Chapter 38 Mekhi
The waiting room smelled like bleach and trapped air.
I hated it the minute I walked in there.
Shit got under my skin, reminded me too much of things I didn’t like thinking about.
Time I’d spent in jail cells. The things I’d done to get there.
The possibility that if I took one wrong step on my way out, made one wrong choice, this could be my whole world.
The shit made my stomach twist. I’d never wanted this to be my whole life. I really didn’t want it now when I knew life could hold much better things. Luxury. Laughter. And a plush, ginger-haired, freckle-faced beauty who loved on you as fiercely as she talked shit to you.
I sat with my elbows on my knees, tapping my thumb against the edge of the table rhythmically, trying to keep myself steady. My mind wasn’t all the way here. It kept drifting back, seeing my mama at that table, lying to me, her eyes dropping every time I asked simple-ass questions.
I couldn’t lie. Every time I replayed the scene, it hurt. I couldn’t shake it.
The heavy metal door buzzed, dragging me back. A guard jerked his chin at me.
“You got fifteen minutes,” he muttered.
That’s all I needed.
I followed him down a short hall to Visitation. It had more of that bleach smell. Yeah, fifteen minutes was about all I could take of that. Medgar was already sitting at the steel table, hands folded like he’d been waiting on me for a long time. I meant longer than the last couple of days.
He looked different. Prison did that to you, I guessed. He looked thinner, wrinkled, solemn, like my uncle with the easy laugh was gone, and replaced with something quieter. But those eyes…
Dark. Watchful.
My father’s eyes.
My eyes.
He nodded at the chair in front of him. “Didn’t think I’d see you in here, nephew.”
“Didn’t think I’d need to come,” I said.
A wiry, gray eyebrow rose. “Something happened.”
I leaned forward. “Somebody’s been coming for me. And my… friend.”
Fifteen minutes? I didn’t have time to beat around the bush.
His jaw tightened, but he didn’t speak. He sat there, still as stone. I didn’t let him off the hook.
“There was a drive-by a couple weeks ago. Then somebody cornered her. Twice. Same dude both times.” I paused. “He calls himself Trell. Nigga said I should ask my mama why he after me.”
That did it. Something changed in his eyes, too fast for most people to catch, but not me. He dropped his gaze immediately, staring hard at his hands like answers were written on his palms.
“Never heard the name,” he said.
“Bullshit.”
“Mekhi—”
I cut him off. “She said he’s late twenties, maybe early thirties. He’s tall, dark-skinned with a birthmark over his eye and cheek.”
Everything in him stilled. He didn’t blink. Swear he didn’t breathe. Finally, he looked up at me and there was so much packed in that look—sorrow, worry, sadness, and the one that really struck me.
Guilt.
“Unc,” I said quietly. “Tell me why you look like you just seen a ghost.”
He rubbed his face with both hands, shaking his head like the motion could erase the truth.
“This ain’t the place, son.”
“I ain’t leaving til you tell me.”
“You don’t know what you asking for.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “But you gon’ tell me anyway. My mama lying. Hell, shorty might be betraying me. I know you not gon’ do the same.”
His shoulders sagged like somebody pressed a weight on his back. The fight drained out of him.
“If I tell you the truth…” He hesitated, voice cracking. “Promise me you won’t do anything crazy.”
“I can’t promise shit till I know what I’m hearing.”
Another long, shaking sigh.
“Time, Unc. We ain’t got a lot.”
“Your mama and I… we had an affair,” he finally said. Just dropped that shit like that. “Long time ago. When your daddy was still alive.”
I froze, the air thick and hot, my ears buzzing. My father’s brother. My mother. Traitorous. Treacherous. Rage shot through me so hard I couldn’t speak. Hell, I could barely breathe. I don’t think Medgar even noticed. He kept going, like he needed to empty the shit out.
“Mekhail found out. He came at us. He was furious, son. Gillian… she was scared. Something happened that night after I left. She told people it was a break-in.”
I felt my stomach twist. “It wasn’t?”
He glanced toward the camera in the corner but didn’t answer.
The silence said enough.
Suddenly, everything I’d ever wondered about my father’s death—every hole in the story, the way Gillian avoided talking about it—rearranged itself into a picture I didn’t want to see.
I forced the words out. “You saying my father’s death wasn’t no accident?”
He looked at me then, eyes glassy, guilt all over him. He didn’t speak.
He didn’t have to.
He swallowed, changed the subject. “You remember my boy? KeAndre?”
I nodded, frowning. I did, now. I hadn’t thought about him in years. “Yeah. Couple years older than me.”
“He was a good kid. Loved his little cousin, too.”
Medgar’s voice cracked a little. A chill crawled up my spine. I didn’t answer. I saw the set up coming.
Medgar rubbed his wrists. “After your mama and I… after everything came out… his mama left. Her daddy was a powerful man. Hated me. Helped her disappear. New name. New papers. Whole new life. And she took my son.” He paused, voice falling to a whisper.
“She took my boy. I couldn’t find him. Then, the feds found me.
I haven’t seen my child in so long. So long… ”
Part of me, the part Farrah called mean, had little sympathy for him. He’d caused himself to lose his son. But his wife didn’t have the right to do what she did. I didn’t have time for this particular walk down memory lane though.
“Unc—”
“His middle name was Kentrell,” he announced in a rush. “Before she changed everything, his middle name was Kentrell.”
For a minute, it felt like time stopped. All the air left my lungs. “KeAndre Kentrell,” I repeated quietly. “Trell.”
Medgar nodded, miserable. “He always had his mama’s temper. And my stubbornness.”
And a death wish. My own blood?
“He coming for me over some shit y’all did?”
Medgar shook his head hastily, his eyes begging. “I’m telling you who he is so you don’t… so you think about that when you see him.”
I didn’t respond. Couldn’t. Fury burned slow and hot in my chest, a sense of betrayal I didn’t have a name for. This was so-called family doing this? Putting targets on me and the woman I cared about?
And for what? Because he had his daddy’s snake gene? Medgar kept talking, like he forgot to give a damn about cameras and recorders and anything but his own need to absolve himself.
“Gillian’s lying to you because she ain’t tryna lose you and your sister.
She lost her parents when they learned what she did.
Slept with two brothers. One ended up dead.
They wanted custody of you and Mekhayla.
They tried, but they weren’t willing to drag their daughter through a murder accusation.
Not publicly.” He spread his hands. “Hell, I really think they helped her clean up afterwards. Not personally. Your grandfather would never risk that kind of dirty—the money stuff was something else. So, that was another reason they stayed quiet. They tried to get y’all, but without that, they had no grounds.
And she punished them for it. She refused to let them see y’all.
Retaliation, maybe. Spite, for sure. She’s as mean as she is beautiful. ”
My jaw clenched until my teeth hurt, Carlos’s defenses of my grandfather suddenly making sense.
“And on our side…” He wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Our mama couldn’t take it. The idea that Gillian was laying with both her boys, and one ended up dead? She shut down. And Gillian shut her out too. Cut her off from her grandbabies.”
He looked up at me, desperation raw in his face.
“She’s still alive, just so you know. Your grandmother. Misses you and your sister damn near every day. She kept every picture of y’all she could. But Gillian… she made sure the door stayed closed.”
My breath caught. My grandmother. Still alive.
Missing us. Loving us quietly from the outside.
I knew she lived in Louisiana, but I’d never let myself look, determined to abandon her the way I thought she abandoned us.
Medgar’s revelation threatened to undo me.
Gillian had isolated us from everyone, if he was to be believed.
She’d turned her back on the Venzants and the Derouens. On purpose.
I felt sick.
“Whatever Trell’s doing,” Medgar said softly, “it’s because of the mess we made. Me and your mama and his mama. Our choices. Our lies.”
The guard stepped closer, ready to end things, but I didn’t move. I had to speak my piece.
“My father is dead,” I said quietly. “My mama lied to me. You betrayed him. And now your son wanna kill me behind shit I ain’t have nothing to do with.”
“I know,” he whispered. “I know, neph... I’m begging you. When you find Trell… hear him out first. He’s angry. Hurt. But he’s blood.”
I stood abruptly. The chair scraped across the floor with a screech that made the guard jump.
“Don’t beg,” I said. “Not for some shit I can’t give you.”
Medgar reached out like he wanted to grab my arm, stop me from leaving, fix something that he and Gillian had broken long ago. But I was already turning away. The guard motioned me out. I walked down the hallway without a single look back, my pulse pounding in my ears.
Carlos was right. Gillian’s ghosts weren’t just ghosts. They were demons. And now they were mine to deal with.
Good thing I knew exactly how to exorcise them.