held no humor. “That is how I know this is real.”
We reached the area of the yard where the new flowers were growing strongest. The colors were rich and bright, and I watched them for a moment as if they could teach me something.
I had built a life off certainty. I had built power off decisiveness.
I had never been the kind of woman to sit in confusion, and yet lately that was exactly what I had been doing.
Treasure stopped near one of the beds and looked at me.
“You want to know what I think?” she asked.
I kept my chin lifted. “Tell me.”
“I think you regret taking that baby.”
The statement landed quietly, but it still landed. I felt it in my spirit, and I hated how true it sounded.
I kept my face composed, but my silence answered her.
Treasure’s voice stayed gentle. “I think you have been telling yourself that you kept him because of your losses, and I believe that is a small part of it. I also believe you have been holding on because you know what you did was heavy, and now that time has passed, you cannot pretend it was only justice.”
I looked away for a moment, letting my gaze move across the yard. “Justice has many faces,” I said.
Treasure stepped closer, and her voice softened even more.
“Abeni, you know what I mean. You did what you did because your son was shot and you were furious. I understand that. Any mother would want to burn the world down behind her child, but you are not only a mother. You are a woman with power, and power makes decisions feel easy in the moment, but it makes consequences last longer.”
I held my hands together, my fingers interlocked, my rings catching the fading light.
“You stood in front of Kashmere with a gun pointed at her head,” Treasure continued, her voice still calm even as she spoke about something dark.
“You had me deliver her child under threat, and you took that baby when he came into the world. That is not something you can dress up in elegance, and it is not something you can erase because time has passed.”
My throat tightened, but I did not allow my voice to shake. “Do not speak to me as if I don’t understand what I did.”
Treasure nodded, unbothered. “I am speaking to you as your friend, and your sister. I am speaking to you as the one who has held your secrets when your pride would not let you hold them alone.”
Her words cut through me because they were true.