Chapter Forty-Seven
CHAPTER
FORTY-SEVEN
Jae
There were clues. The first clue was that Ms. Rosette was in a frenzy and platters of food multiplied on the kitchen counter. The next clue was that nobody from Free Verse wanted to hang out. Homework, they all said.
But now it’s late afternoon on a Sunday, only days after the open mic, and when I pass the kitchen, there’s William and CJ in the garden past the pool, stringing icicle lights onto bushes.
Swan’s looping calla lilies through the ornate iron bench.
And Derek is coming from the side of the house, carrying folding chairs we don’t even own.
I step out onto the balcony, into birdsong and whirring insects. “What are you guys doing?”
“Just a little party,” Derek says, head tilted up, eyes dark beneath his white visor, and everything inside me stirs. I haven’t been able to purge his voice, or the fire in it. I could kiss you a million and a million times.
After hearing that poem, everything in me needed Derek, and I never want to need anyone more than I need myself. Not again. So right now, Derek—the boy who makes me feel everything—can’t be my everything. Even with a voice I can’t purge.
I hold the warm balcony railing like I’m trying to ground myself. “How come I didn’t know about this party?”
“Because it’s a surprise.” He rolls his eyes and laughs, saunters away with chairs in both hands, doing the farmer’s walk.
They’re throwing me a party? For what? Surviving a semester with Uncle Rowan?
I’m dying of curiosity, but I’m not anxious.
If this were a trust fall, I could count on each one of them to catch me.
So I decide to enjoy the mystery, watch them like I’m watching a colony of ants. How cute. How diligent.
Back in the kitchen, Ms. Rosette is singing loudly over South African praise music. I get close enough to see ginger, garlic, and pepper sitting in the blender, yams submerged in oil, browning in the deep fryer.
“Koliko?” I ask, excited to see what has become one of my favorite Togolese dishes.
She nods. Nearby is a plate piled high with zowey, which reminds me of Dad’s trips back from Ghana, suitcases full of fruits and things he couldn’t bear to miss, US Customs be damned.
“But for what?” I ask.
She looks up, peels the wrapper off a bouillon cube, and crushes the yellow seasoning between her fingers. She’s too busy for my questions. Or she’s decided not to conspire with me any longer.
“Can I at least help?” I ask.
“It looks like I need help?” She pats my cheek, then turns on the blender. It screams, spitting green liquid throughout the glass.
I drag my feet through the house, looking for Uncle Rowan, but he’s nowhere.
His car, gone. Resigned to my room, I stand in front of the closet and assess the situation.
A party’s a party, and even if I don’t know what it’s for, I can still look nice.
The yellow dress I wore on the yacht ride is hanging wrinkle-free.
I throw it on, give myself a high ponytail à la Janet Jackson, and apply crimson lipstick with a layer of gloss. They might think I’m the goddess Oshun.
When I step outside, Derek takes longer than necessary to watch me descend the balcony steps.
I’m blushing, conscious of every muscle that moves beneath my dress, every angle of my silhouette, and finally breathe easy when he goes back to stringing lights with CJ and William.
They both give me a quick hey, and William’s blue eyes are bright and filled with secrets.
Swan’s putting finishing touches on the bench. All the flowers are perfectly placed, with petals like wells for rain. She looks up at me and squeals, clapping. “I’m so excited!” Skipping over and grabbing my hand, she says, “So. I’m gonna MC this thing.”
“What thing exactly?”
“Oh, it’s just a thing.” She hooks her arm through mine, just in time for Mrs. Aldana’s voice to sing from the gate, “Helluuu!”
I frown at Swan, but I don’t bother asking again what’s going on because I know she won’t say. It’s fine, I tell myself. The day has been all sun, the grass dry from earlier rains, the air fresh and sweet. I feel like a cat, stretched out, luxuriating in a warm winter.
And dying of curiosity!
Swan runs to grab a bag from Mrs. Aldana—who sends me a wink—and carries it to a collection of gifts I didn’t see at the base of the balcony steps. Uncle Rowan enters the gate next, says goodbye into his phone, and yells across the yard, “Are we done, kids? It’s getting late!”
My phone says it’s only five.
“Done!” Swan calls back.
“Great, do I get to know now?” I ask, looking around. “Or am I about to be sacrificed?”
Derek looks to Uncle Rowan for a nod, and I feel the gravity of the unknown.
He comes close enough to fix the twisted strap of my dress, letting his fingers linger before they slowly fall away, dragging across my skin.
“You said you didn’t have an entrustment ceremony,” he says.
“I thought, it’s never too late, right? So I talked to your uncle about it. ”
The words float around me like dandelion petals bleached white in the sun.
Entrustment ceremony. Two words, drowned in my deluge of anger and so easy to miss.
He’d plucked them out. He’d kept them. I feel, maybe for the first time, the burden of being cared for, the weight of a full heart.
That he would plan this for me, even when he wasn’t allowed to see me.
What do you call that? I think I know. I know.
Derek pauses, licks his lips nervously. “I mean, I hope we didn’t overstep.”
I throw my arms around his waist to stop him talking, squeeze him tight so I don’t unravel, so the feelings don’t turn into rivers.
“It wasn’t just me,” he says, rubbing my back. “We all planned it together. Everyone helped.”
“I didn’t think you were listening.”
“Had to. You were yelling.” He chuckles, brushes a hand over my hair, tugs on it, and I’m enchanted, breathing in his woodsy scent, feeling the warmth of his chest and the tremor of his voice.
I quickly let go.
Tired of our display, Uncle Rowan is already settling into one of the folding chairs.
They’re arranged in a semicircle around the bench decorated with calla lilies.
Everyone follows suit and grabs a seat, except Swan.
She leads me to the bench in the center, tells me to sit down.
Then she stands beside me and folds her hands, as solemn as if she’s about to pray.
She does look churchy, but only from the waist up.
A white chiffon blouse tucked into tight, glittery lime-green shorts.
“We’re here to celebrate family,” she says.
“The family that Jae created, an extended network of love that holds one child. A human banyan tree, if you will. I’m honored, as her new friend, to MC the ceremony.
Jae,” she says, reaching for my hand, and I’ve never seen Swan so full of softness that it pools in her eyes.
“I thought you might like another chance to share Anne’s letter.
On your terms. But only if you want to.”
I’ve read the letter a hundred times, but not once after the Halloween party.
That night, it became something else, a monster Valeria had created.
Now there’s a chance to make it something new again.
So I nod. Uncle Rowan goes inside the house and comes back with the letter and a pat on my shoulder. He sits down.
I unfold it, look over Anne’s slanted, delicate writing, and bite my lip, remembering what it felt like to read it for the first time. The anticipation, the fear, the guilt. It’s not just a letter from Anne to me. It’s a reminder to forgive myself, to find happiness in someone else’s joy.
“You got this, Jae,” CJ says, adjusting his glasses.
I nod, and I start. “‘Dear Jae.’” But when I get to Sarah’s name, my voice breaks, the paper rattles. I’m overwhelmed by this moment. By the moments I’ve missed. By a given name that I didn’t give.
Mrs. Aldana eases herself onto the bench beside me and leans in.
She smells like a cozy cottage might. Earth and cinnamon and baked goods.
“I’ll read with you if you like,” she whispers, and she wraps her arm around my shoulders.
I’m tucked inside a maternal warmth, reminding me I’m someone’s daughter.
I long for Mom and the closeness we once had.
We read together, Mrs. Aldana’s voice a scaffold. We read until We will love you forever. The three of us. She gives my shoulders a final squeeze just as a burst of wind shakes the palms. A stir like the sound of shifting sands.
They give me gifts: storybooks I can record for June; a giant plush stork with WORLD’S BEST BIRTH MOM stitched on its foot; and a necklace with a silver moon pendant and June Baby’s birthstone embedded, from Uncle Rowan.
Derek says it’s moonstone, the most magical stone in the world, sacred in India, and that it’ll bring me luck.
Uncle Rowan dismisses the thought with a wave.
“I have a gift too,” Derek says, bashfully. Then he and William disappear to the side of the house and come back hoisting a potted tree, almost as big as they are. It’s in flower, and when they set it down with a thud at my feet, purple petals scatter on the ground.
I hold my face to contain my smile. Wisteria. I’ve seen them mostly as winding vines consuming oaks, reaching fingers across red bricks and windows, embracing trellises. But this one, trained as a tree, will tower like a giant umbrella.
“Had to find one with flowers on it already,” Derek says. “So I could make sure it was purple. You like the purple ones, right? You looked for them everywhere. Now you can just look out your window.”
I breathe in the intoxicating sweetness of the flowers, a smell that feels like Sunday walks with Mom through gardens. “It’s a lot,” I say, gently touching a stem with velvety petals. “Thank you.”
Uncle Rowan sighs deep and frowns, takes off his glasses and wipes them on his shirt. “Jae.” He’s hesitant, stumbling before he finds his next words. “We all discussed this and thought it would be a welcome surprise,” he continues, “but if it’s not, you just let us know.”
“Okay? What’s going on?”
Derek takes in a deep breath and grabs my hand. “Your mom’s here. And so is the baby. Anne and Jermaine, too. But listen. They’re gonna be in town all week, so if it’s too much tonight …”
I’m floating somewhere above all this. Derek’s voice is replaced by a ringing in my ears. I feel like I’m up there in the blushing sky, looking down at this scene that was never supposed to happen. I was always alone. How did I get here? How did they all get here?
I must have nodded, because soon a shadow passes through the kitchen in the house. The shadow opens the balcony screen door and the bright light at her back creates a silhouette so familiar it’s unmistakable.
Mom is bounding down the steps and before I know it, I’m smothered in a scent I’ve almost forgotten, of sweet almond oil and cocoa butter. She puts me at arm’s length, examines me from head to toe, and cocoons me again. My name is a constant syllable on her lips, a mantra.
All that I have been, she has known, and we are tethered. We’re not the same as before, but time will close the gap. Forgiveness will seal it. I am her daughter. I am her June.
We stand still like this, feeling heartbeats and names and dying daylight. Then a baby whines. And I look to the gate. And there she is.