Chapter 32 Mehar
MEHAR
“Their bottles are in the fridge, second shelf. Kheris likes hers warmer than Idris so run it under hot water for an extra thirty seconds. If Idris gets fussy, it’s gas. Hold him upright and pat his back, don’t bounce him. And don’t let them nap past four or they won’t sleep tonight. And…”
“Goddess.” Prime put both hands on her shoulders and looked at her with that calm that only he could pull off when Zainab was spiraling. “I got this. Go have fun with your fam.”
He kissed her on the forehead and she melted into it the way she always did when Prime touched her.
These two had been through war together, literal, actual war, and come out the other side with a love that was so solid it made me believe the universe wasn’t completely rigged against people who deserved good things.
“Call me if anything…”
“Go, Zainab.”
She kissed both twins one more time, then grabbed her purse and we headed out. I decided to drive because I wanted to swing past her house and see my nephew and niece.
The ride was nice. Windows down, music low, one of those afternoons where the air smelled like spring was about to turn into summer and the city felt alive in a way that made you want to be part of it instead of hiding from it.
“I’m so happy right now,” Zainab said, looking out the window with a smile that had been beaming for the last few months.
”Like genuinely happy. The bakery is doing well.
The twins are healthy. Prime is—I mean, that man drives me crazy but he’s the best thing that ever happened to me.
” She turned to look at me. “Things are finally calm. After everything we went through, I feel like I can breathe.”
“You deserve it, sis. More than anyone.”
“So do you.” She gave me that look she gives when she’s about to say something I don’t want to hear. “You deserve happiness too, Mehar. You know that, right?”
I thought about Quest. His mouth on mine at the mall. His hand on the small of my back in Nordstrom. The way he’d said “I didn’t ask” like my independence was cute but irrelevant. The way I’d let him say it and felt safe instead of threatened.
“I’m working on it,” I said.
“Mmhmm.” She smiled like she knew more than I was saying. She probably did. Zainab always did.
Bryce’s apartment was in a complex off Georgia Ave.
Its was a one-bedroom on the second floor of a building that was clean but basic.
When we pulled into the lot, the first thing I noticed was the motorcycles.
Four of them, parked in a row near the entrance.
Dark colored, customized, loud even when they were off.
We took the stairs up and Bryce opened the door before I could knock, grinning wide with a party hat tilted sideways on his head that somebody had clearly forced him to wear. I bursted out laughing, while pointing at it.
“Chiiiilll Samaya made me wear it. I’m takin’ it off when I go to the strip club tonight,” he greeted.
“No the fuck you ain’t goin’ to no strip club,” I heard her voice from around the corner. He waved her off and mouthed, “Yes the fuck I am.”
“Y’all made it!” He hugged me first, then turned to Zainab and his whole face changed.
Softer. Almost shy. He’d been a little kid the last time he’d seen her.
She’d left the home with Zahara when he was not much more than a toddler, and now she was standing in his doorway.
A beautiful woman with his father’s eyes and their shared history written in the curve of her cheekbones.
“Bryce.” Zainab’s voice cracked. “Look at you. You’re so tall. Oh my God, you look just like—”
“Don’t say Baba,” he laughed.
“I was going to say you look like me.” She pulled him into a hug and held him for a long time, and I watched my sister and my brother hold each other in the doorway of a cheap apartment in DC and thought about all the years between them that Shamir Ali had stolen.
All the birthdays and holidays and Sunday dinners that should’ve happened and didn’t because our father ran his house like a prison and scattered his children like seeds in a storm.
“Aight, aight, y’all gonna make me cry and I got company,” Bryce said, wiping his eyes and stepping back. “Come in. It’s small but it’s mine.”
The apartment was exactly what a nineteen-year-old with limited funds and big dreams would put together.
A pleather sectional that was probably from Value City Furniture, a TV mounted on the wall that was too big for the room, a coffee table with a couple of candles on it that Samaya had probably picked out.
The kitchen was small but clean, with trays of food laid out on the counter—wings, mac and cheese, a fruit platter, and a cake from a grocery store bakery that said “Happy Birthday Bryce” in blue icing.
But what got me was the crib. It was already set up in the corner of the living room, next to the window where the afternoon light came through.
White, simple, with a mobile hanging over it that had little stars and moons.
Samaya wasn’t due for months but that crib was ready.
A framed sonogram was taped to the side of it with a Post-it note that said “Coming soon” in Bryce’s handwriting.
This boy was going to be a father and he was excited about it in a way that our father had never been excited about any of us.
“Babe, come here,” Bryce called toward the bedroom. “My sisters are here.”
Samaya came out, a pretty, petite, brown-skinned woman with long copper toned locs pulled up in a bun and a belly that was starting to show under her fitted dress.
She had warm eyes and a shy smile and when she shook my hand I noticed the tattoo on her inner wrist. A small viper, coiled and detailed, matching the one on Bryce’s hand.
Matching tattoos. Matching crew.
I filed it away the same way I filed away everything that worried me about Bryce—quietly, without comment, waiting to see if the picture got clearer or darker.
“It’s so nice to finally meet y’all,” Samaya said. “Bryce talks about you all the time.”
“It’s good to meet you too. And congratulations. Do you know what you’re having?”
“A girl,” they both responded.
“You have twins, right?” she directed her attention to Zainab.
“Yep, and they’re a handful.”
“We’re gonna have to talk! I’m so nervous,” she laughed.
“I’ll tell you everything I know.”
There were about ten people in the apartment, which meant the space was tight but the energy was good.
Music playing from a Bluetooth speaker. People eating, laughing, talking over each other.
A few of Bryce’s friends were there. It was a bunch of young guys around his age with the same lean builds and dark hoodies and viper tattoos on their hands and necks.
Bryce introduced us to everyone. Most of them dapped us up and kept it moving. Samaya’s brother Keyvon was posted up by the speaker with a plate in his hand. He was taller than the rest with a square jaw and a viper tattoo crawling up the side of his neck.”
“Yo Key, these my sisters,” Bryce said.
“What’s good.” Keyvon lifted his chin at us and went back to his food.
We settled in, ate, talked. Zainab and Samaya hit it off immediately, bonding over pregnancy stories and baby names.
Bryce looked truly happy, surrounded by people who cared about him, hosting something in a space that was his, building a life with his own two hands that looked nothing like the circus we’d grown up in.
I went to the bathroom about an hour in. The hallway was narrow and the bathroom door was right next to the bedroom door, which was cracked open. I could hear voices on the other side. It was Keyvon, Bryce, and Jerome, talking in low tones that were meant to stay in that room.
“I’m telling you, bro, we need to slide on them niggas,” Keyvon said. His voice was tight with that kind of anger that’s been sitting for a while and is looking for a reason to move. “Dimonte was my blood. My fuckin’ cousin. And we just supposed to sit here and let that shit slide?”
“Key, Mega said to chill,” Bryce said. “He said we gotta lay low right now. Too much heat.”
“Fuck what Mega says. Mega ain’t lose a cousin. Mega sitting on his ass in his house counting his money while Dimonte is in the ground. We need to make them pay. All of them niggas.”
“I hear you, bro. But we gotta be smart about it.”
“Nah, we gotta be about it. I’m tired of being smart. Smart don’t bring Dimonte back.” Jerome’s voice now, quieter but just as sharp. “Key’s right. We need to move. Hit them where it hurts.”
The bathroom door was right there. I should’ve walked in and closed the door and pretended I hadn’t heard anything. But my feet were stuck to the floor because they’d said something that had turned my blood cold.
The mention of Mega’s name sent chills up my. spine. Was he referring to Serenity’s Mega? The man who was beating my best friend and feeding her cocaine. The man I’d just helped put her in rehab to escape from. That Mega was connected to my brother’s crew?
I forced myself into the bathroom, closed the door, and sat on the edge of the tub with my heart pounding. The connections were forming in my head but they didn’t make sense yet. Bryce worked for Mega.
I flushed the toilet for cover and washed my hands and went back out to the party. Bryce was cutting the cake and Samaya was taking pictures and Zainab was laughing at something one of the girls said and everything looked normal and happy and warm.
I pulled Bryce into the kitchen while everyone was distracted with cake.
“I need to talk to you.”
“What’s up, sis?”
“Are you working for Mega through the BCC? Tell me the truth.”
His face shifted. Just barely, just for a second, but I caught it. “Why you asking me that?”
“Because I know who Mega is, Bryce. I’ve heard his name before. He’s dangerous. He moves drugs. And whoever Dimonte is that Keyvon is so upset about… whatever happened to him, getting revenge is going to get you killed or locked up. And you’ve got a baby on the way.”
I nodded toward the living room where Samaya was licking icing off her fingers and rubbing her belly and laughing at a video on someone’s phone. That girl was about to be a mother and the father of her child was standing in a kitchen being warned by his sister for the second time.
“Mehar, I appreciate you. I do. But you gotta let me handle my business.” His voice was gentle but firm. “We’re gonna be okay. I promise.”
“You said that last time. And I’m telling you again be smart. You’ve got too much to lose now.”
“I hear you, sis.”
I looked at my little brother with his party hat still tilted on his head and I wanted to grab him and shake him. He was playing with fire.
But I couldn’t force him to listen to me. All I could do was love him and warn him and hope that his daughter would be enough of a reason to choose a different path than the one Dimonte’s ghost was pulling him toward.
“Be careful,” I said. “I mean it.”
“I will, sis. Always.”
He hugged me and went back to the party and I stood in the kitchen alone for a minute listening to the laughter and the music and trying to figure out how the most normal, happy afternoon I’d had in months had just become something that felt like a countdown.