CHAPTER 24
brANDY AND BLOOD
The mortuary felt different walking through it as something other than a front this time, Varnell noticing details he'd never bothered registering before — the quiet, the careful stillness of a place built to hold grief with dignity, Demarcus moving through it with the same composed authority he brought to every corner of his life.
"Figured we should talk logistics," Demarcus said, settling behind his desk, a folder already prepared and waiting. "Not 'cause I'm rushing you toward anything. Just — better to have it settled than scrambling for it later, when settling it might not be possible no more."
They went through it methodically, Demarcus walking him through options with the same careful professionalism he'd apply to any client, though his voice caught more than once discussing arrangements for his own brother.
Casket, service, plot — practical details that felt surreal to be deciding at nineteen, though Varnell found something almost steadying in the specificity of it, control over at least one piece of an ending he couldn't otherwise negotiate with.
"I want it simple," Varnell said. "Ain't trying to make a show out of it. Just want the people who actually mattered there, nobody performing grief for the sake of being seen."
Demarcus nodded, writing it down carefully. "I'll make sure it's exactly that."
? ? ?
Once the paperwork was set aside, Demarcus pulled a bottle of brandy from a cabinet behind his desk, pouring two glasses without asking whether Varnell wanted one, an unspoken acknowledgment that some conversations required something to hold onto besides just words.
"You ever gonna tell me everything that happened in New Orleans?" Demarcus asked, settling back with his glass. "Not the parts you already told me. All of it."
Varnell considered how much to say, then let go of the impulse to protect Demarcus from the weight of it, some tired part of him deciding his brother had earned the truth by now.
He told him everything — Steve, Vanilla, the failed first attempt, Chucky J's death, the second attempt that hadn't failed, the things he'd done in that final confrontation that he still couldn't fully speak plainly about even now.
Demarcus listened without visible judgment, though something pained crossed his face more than once, before he finally spoke.
"I ain't gonna pretend that don't sit heavy with me, hearing what you carrying," Demarcus said slowly. "But I understand it too. More than you probably know."
"What you mean?"
Demarcus was quiet a long moment, turning his glass slowly, some old weight settling into his shoulders. "You know I grew up mostly with my father, after him and Ma split. What you don't know is why."
Varnell leaned forward, some old curiosity finally getting the answer it had been circling since the day he first learned Demarcus existed.
"Ma was young when she had me. Seventeen.
My father wasn't built for patience, and Ma wasn't built for the life she was living back then — addiction, hard years, choices that weren't always hers to make clean.
He left, eventually, took me with him 'cause he didn't trust her to keep me safe, and honestly, looking back, he probably wasn't wrong to worry.
" Demarcus's voice stayed level, though something old and raw moved underneath it.
"I hated her for years. Blamed her for everything broken about my childhood, refused to see her, refused to answer when she tried reaching out.
Took me a long time, and a lot of my own mistakes, to understand she was just a kid herself, trying to survive something none of us should've had to survive at that age. "
"Is that why you didn't know about me?"
"Didn't know about you 'cause by the time you came along, I'd already built walls too thick to let information about her get through to me easy.
Found out about you the same way you found out about me — secondhand, through the world, not through anybody sitting me down proper.
" Demarcus met his eyes, something apologetic in the look.
"Wish I'd known sooner. Wish I'd been there for more of what you went through alone. "
"You here now," Varnell said quietly. "That's what matters."
They sat together after that, brandy loosening something between them that had never fully had room to breathe before, memories and confessions spilling out in equal measure — Demarcus's early years of quiet resentment slowly giving way to the man who ran a legitimate business by day and something considerably less legitimate by night; Varnell's own years of borrowed time compressed into choices that, laid out together like this, felt at once entirely necessary and entirely too much for someone his age to have carried alone.
They laughed, at points, at absurdities neither of them could believe they'd survived — and cried too, unashamed, brothers finally given the space to grieve not just what was coming, but everything that had already been lost getting here.
? ? ?
Toward the end of the night, brandy loosening his tongue further, Varnell brought up something he'd been sitting with privately for longer than he'd admitted to anyone.
"I been trying," he said carefully, "to leave something behind. Not just money, not just this — " he gestured vaguely, encompassing the whole tangled empire he'd built. "A child. Somebody who carries something of me forward, after."
Demarcus studied him, something gentle and sad crossing his face. "You and Angellisa talked about that?"
"Not directly. Just — hoping, I guess. Selfish, probably."
"Ain't selfish to want to leave something of yourself behind, Varnell. Most natural thing in the world." Demarcus paused. "Just make sure, whatever happens, that child's provided for. Loved. Not just a wish you made in a moment like this."
"I'm working on that too." Varnell's mind drifted to Hamid, to Rodney, to the careful arrangements he'd been assembling piece by piece.
"Got Hamid helping me settle things before he steps away for good.
And Rodney — I want to make sure whatever he's got waiting for him when he touches down, it's enough to actually chase something real.
Boxing, maybe, like we always talked about as kids.
Money set aside, a real shot at it, not just survival money. "
"I'll make sure it happens," Demarcus said, quiet and certain. "Whatever you need arranged, consider it done."
? ? ?
Before the night ended, Varnell asked for privacy, a quiet room and enough time to put certain things into writing that felt too important to leave assembled only in his head. Demarcus left him to it without question, understanding instinctively what kind of work required solitude.
He wrote his will carefully, methodically, naming what little he had to give and who should carry it forward — provisions for Vanessa, for Angellisa and whatever future she might be carrying whether he lived to see it or not, instructions for Hamid regarding the operation's eventual, careful dissolution, and a fund set aside specifically for Rodney, earmarked plainly for boxing training, equipment, whatever a real shot at that dream might actually cost.
When the will was finished, he pulled out a second sheet, and wrote to Rodney directly, knowing this letter carried more weight than any of the others he'd sent over the years.
Rodney. If you're reading this and I ain't around no more, I need you to know everything we built together, everything since that first fight in Ms. Odom's room, meant more to me than I ever said out loud enough times.
I left you something — real money, enough to actually chase boxing serious, the way we always talked about doing back before either of us understood how heavy life was gonna get.
Don't waste it feeling sorry for me. Use it.
Become something. Make it mean something, all of this.
I'm proud of you, whatever you do with it. Always was. — V
He sealed both letters carefully, setting them aside for Demarcus to hold until they were needed, and sat alone a while longer in the quiet mortuary office, feeling, for the first time in longer than he could remember, like he'd finally started settling the parts of his life that mattered most, piece by careful piece, before time ran out to settle them at all.