20. JUSTICE
JUSTICE
I didn’t sleep much the night of the party, and it wasn’t the business keeping me up.
It was her. Skye, out on that deck with the fire in her face, saying that thing about my daughter grieving, then flinching when I got too close to whatever she kept locked up behind those eyes. I’d let her run back in the house. Told myself it was the right thing.
But I lay up a long time after, staring at the ceiling, feeling the shape of a want I hadn’t felt since I buried my wife. It should have worried me. Mostly it just had me in a good mood I couldn’t shake.
The next day, I needed to be on point though. We were finally going to close with the Harlow brothers for some of the construction projects at Freetown. That’s where my focus needed to be — on the legacy I was building with my family.
The Harlow brothers signed the contracts a little after noon.
After reviewing several other contractors, my brothers and I decided that their company was the best for the job.
Their energy reminded me of my brothers.
By the time the ink dried I had a good feeling about the deal, and a good feeling was not something I came by easy.
Roman Harlow was the older one, the one who did the talking. He wore a sharp suit, had a firm handshake, and looked a man dead in the eye when he spoke.
His brother was more reserved, but I’m testament that just because someone is reserved doesn’t mean they’re not ruthless.
They had a strong business reputation in Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas. They were looking to expand and Freetown was the perfect opportunity.
Freetown needed builders I could trust not to skim and not to cut corners. The Harlows had a reputation for none of that. We went over the terms one last time, shook on it all around, and I felt one more piece of the future click into place.
“We appreciate the opportunity,” Roman said, buttoning his jacket. “The Banks name means something. We don’t take it lightly, partnering with a family like yours.”
“Long as the work’s clean, we’ll be doing a lot of business.” I walked them to the door. “Matter of fact. We’re throwing something at the casino Friday night. Come through. Bring whoever you want. Consider it the welcome to the family.”
“We’ll be there.” Roman smiled, easy. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
I shook his hand one more time and watched them go. Afterwards, I hit up my brothers to let them know the deal was done and we would be breaking new ground soon.
After a long day of combing through the books, managing folks and thinking about her, I headed home. On the way, I received a call from Kira.
What the fuck did she want now? I thought as I answered.
“Storie called me,” she said, and I could hear her trying to sound casual about it.
“Asked if she could come stay with me this weekend. Said she needed some maternal energy… and you know I’m her Godmother.
She said she has things she needs to talk to a female about.
” A pause. “That okay with you? I didn’t want to say yes without checking. ”
Maybe some alone time with her godmother would do her some good.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” I said. “She could use it. Y’all have a good time.”
“Good. Great.” Kira sounded pleased. Then, lighter, too light: “So how’s everything at the house? Everybody good? How’s, um. How’s the new girl working out? Skye, right?”
There it was. And it landed different than it would have a week ago, because a week ago Skye was just the woman who ran my house. Now she was the woman I’d stayed up half the night thinking about.
“House is good,” I said, and left it there.
“She seems real comfortable over there. For somebody who just started.”
“Rita loves her. Girls are taken care of. That’s what I pay her for.” I kept it short and closed the door on it. I was not about to stand on the phone and let Kira dig around in a thing that wasn’t hers to dig in. “You can grab Storie Friday afternoon. She’ll be packed.”
A beat of quiet told me she heard everything I didn’t say.
“Friday afternoon,” she agreed, cooler now. “See you then.”
I hung up and let it go. Kira was Kira. She’d get over whatever this was, same as she always did.
Later that night, after Rita was settled in bed, Skye had gone to her room, and Dream was placed to sleep, I found myself wandering about the home I bought for Monica all those years ago. I remember promising her the dream. And I made that shit come true.
It was massive, sprawled across thirteen and a half acres out in Potomac.
The house cut across the property in pale stone and black glass, its arched windows lined up with the kind of precision money demanded.
It didn’t sit near the road. It sat back from it, far enough to make the rest of the world feel dismissed.
A broad circular drive opened in front of the entrance, all polished stone and empty space, forcing you to take in the size of the place before you ever reached the door.
Seven bedrooms. More house than we ever came close to filling.
Inside, even in the dark, I knew every line of it.
Blond wood floors ran unbroken from one end to the other, and in the daytime the sun spilled across them and traveled clean through walls of glass to the pool out back and the tree line past that.
The rooms were enormous and quiet, furnished in different styles to ensure we were never bored.
Monica had a hand in every inch. She had a creative streak and I let her run rampant with her ideas. Every inch of this house was stamped by her essence.
It was less a home than a declaration. Elegant, immaculate, and entirely certain of its own importance.
Just like she was.
I made my way into Monica’s closet. It was one of the bedrooms I had converted to hold all of her luxury adornments. I never came in here anymore.
I’d never had the heart to clear it out.
Three years gone, and her things still hung right where she left them.
Her dresses in their neat rows, her shoes lined up.
A silk robe on the back of the door that still held the faint ghost of her perfume, if you stood close enough and needed it bad enough.
Some days I told myself I kept it for the girls.
Truth was I kept it for me. I wasn’t ready to live in a house that had no proof she’d ever been in it.
I sat down on the little bench in there and just breathed her in a minute. It was probably time to start parting with her things. Maybe put them in storage for the girls when they are of age.
“Daddy?”
Storie stood in the doorway, backpack still on one shoulder, watching me with a careful look.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked.
“Your mother.” I didn’t see a reason to lie. “Wondering if it’s healthy, keeping all this in here like a museum. Three years is a long time to leave a closet like somebody’s coming back to it.”
She came in slowly and sat down beside me, and for a minute neither of us said anything, just two people who’d loved the same woman sitting in what was left of her.
I reached over and opened her jewelry box. Everything still in its place. And there, coiled in the top tray where it always lived, was the tennis bracelet.
“You know I gave this to your mama on our third date?” I lifted it out and let it catch the light.
“Way back. Me and your uncles were still rebuilding the business up from nothing, and I did not have it like that. Not even close. But we were out one evening just window shopping, killing time, and she stopped at this case. The way her eyes lingered on it… I knew she wanted it.” I smiled at the gleaming diamonds.
“So I bought it. Spent damn near everything I had that month. Ate noodles for three weeks and didn’t care one bit, because she wore it out the store and looked at me like I’d hung the moon. ”
Storie was quiet, looking at the bracelet in my hand.
“I want you to have it,” I said.
Her head came up. “Really?”
“Yes.” I turned to face my oldest girl. “It’s beautiful, but why?
That’s what you’re about to ask me. Here’s why.
I’ve been hard on you, Storie. I know I have.
And I meant every bit of it for the right reasons, but I’ve been sitting with it, and I can see you’re trying.
I see you. Your mama would want you to have something of hers that meant something. Let this be a lil truce between us.”
Her eyes filled, and for once nothing about her looked cold or far-off or hard to reach. She just looked like my little girl.
“Thank you, Daddy.” Her voice went thick. “It’s beautiful. I’ll take good care of it. I promise.”
“I know you will.” I gently took her wrist and fastened her mother’s bracelet around it. It fit her like it had been waiting for her. “There. Looks right on you.”
She hugged me closely and then headed out of the room. I sat in that closet a minute longer, feeling like maybe, finally, we were breaking ground.
I’d be lying if I said the horse hadn’t been weighing on me.
I threw Dream an elaborate party and bought her the most expensive gifts I’d ever bought my daughters.
That lopsidedness had been sitting on me all week.
I justified it by saying it was because Storie’s attitude had been fucked up and it had.
She def deserved consequences but I still needed her to know that I loved her.
The bracelet evened it out some. My girl was going through some of her hardest years.
She was coming of age without her mother.
She saw her mother die. I knew it was taking a toll on her and I would get her therapy soon.
And for her sixteenth birthday, if she kept her grades up and stayed out of trouble, I’d buy her a car and throw her an elaborate sweet sixteen. I just hoped she could stay on the right path.
I kept hearing Skye on that deck. She’s grieving.
That’s all I saw. A girl grieving something too big for her.
Skye had known my child two weeks and read her clearer than I had in three years, and it shamed me a little, that it took a stranger to say the plain thing out loud.
Storie needed to know that I still loved her.
That she wasn’t just the difficult one, the cold one, the problem. That she was still mine.
The next morning I came downstairs to the smell of coffee and something frying. My grandmother was already laughing before I even hit the kitchen.
I found Skye in there with Rita, the two of them at the island with cut fruit and coffee between them, the morning sun coming through the back glass, talking low about something that had my grandmother wheezing.
“There he is,” Rita crowed. “Mr. Party. When you gon’ let this child have some fun, Justice? She work seven days and don’t go nowhere. It ain’t natural.”
“I go places,” Skye protested.
“Where? The grocery store don’t count.”
I leaned in the doorway and watched them a second, my grandmother and this woman, thick as thieves at my kitchen island like they’d known each other twenty years. It did something to my chest I didn’t examine too close.
“Since Rita brought it up.” I came in and grabbed a piece of pineapple off the board before Rita could smack my hand.
“There’s a party at the casino Friday.” I looked at Skye.
“You should come. Storie’s staying with Kira this weekend and Dream’s got a sleepover, so you’re free.
We can get someone from the agency to sit with Rita for the night.
Bring a friend if you want. That loud one you always on the phone with. ”
“Aubrey,” she laughed.
“GO.” Rita smacked the counter. “Lord, go put on a dress and be young somewhere. You act sixty and I’m the one who’s actually old. Take your friend and go have a good time. But why you ain’t invite me?” Rita sassed.
“You wanna come Grandma?” I teased.
“I don’t want your half-assed invite. You didn’t think of me first. I could slip on my Freakum dress and my red bottoms too. Tuh. I been throwing parties since before you were just a thought.”
Skye laughed at Rita. “Well we can go together.”
“Nope, I know when I ain’t wanted. You have fun baby.”
“Okay,” she finally said to me. “One night out won’t kill me. Thank you.”
“Friday, then.” I held her eyes a beat too long, right there in front of my grandmother, and I didn’t much care that I did. “Wear something nice. Not scrubs.”
“I’ll consider it.”
I grabbed another piece of pineapple and walked out before I said something else, feeling better than I had any right to feel. The business was solid. My hard girl had hugged me the night before like she used to. And Friday I’d get to see what Skye Mercer looked like when she wasn’t working.
Everything was finally coming together.