Serenity
I held her, stared at her, counted her fingers and toes, memorized the curve of her nose and the shape of her mouth.
I didn’t let go. I didn’t let go because the last time I held a baby like this I only got eleven minutes.
Eleven minutes with Kayla before they took her from me and carried her to a family in Silver Spring who would raise her while I spent twelve years haunting the sidewalk outside her school like a ghost who forgot how to cross over.
Nobody was taking this one. Sarai was mine and she was staying.
The ankle monitor blinked green against my shin under the hospital blanket. A murder defendant in a maternity ward. That was my life.
Dante showed up around noon the next day.
He knocked softly like he wasn’t sure he was welcome, which was fair considering the last time we were in a room together I’d slid a folder across a table that rearranged the rest of his life.
But when he stepped inside and saw Sarai bundled in my arms, his face did something I hadn’t seen it do since I was a little girl.
It softened. Everything hard and guarded and self-preserving about Dante Banks melted off his face and what was left was just a man looking at his granddaughter.
“Can I hold her?” he asked.
I handed her over and watched him cradle her against his chest with a gentleness that felt almost offensive considering how absent those hands had been for most of my life.
He rocked her slowly and murmured something I couldn’t hear and for about thirty seconds it looked like a normal family moment.
A grandfather meeting his grandchild. The kind of thing people posted on social media with heart emojis and captions about blessings.
It wasn’t that. We both knew it wasn’t that. But I let him have the thirty seconds anyway because Sarai deserved to be held by her grandfather and my feelings about him didn’t get to override that.
“I did everything you asked,” he said quietly, still looking at the baby. “The files are with Xander. The testimony outline is drafted. I’m ready whenever he needs me.”
“Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me, Serenity. I should’ve done it without being asked.” He looked up at me and his eyes were wet. “I should’ve done a lot of things without being asked.”
I didn’t respond to that because agreeing would’ve been cruel and disagreeing would’ve been a lie so I just let it sit in the room with us and the baby and the beeping monitors.
Xander came by about an hour later. He stepped in with flowers and a pink stuffed elephant.
My hormones were incapable of not noticing.
He’d already handled the courts, filed an emergency motion to ensure my ankle monitor status wouldn’t be violated by the hospital stay.
The judge approved continued monitoring at the medical facility.
Xander had thought of everything before I’d even woken up from the delivery.
“She’s beautiful,” he said, looking at Sarai in my arms. “Congratulations, Serenity. Really.”
“Thank you. For everything. For the flowers and for keeping me out of jail while I was in labor.”
He laughed. “That’s a first for my career.
I’ll put it on my resume.” He paused and shifted his weight and something in his posture changed.
Less attorney, more person. “Listen, I need to head back to DC for a few days. My girlfriend’s sister is getting married this weekend and I promised I’d be there.
But I’ll be reachable by phone and email the entire time and if anything comes up with the case I can be back here in four hours. ”
My girlfriend.
The words landed on me like ice water. I felt my smile freeze on my face and I became very interested in adjusting Sarai’s blanket because I needed somewhere to put my eyes that wasn’t his face.
My girlfriend. Of course he had a girlfriend.
Of course he did. A man who looked like that, who was that smart, that attentive, that present, of course there was a woman at home waiting for him while he was up here saving my life.
I was a fool. A complete, delusional fool who’d spent weeks fantasizing about a man’s forearms while he was going home to someone else every night.
“Of course,” I said. My voice sounded normal. I was impressed with myself. “Go. Enjoy the wedding. We’ll be fine here.”
“You sure?”
“Positive. Rita’s here. My father’s here. Go be with your family.”
He smiled, touched Sarai’s hand gently and told me he’d check in tomorrow. I wished he didn’t have to leave.
Dante was still holding Sarai. He looked at me and I could tell he wanted to say something but he had the good sense not to.
“You want some real food?” he asked instead. “Hospital food is trash.”
“Chick-fil-A.”
“Say less. What you want?”
“Spicy deluxe, large fry, and a lemonade. And a cookies and cream milkshake.”
“That’s a lot of food for somebody who just had a baby.”
“I just pushed a human being out of my body, Daddy. I earned a milkshake.”
He almost smiled. He handed Sarai back to me carefully, kissed her forehead, and headed for the door. When he left the room went quiet and the quiet was where the tears lived. One slid down my cheek before I could stop it.
Rita was sitting in the chair by the window. She’d been quiet this whole time, watching everything with those sharp eyes that missed nothing. Her cane was propped against the wall and her reading glasses were pushed up on her forehead and she waited until the tear reached my jaw before she spoke.
“I know you like him.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Good, because I’m not asking. I’m telling.
He’s a fine man and you have good taste but that is not your focus right now.
There’s a time for boys and right now isn’t it.
” She nodded toward Sarai. “You have to put her first. I know how it ended with Mega. I know you’ve been through hell.
But this baby needs a mother who’s present and whole, not one who’s chasing a man she can’t have.
Don’t be one of those women who can’t stand to be alone. ”
“I’m just so scared I’ve already failed her, Rita. She doesn’t have a father. And I’m a mess. I’m on house arrest with a murder charge and I just had a baby in a state I don’t even live in. What kind of mother starts like this?”
“I’ve had babies in worse conditions. Trust me.
One day I’ll tell you all about it. But you’re the kind who fights for her child anyway.
Sarai may not have a father but she’s got male role models who will show up for her.
Justice, Prime, Quest when he’s back. Your brothers are going to come through for that little girl.
And when the time is right, you’ll find someone who deserves you.
” She paused and a sly look crossed her face.
“And chiiiile, I get it. That Xander is fine. If I was a few years younger I’d be taking him from his little girlfriend. ”
“Oh God, Grandma.”
“But I’m a little mature for him. And I know you sweet on him, so listen. If you want, I can get rid of that girlfriend. They ain’t married. I’ve taken out a few hoes in my day.”
“Rita!”
“You know I’m just playing. Well not about the hoes, but about his lil girlfriend. I just want you to laugh. That’s all.”
And I did laugh. For the first time in what felt like days, I laughed. It came out wet and messy because the tears were still there but the laugh pushed through them and for a moment I felt lighter.
“It’s okay,” I said, wiping my face. “All that matters is beating this murder charge and taking care of Sarai. And when I get out of the hospital, I’m going to call Kayla again. A real conversation this time.”
“Good.” Rita leaned forward and her face shifted from playful to serious. “And there’s something else you should know. Your brother and Mehar were found.”
“What? Are you serious? When?”
“Justice called me this morning. They were stranded on an island in the Grenadines this whole time. He found them yesterday.”
“Thank God.” My hand went to my chest. “I’ve been praying for them every night. Are they okay?”
Rita hesitated. That hesitation told me everything before her words did.
“Mehar’s in early labor. The baby is coming premature. They’re at a hospital in Grenada right now.”
“Oh no.” I pulled Sarai closer to my chest instinctively. “Please tell me she’s going to be okay.”
“We’re praying on it. That’s all we can do right now.”
I closed my eyes and held my daughter and prayed for my brother’s fiancée and their baby who was fighting to enter a world that hadn’t been kind to any of us.
Two Banks women giving birth at the same time in two different places in two different emergencies.
If that wasn’t our family in a nutshell, I didn’t know what was.
Dante came back forty minutes later with a Chick-fil-A bag and a milkshake and I ate every single bite while Sarai slept on my chest and Rita watched a game show on the hospital TV and for an hour, just an hour, things felt almost normal.
I looked down at my daughter’s face. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was slightly open and her tiny chest rose and fell with breaths that were so small and so new that each one felt like a miracle I didn’t deserve.
I was going to be the mother I always wanted to have.
I was going to be present and honest and fierce and soft and everything Vivica wasn’t.
I was going to tell Sarai the truth about where she came from and who her family was and I was going to let her decide for herself what kind of woman she wanted to be.
And when she was old enough, I was going to introduce her to her big sister and pray that Kayla would forgive me for the twelve years I spent watching from across the street instead of walking over and saying her name.
Sarai shifted against my chest and sighed and I held her tighter and made the promise again. This time I meant it with everything I had.