Chapter 22
“Holiday, get up. You have a visitor.”
I lifted my head from the thin mattress, my neck stiff from hours of lying motionless. The guard’s voice echoed down the cellblock with the same flat indifference I’d heard a hundred times since they’d brought me in.
The cot creaked beneath me as I stayed prone, every muscle tense, every nerve firing. In here, you didn’t jump at commands. You moved on your own time, made them wait if you could. It was one of the few things you still controlled.
“Holiday! I said you have a visitor. You have exactly sixty seconds to get down here,” the guard yelled.
“I heard you the first time,” I called out, pushing myself up slowly.
My ribs ached. They had been ever since those officers slammed me on the floor in my bedroom. I pressed a palm against my side, and I swung my legs off the bunk as I listened to the guard’s footsteps retreat down the corridor.
I ran a hand through my disheveled hair, trying to pull myself together, though I knew it was futile. There wasn’t much I could do about my appearance anyway.
The orange jumpsuit hung loose on my frame, and the lights in this place made everybody look ashen. I caught my reflection in the small metal mirror bolted to the cell wall. My cheekbones looked more prominent now, and exhaustion had hollowed out my eyes.
I stared at myself for another second before looking away.
Jail aged people fast.
It wasn’t just physical either. Jail wore your spirit down little by little until even your own face stopped looking familiar.
Every day in this place felt the same. Cold food.
Colder walls. Women arguing two cells over.
Guards barking orders like we weren’t human enough to deserve regular conversation.
The worst part was the quiet. Not actual silence. Jail was never silent. Still, the silence settled inside you when there was nowhere left to run from your thoughts.
I swallowed hard and stepped toward the bars just as the guard returned.
“’Bout damn time,” he said, unlocking the cell.
I ignored him, stepped out into the hallway, and then we were off.
The closer we got to visitation, the more I wanted to turn back around. I knew who was here to visit me. I just didn’t understand why she kept trying. I was a disappointment, and on top of that, I was still angry with her for lying to me.
The guard led me through three sets of mechanical doors before finally stopping outside the visitation area.
“Five minutes,” he said flatly.
I frowned immediately. “Five?”
“Judge’s orders after your little courtroom performance.”
I laughed under my breath. “Man, fuck y’all.”
He opened the door anyway.
The second I stepped inside and saw Mrs. Mary sitting there waiting for me, tears sprang to my eyes.
She looked exhausted.
Dark circles sat beneath her eyes, and her face looked thinner than the last time I saw her. Grief had worn itself into her features so deeply that it was impossible to miss. Even the way she sat looked heavier now, like life had been pressing down on her.
Her eyes lifted the moment she heard the door open, and relief washed across her face so fast it almost made me angry.
Mrs. Mary rose slowly from the chair. “Koko…”
The softness in her voice made my throat tighten immediately, and I hated it.
I stayed standing for a second.
“What you doing here?” I asked, my voice harder than it needed to be.
Truthfully, I should’ve been more grateful. Mrs. Mary was the reason I even had great representation. It was she who paid Ms. Franklin’s billable hours.
“To see about you.”
I looked away and scoffed quietly before finally sitting across from her.
Mrs. Mary tried to visit quite often, and I’d denied her each time, so I didn’t know why I chose today to change my mind.
The metal chair scraped loudly against the floor.
Mrs. Mary sat back down carefully, clutching her purse in both hands. “You been eating?” she asked softly.
A bitter laugh escaped me. “Is this what we’re doing?”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” I leaned back in the chair. “Why are you here, Mrs. Mary?”
Pain flickered across her face at the distance in my tone.
“You know why.”
“No,” I replied sharply. “Actually, I don’t.”
The silence between us thickened, and I could see the guilt all over her face, and that irritated me more.
“You lied to me.”
“Koko—”
“For almost a year.” My voice rose despite myself. “You even made me feel guilty for loving him and wanting to reach out to him!”
A guard near the wall glanced over briefly before looking away again.
Mrs. Mary lowered her eyes. “I know.”
“And he was dead the whole time.”
“He was.”
The quickness of her confession threw me off for a second.
Mrs. Mary didn’t try to soften it. She didn’t look away from me or search for excuses that would make what she did hurt less. She just sat there and accepted every ounce of my anger.
Rage crawled higher into my chest anyway.
“Your lie had me walking around feeling disconnected from reality.”
“You wasn’t crazy, baby.”
“Then what do you call it?” I demanded. “Cause that was what everyone else thinks.”
Mrs. Mary’s eyes filled with tears.
“I’m so sorry, Koko. When I found out you lost your memory, I didn’t know what to do.”
“You could’ve told me the truth.”
“And then what?” she asked.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
Mrs. Mary visibly trembled. “You think I didn’t know what you would’ve done after finding out my son had been killed? You loved Booda too much to let that go.”
Mrs. Mary looked down at her shaking hands before continuing.
“I begged both of y’all so many times to leave them streets alone.
” Her voice quaked as she shook her head.
“But the money, the cars, the jewelry, the hood fame… y’all was addicted to that life.
I knew the kinda reputation both of y’all had, and heard about the enemies y’all made.
Then my baby died while you were lying in a hospital bed fighting for your life. ”
Tears spilled down her cheek.
“And when you finally woke up, you couldn’t remember none of it. I thought maybe God was giving you another chance,” she admitted. “A chance to live different.”
“You should’ve let me decide that.”
“You right.” She nodded immediately. “You absolutely right.”
The sincerity in her voice made it harder to stay angry.
Mrs. Mary wiped beneath one eye before continuing.
“I wanted to tell you,” she admitted softly.
“But then I started seeing pieces of you come back to life. You were smiling again. Sleeping peacefully. Talking about opening businesses, decorating your apartment, and regular life stuff.” Her voice broke, and she lowered her eyes for a moment before looking back at me.
“And the more I saw you wanting to build a better life for yourself, the harder it became to ruin that.”
She swallowed hard.
“And I got selfish.”
I looked away from her. “Most of it was a lie,” I confessed.
“Some days, I didn’t know whether I was coming or going.
I kept trying to force myself into this version of me that felt safe, normal…
good.” I swallowed hard and squeezed my eyes shut.
“Then my memory started coming back, and it felt like two different people lived inside me. The woman I was trying to become and the woman I used to be stayed at war with each other every single day.”
My admission really had Mrs. Mary crying now. She reached across the table, her weathered hand open and waiting.
I stared at it for a long moment, not sure if I was ready to let her touch me. Not sure if accepting that gesture meant I was forgiving her or just tired of holding on to the anger.
I let her take my hand. “I should’ve known better,” Mrs. Mary whispered. “I should’ve trusted you to handle the truth.”
“Maybe,” I said quietly. “Or maybe you were right. Maybe I would’ve done something stupid. Look what ended up happening anyway.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said for the second time. “I didn’t wanna lose you too.”
That hit harder than I expected.
Mrs. Mary leaned forward. “I didn’t only love you because of my son. Koko, you been family to me.”
Hearing her cry almost broke me.
“When Booda died, I buried my child.” She paused, struggling to steady herself. “And every day after that, I was terrified I’d end up burying you too.”
A question had been weighing heavily on me for a long time, and this was finally my chance to ask it.
“Mrs. Mary, you lied to me, but what made it worse was that nobody else said anything either. Not our soldiers. Even the bouncers at the club asked me how Booda was doing. How did so many people keep quiet about something like that?”
Mrs. Mary lowered her eyes before answering.
“Because most people didn’t know.”
My forehead creased.
“What?”
“A delivery driver found y’all after it happened,” she explained. “Booda was already gone by the time help got there, and you were barely hanging on. Once the doctors said you was stable enough to move, I had you transferred somewhere else .”
I stared at her silently while she continued.
“As for Booda, I kept everything private. The service was small. Just close family. Then I had him cremated right after.” Her voice weakened. “With the kinda life y’all lived, I didn’t think making his death public would do nothing except create more violence.”
My eyes burned with unshed tears.
“I never wanted to hurt you, baby. I was trying to save your life.”
Mrs. Mary cried quietly across from me, still holding my hand like she was afraid I might disappear if she let go, and there was no way I could pull away from someone who still loved me despite my flaws.
A heavy silence settled between us after that. It wasn’t awkward. We were just two tired people sitting across from each other, carrying more grief than either of us knew what to do with.
Mrs. Mary wiped beneath her eyes before finally reaching into her purse.
“I brought you something,” she said, pulling out a small silver chain.
The moment the locket came into view, my breathing slowed. It was old and beautiful in a worn way. Small scratches covered the surface as if she had held onto it for years.
Mrs. Mary looked down at it for a second before carefully placing it in my hand. My fingers curled around it automatically.
“Booda wanted you to have that.”
I stared down at the tiny heart-shaped locket resting in my palm, afraid to open it for reasons I couldn’t explain.
Mrs. Mary swallowed hard beside me. “His ashes are inside.”
Tears streamed down my face so hard I couldn’t see straight. My hand shook as I held the locket, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t do anything but feel the weight of it, both the physical weight of the metal and the unbearable heaviness of what it contained.
Booda’s ashes.
My Booda.
The noise in the visitation room faded into the background. The guards. The women talking across the room. The phones ringing somewhere behind the desk. All of it disappeared.
I looked down at the locket again, like maybe I had heard her wrong.
But I hadn’t.
For months, Booda existed through memories, dreams, conversations, guilt, love, anger, and confusion.” He had been everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
And now, I held a piece of him inside my hand.
Mrs. Mary broke down crying again at the sight of me holding it.
“I couldn’t let him go completely,” she whispered. “I tried, but I couldn’t.”
My chest hurt so badly it felt hard to breathe.
I carefully opened the locket.
A small picture of Booda rested on one side, and I stared at his face for a moment before closing it. I didn’t want to waste his ashes.
But God.
This was real.
“He loved you so much,” Mrs. Mary whispered.
I pressed my lips together so hard it hurt. “I know,” I said quietly.
And I did know.
That was the cruelest part about all of this. After everything that happened, after all the lies, and even after death itself, I never once doubted that man loved me.
A guard stepped toward our table. “Time.”
Mrs. Mary flinched slightly as if the word physically hurt her, but neither of us moved right away.
Then she stood slowly from the chair, and fear rose in my chest at the thought of her leaving. Not because I couldn’t handle being alone, but because loss suddenly felt attached to everybody I loved.
Mrs. Mary leaned down and pressed a trembling kiss against my forehead. “I’m not giving up on you,” she whispered. “You hear me?”
I nodded because I couldn’t trust myself to speak.
She touched my cheek gently before pulling away. “Take the plea, baby,” she said softly. “Please.”
My eyes closed briefly.
Twenty years.
The number sounded unreal every time I heard it.
But death sounded worse.
Mrs. Mary grabbed her purse and started walking away, then stopped near the door. She turned back toward me one last time, her eyes red from crying.
“I love you, Koko. And as long as I have breath in my body, you will never be alone.”
The words hit me hard because I believed her.
I looked down at the locket resting in my hand and tightened my fingers around it before lifting my eyes back to her. “Tell Ms. Franklin I’ll take the plea deal,” I said loudly enough for her to hear me.
Mrs. Mary covered her mouth as relief washed across her face. Tears filled her eyes again, but this time they looked different.
“Okay,” she whispered.
The guard stepped beside the table a second later, waiting to escort me back to my cell.
I stood slowly with the locket clenched tightly in my hand while Mrs. Mary watched me from across the room. Then I turned and walked away, carrying the last piece of Booda I had left.
And for the first time since I woke up in that hospital, I knew exactly who I was.