Serenity
What I wouldn’t give to be waking up in my bed, in the guest room in Rita’s house. It was so plush and soft. This prison cot was murder to my back and hips.
I’d been staring at the ceiling of this cell for hours. There was no way I could sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Rita’s face in the doorway while they walked me out in handcuffs.
Because that’s who did this. I knew it in my bones before the detective even finished reading the warrant.
David Jamison. A name I hadn’t said out loud in twelve years, dragged up from the ground my mother helped bury him in.
She saved me that night. Drove up to that cabin, called Dante, wrapped the body, cleaned the blood, burned my clothes, made it all disappear.
And then she held that secret like a savings bond, letting the interest grow, never cashing it in because she didn’t need to.
The threat was enough. The knowing was enough. Until she decided it wasn’t.
She must have set it in motion before she died.
Left instructions with somebody. Gerald, probably.
Or some other bootlicker she had on retainer who would do whatever her last wishes said to do because Vivica inspired that kind of loyalty in weak people.
She probably wrote it up like a will. In the event of my death, make sure my daughter pays for the one thing I protected her from.
That was Vivica Banks in a nutshell. Save you and punish you with the same hand.
My baby kicked and I put my hand on my belly and rubbed in slow circles. “I know,” I whispered. “I know. I don’t wanna be here either.”
A guard came to the cell door and slid a tray through the slot.
I looked at it. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich on white bread, a scoop of scrambled eggs that looked like they’d been cooked yesterday and reheated in a microwave, and a small carton of orange juice that was room temperature.
This was what they were feeding a pregnant woman.
A PB&J. If Rita saw this tray she would’ve called the health department, the NAACP, and probably the Lord himself.
I was disgusted but I ate it. Not for me. For the baby. Because every decision I made from here on out was filtered through the same question: will this help my child survive? A stale sandwich? Yes. It had protein and calories and that was enough. Pride wasn’t on the menu right now. Survival was.
I thought about my daughter. Not the one inside me.
The one in Silver Spring. Twelve years old with kinky curly hair, French braids, pink hoodies, and white Air Forces.
The one I watched from a cafe every Friday like a stalker with a latte.
The one who had no idea I existed. The daughter I gave up at eleven minutes old because I was sixteen and broken and my mother told me it was the right thing to do and I believed her because what else was I going to believe?
If this case went to trial, they were going to want to test that child.
DNA. Prove that David Jamison was the father.
Which he was. And that would mean finding my daughter and telling her that her biological mother was a woman accused of murdering her biological father and the whole beautiful life she’d been living in Silver Spring with her adoptive family would crack right down the middle like a windshield on impact.
I couldn’t let that happen. I would plead guilty to every charge they had before I let them drag that little girl into this mess. She deserved to stay exactly where she was, loved and unbothered and completely unaware that her birth story was a crime scene.
· · ·
I was allowed only one phone call. And the only person guaranteed to put wheels in motion was Justice.
Quest was off on his babymoon and Prime was busy with his family lately.
I knew that they would drop everything for me but Justice was the best option since his daughters were on their way to Pennsylvania for the summer.
I stood at the payphone on the wall of the common area with three other women watching me from a metal table and a guard leaning against the doorframe pretending not to listen.
My hands were shaking and I didn’t know if it was the fear or the cold or the baby pressing on a nerve but I dialed Justice’s number from memory.
“Hey Justice…” I called his name after all of the automated shenanigans of making jail phone calls ended.
“I’m on it. Rita already told me what happened. We’re gonna get you out of there,” he replied.
“I can’t have my baby in here. I need to come home,” My voice broke on home and I hated myself for it because I was trying so hard to be strong and my vocal cords weren’t cooperating.
“Listen to me. I already called my boy, Xander. He’s on a flight to Hartford tonight. He’s gonna get to you and we’re gonna get you a bail hearing and you’re coming home. You hear me?”
“Justice—”
“Do you hear me, Serenity?”
“I hear you.”
“Good. Now don’t talk to nobody. Don’t sign nothing. Don’t answer any questions from any detective, any guard, any inmate, nobody. You wait for Xander. That’s it. He’s your voice until you’re standing in front of a judge. Can you do that for me?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”
They had already tried to talk to me and I refused.
I told them I would only speak with my lawyer present.
I made mistakes, but I knew better than to talk to the damn cops.
I’ve seen people get hemmed up by runnin’ their mouths.
They tried to bait me and play the whole I’m your friend angle.
We just want to know what happened. They tried to convince me they had DNA evidence.
After all this time? Hell nah. They didn’t have shit but the word of a dead woman and a decayed body.
“Aight, I love you, sis. We’re gonna get through this. We always do.”
“I love you, Serenity,” I heard Rita’s voice in the background.
“Tell her I love her. Tell all of them I love them. And Justice?”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you. For always showing up.”
“That’s what we do. That’s what this family does. We show up. Now sit tight and wait for Xander and try to eat something even if it’s nasty because that baby needs fuel. I don’t care if it’s jail food. Eat it.”
“I already ate. PB&J and some eggs that looked like they lost the will to live.”
“Good. I know it sucks but it’s temporary. I’ll call you when Xander lands. Stay strong.”
I hung up and stood there with one hand on the phone, the other on my belly, and breathed. In and out. The baby kicked again, harder this time, like she was co-signing everything Justice just said. We show up. That’s what this family does.
I walked back toward my cell. Passed the metal table where the three women were still sitting. One of them, an older woman with braids and tired eyes, looked at my belly and then at my face and said, “How far along?”
“Eight months.”
She shook her head slowly. “They ain’t got no shame putting a pregnant woman in here.”
“No,” I said. “They don’t.”
I kept walking. Got to my cell, sat down on the yoga mat they called a mattress, leaned against the wall, and put both hands on my belly.
We’re getting out of here, I told the baby silently.
Your grandmother put us in this cage but your uncle is sending reinforcements and a Banks doesn’t stay locked up for long.
I promise you that. Your mama has killed two men and survived worse than a holding cell in Hartford, Connecticut. This place is not where our story ends.
Then I heard it. A TV mounted on the wall in the common area, volume low but not low enough. A news anchor’s voice, polished and detached, reading a headline the way they read all headlines, like the words didn’t belong to a real person with a real life.
“…Serenity Banks, daughter of former DC mayor Vivica Banks, was arrested early this morning on a murder warrant issued by the state of Connecticut. Banks, who is reportedly eight months pregnant, is being held in a Hartford facility pending arraignment. The victim, David Jamison, was a teacher at the prestigious Ashford Academy who disappeared over a decade ago…”
My face. On the screen. The mugshot they took when I got processed, pajamas and all, blown up on a television for the whole world to see. Daughter of Vivica Banks. Murder. Teacher. Pregnant.
Everybody was going to know. My brothers. My grandmother. The press. The adoptive family in Silver Spring. My daughter.
Everybody.