Chapter 53 Serenity
Serenity
Rita was dipping her chicken strip into mashed potatoes and gravy like it was a gourmet pairing and honestly I wasn’t mad at it because they were delicious together.
We were sitting at her kitchen table with two Popeyes boxes open between us, biscuits stacked on a napkin, and sweet tea in glasses because Rita refused to drink anything out of a Styrofoam cup in her own home.
“I don’t care how it looks. I ain’t drinking from Styrofoam, I’m not an animal,” she’d said while transferring the tea into her good glasses. I loved this woman with my whole chest.
We’d just gotten back from her ophthalmologist appointment and the news was actually good for once.
Dr. Patterson said her cataracts were operable and she was a strong candidate for laser surgery.
If everything went well, she could have significantly improved vision within a few weeks of the procedure.
The baby was doing fine. Seven months in and every appointment was healthy despite everything my body had been through. The baby was strong. I was strong. And sitting at Rita’s table eating Popeyes on a Tuesday afternoon felt like the calmest my life had been since I was maybe fifteen years old.
I picked up my phone and texted Mehar.
Me: Have fun on your babymoon boo! Tell Quest to fly safe. Love you guys. Kiss my niece/nephew for me when yall land.
Mehar: We’re about to take off in like 10 min! I’ll text you when we land. Love you sis
“You happy, baby?” she asked without looking up as she focused on her food.
“Yeah, Grandma. I really am.”
“Good. You deserve it. After everything that happened with that boy and all that mess, you deserve to sit down and just be still for a minute.” She reached across the table, found my hand, and squeezed it.
“I’m proud of you, Serenity. You came back from something that would’ve killed most people and you did it with my great-grandbaby in your belly.
You’re going to have a long prosperous life. ”
I squeezed her hand back and blinked the tears away because I was not about to cry over Popeyes and a compliment, but Rita had a gift for saying exactly what you needed to hear at exactly the moment you needed to hear it and my hormones were not cooperating with my desire to keep it together.
The knock came at 2:47 PM. I know the exact time because I’d just checked my phone to see if Mehar had texted that they were in the air yet.
Somebody knocked on the front door and I knew before I even stood up that it wasn’t family. Family walks in. Delivery people ring the bell. This was that slow, deliberate, we-got-all-day knock that police do when they already know you’re inside and aren’t going anywhere.
“I’ll get it,” I said, pushing back from the table.
“Who is it?” Rita called out behind me.
I opened the front door and there were two detectives in suits and a uniformed officer standing behind them.
The detective in front was a white woman in her forties with a badge on her belt and a folder in her hand.
She had the face of someone who’d done this so many times it stopped being interesting, but she was going to do it anyway because that’s what the folder said to do.
“Serenity Banks?”
“Yes?”
“I’m Detective Morrison with the Metropolitan Police Department. We have a warrant for your arrest in connection with the murder of David Jamison, issued by the state of Connecticut. You’ll be extradited to Hartford to face charges.”
The kitchen disappeared. Rita’s voice disappeared.
The entire house went silent like someone had pressed mute on my entire life.
I heard the words but my brain was running them through a filter that couldn’t make sense of what was happening because David Jamison had been dead for twelve years and buried in a place nobody was supposed to find and the only people who knew what happened in that cabin were me, my mother, and Dante.
My mother.
She did this. From beyond the grave or from whatever arrangements she’d made before Quest got to her, Vivica had dropped the last bomb she had left. The receipts she kept. The insurance she’d been holding for a rainy day. She used it. She actually used it against her own daughter.
“Ma’am, I need you to turn around and place your hands behind your back.”
“I’m seven months pregnant,” I heard myself say, and my voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere outside my body.
“We’re aware, ma’am. We’ll make accommodations. But we need to proceed with the arrest.”
Rita was behind me now. I could hear her cane on the hardwood and feel her presence at my shoulder, and her voice came out sharp and loud and full of a fury that could’ve peeled paint off the walls.
“You are NOT taking my grandbaby out of this house in handcuffs. She is pregnant. Do you hear me? She is PREGNANT.”
“Ma’am, please step back.”
“I will not step back. I will stand right here and I will call every lawyer in this city and I will raise holy hell until—”
“Grandma.” My voice cracked. “Call Justice and Prime.”They put the cuffs on me in Rita's foyer with my grandmother screaming behind me and my baby kicking against my ribs like even she knew something was wrong.
I looked down at my belly and my wrists and thought about the girl I was when I killed that man in that cabin twelve years ago.
Fifteen, pregnant, and terrified. And here I was again.
Pregnant and terrified. The only difference was this time I had people who would fight for me. I just prayed they'd get to me in time.