Chapter 24 Monique
Waking up in her own bed was bittersweet.
This Chicago January morning stung harder than others. The gray light seeping through her bedroom curtains felt accusatory, like it knew she’d abandoned something precious in Puerto Rico and was demanding an accounting.
Monique stared at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the plaster she’d been meaning to fix for three years. Fourteen visible from this angle. Fifteen if she counted the hairline fracture spreading from the corner. She should get up. Get dressed and face the day.
Chickie’s funeral started in a few hours. Her stomach churned. The nausea was not from treatment anymore. This was pure grief, thick and oily, coating everything.
Downstairs, something clattered, voices murmured. The twins.
Monique closed her eyes. Of course, they were up.
Of course, they were already handling things.
Because that’s what happened when your mother spent two years teaching you that needing help was weakness, that asking for support was a burden, that the only safe position was being self-sufficient and alone.
Cancer had taught them all the wrong lessons.
She forced herself upright, feet finding the cold wood. Her robe hung on the back of the door where it always did. She pulled it on, the flannel soft from decades of washing, and made her way downstairs.
In the kitchen, Jasmine stood at the stove with an arsenal of tea paraphernalia spread across the counter like she was preparing for battle.
The kettle was already heating.
“Morning, Ma,” she said without turning around. Then she opened the fridge with the efficiency of someone who’d been planning this. “Lemme get that for you.”
Monique squinted at her daughter. “Why are you up so early?”
Jasmine had another couple of weeks before going back to school. Usually, breaks were filled with parties and reconnecting with old friends. Sleeping until noon and other regular college-aged activities. The kind of life nineteen-year-olds deserved. Not this.
Jasmine didn’t look at her, instead she pulled eggs and sausage from the fridge. “You should eat before you go.”
The kettle whistled.
“Get your tea and sit down, Ma.”
Something in her daughter’s gentle but immovable tone made Monique’s chest tighten. She didn’t want to sit down. She didn’t want tea. She didn’t want any of this careful choreography of care—she knew what it was. Love was a costume. Underneath was pity or duty. Sometimes it was both.
“What is going on here?” Monique’s words came out sharp.
“Justin!” Jasmine called over her shoulder, not answering. “Come get your mother so I can fix her something to eat.”
“Don’t you try to put this on your brother, lil girl.” The world felt like a spinning top that was close to stopping, all wobbly and uncertain. “Tell me what’s going on here.”
Justin’s deep voice rumbled behind her. “Nothin’s going on, Ma.” He moved past her with an easy grace that he’d inherited from his father—all long limbs and quiet confidence. He prepared her tea with practiced efficiency: one bag ginger, one bag green, one sugar, steeped for exactly three minutes.
He’d been watching her. Learning her rhythms. Preparing for this.
“Come on.” He led her to the front room and a plush chaise near the picture window that overlooked their tree-lined street. Snow clung to the branches, everything white and clean and dead.
“Dr. T is coming at about six forty-five, right?” Justin asked, pressing her into the seat.
“Justin—”
“Mom.” He crouched in front of her. Nineteen years old and looking at her like she was the child. “Let us take care of you for once, okay? Please?”
The please did it.
She took the hot mug he offered. The ginger and green tea should have been calming. It wasn’t. Not today.
They were handling her. Monique could see it happening. The precision, the coordination, the way Jasmine had thought ahead and provided what she needed before the need registered in her own body. She recognized the steps because she’d taught it to them.
Something in her loosened at the recognition, just a little bit. The furnace kicked on, quietly wrapping her in warm air. Reminding her of a boat in Puerto Rico where she said she was tired of being angry when people showed they cared.
“Okay,” she said.
Justin’s shoulders sagged. He wedged himself on the chaise with her. His lanky frame folded around her waist in a position they hadn’t held since before the first surgery.
“Tell me about your trip. Did you have fun? I know you took a whole mess of pictures.”
Monique’s hand went automatically to his head, fingers drifting over his meticulous waves. “It was nice.”
“Just nice?” Jasmine asked as she entered the room with a tray laden with food and sat it beside them.
“Tell us more.” She sat at the foot of the chaise and then leaned back against her brother.
This weird dog pile they often did had been difficult after the surgeries and infusions, when everything ached and nausea was a constant companion.
What more was there to tell? She’d cut her trip short by a little bit to come home to bury someone else she loved.
“How was everybody?” Jasmine asked, emphasizing “everybody” in a way that made Monique’s ears itch.
“Jasmine Noel Moore, what did you do?”
Her daughter’s already high cheekbones rose even higher as she tried to purse her lips to withhold a smile. That child couldn’t hold water. “Whatchu mean? I was here the whole time.”
“Justin. Somebody better tell me something.”
Justin buried his face into the softest part of his mother’s belly. “We just want you to be happy, that’s all.” His breath warmed her through the layers of fabric. He looked up at her. “Everybody does.”
Monique disentangled herself and stood. She slid her mug onto the mantel. Her deceased family stared back from their frames. Mimi. Her mother. All the people who’d loved her but still left her to navigate this alone.
“This is insane,” she whispered to the photographs.
“Ma, before you start tripping, understand that we all want the best for you.” Jasmine had come beside her and rested her head on Monique’s shoulder. “Tell us about Maurice.”
Maurice. The name hit her like a sock full of quarters to the chest.
“What the—”
“Hey,” Justin stopped her. “Can we not give Old Monique the floor today?”
She closed her mouth and then opened it to say something more. Justin raised an eyebrow. Monique closed her mouth again. Old Monique would have yelled and cursed when she really wanted to cry. But she didn’t want to be that person anymore. Justin was right.
“He seems like a good dude,” Justin said from her abandoned seat. “At least that’s what Cousin Tommie and the Aunties keep saying.”
Questions rose in her throat like bile—like, where had Tommie and the Aunties been before?—but she swallowed them. Her children didn’t deserve any of that.
Monique pulled in a deep breath. “A good dude,” she repeated, almost to herself. “Yeah, he is. But that was vacation. Not real life.”
“Come on, Mom.” Jasmine took her hand. “When would you have let yourself enjoy someone again? It’s bad enough they had to strongarm you into going to the wedding.”
“My God.” She plopped down on the chaise, letting her head fall into her hands. “We figured out it was a setup, but… just wow.”
“Yeah, Cousin Tommie told us.” Jasmine came to sit beside her, resting her head on Monique’s shoulder again. “And it’s okay, Ma. Maurice is like ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent in love with you already. I bet you’re not far behind.”
What did she know about love? She was nineteen. Yet here she was pulling strings and orchestrating matchmaking schemes with the family elders like she understood how love calcified into loss, how opening yourself up just gave the world more ways to destroy you.
“He doesn’t really love me.”
Justin scoffed, “Whatever, man. I saw you when you came up in here last night, looking all busted and defeated. You probably love him too.”
“I’d been traveling all day, and my friend just died!”
Patting her leg, Jasmine said, “Make whatever excuses you need to while you eat your breakfast, but don’t use Chickie’s death as one.” She slid the tray in front of Monique and handed her the fork. “It’s gonna be a long day. You need fuel.”
“Come on, Ma. Dr. T will be here any minute.”
Monique looked at the food, and her stomach twisted. “I’ma eat this because I don’t want it to go to waste, but y’all two”—she waved her fork at her children—“don’t think for a second y’all’re off the hook.” Monique stuffed a forkful of eggs and sausage into her mouth. “Talk. Now.”
Jasmine and Justin looked at each other in that twin-y silent communication way that they sometimes did. “Well,” Justin began. “Auntie Deb always asks if you’re seeing anyone. I mean, she’s been asking for like five years now.”
“What? Why’s she asking y’all?” Her aunt’s wife was the living representation of actions speak louder than words.
The woman hardly ever talked, practically blending in with the background everywhere.
Over the years Monique learned that Deborah Fairbanks was a sentinel, always watching and ready to take action. I guess she finally took action…
“And she started talking about some guys she’d known for like forever.”
“Guys in Jersey or Philly. We live in Chicago,” Monique said flatly, already knowing.
“Well, we thought it was a good idea at the time,” Justin said. “Give you something to do, someplace to spend time away from what you’re used to.”
What she was used to was doing her mail route and taking care of her kids. Those two things were all that she ever thought that she needed. “What do I look like in a long-distance relationship?”
Jasmine scoffed. “What do you look like in any relationship, Ma? We don’t hardly remember you and Daddy together, and when have you ever given anybody any play since?”
She coughed around a piece of toast. “Play? Are you serious?” This child was taking things a little too far.
“As a heart attack.” Jasmine sucked her teeth and almost rolled her eyes at Monique. Smart girl.