37. “I’m not calling when I get there.”
“I’M NOT CALLING WHEN I GET THERE.”
YASMINE
Ferdinand saw me coming and sighed.
Not loudly. Ferdinand didn’t do anything loudly. He had spent too many years gliding through rooms full of senators and drunks and men who thought money counted as manners to waste energy on visible distress.
But I saw it—the pause at the hostess stand, the flicker of his gaze down my dress.
“Right this way, miss.”
I gave him my best smile and followed, careful not to step on the train. Because there was a train. My gown was full-length, silver, sequined to the floor, and completely unreasonable for a lounge in a town this size. But a theme was a theme.
Ava spotted me first and gave a slow nod of approval. “Okay, Diva.”
I waited until Ferdinand had gone. “I think he’s about to ban us from this place.”
“Y’all, maybe.” Annie pulled me into a hug. “Ferdinand loves me.”
“Wonder why.”
“I’m naturally lovable.”
“You flirt with him like you’re trying to get written into his will.”
Tabby stepped into my arms next, warm and soft. “Nice dress.”
“I almost turned around.”
“You wouldn’t,” Ava said.
“Not after fighting my way into this thing.”
The theme was Fancy Winter in honor of my trip to Antarctica.
Ava had gone with pearl gray, cut simple enough to look accidental and expensive enough that it wasn’t. The back dipped low, leaving most of her back bare. Tabby’s white dress draped from one shoulder, soft ruching gathered at her waist. Annie wore ice-blue silk with cutouts down her ribs.
They’d committed. Every single one of them.
We’d barely settled into our seats, drinks just landing, when Ava placed a clean white box tied with ribbon in the center of the table.
No one reached for it.
Annie didn’t even look at it. “No.”
Ava blinked. “No what?”
Tabby nudged the box away with one finger. “Absolutely not.”
“They’re my brownies! Y’all love my brownies.”
“The undosed versions, yes,” I said. “Last time we ate your brownies, we ended up running from a demon dog.”
“And got arrested,” Tabby added.
“Detained,” Ava corrected.
“Jail,” I said. “We went to jail.”
“Respectfully, no one is eating those.” Tabby pushed the box farther away.
Ava sighed. “One bad night and suddenly nobody trusts me.”
Food arrived, pulling us into overlapping conversations and stolen bites.
Annie raised her glass. “Life update.”
Ava groaned. “Here we go.”
“I have a job,” Annie announced.
Tabby set down her fork. “Different from the one you already have?”
“I have a new job. This one actually speaks to me.”
“That’s what you said about the Pilates studio.”
“That was different.”
“And the marketing thing?” Ava asked.
“Don’t get me started.”
“So what is it now?” I asked.
“Dog bakery.”
We all looked at her.
“What now?” Tabby asked.
“I’m making artisanal dog treats.” Annie’s chin came up, waiting for somebody to argue.
“Oh.” Ava nodded slowly. “You sure about that?”
“Positive.”
Ava’s smile turned supportive. “Then I love it for you, babe.”
“Right?” Annie said, vindicated. “Thank you.”
Ava lifted her glass. “To Annie’s entrepreneurial spirit.”
“To me,” Annie agreed, and drank to herself.
Tabby leaned in. “Now for the guest of honor. We’re doing this properly.”
I groaned. “No speeches.”
“Short ones. Just let us.”
Annie pointed at me. “To Yasmine, who is an inspiration.”
“To Yasmine,” Ava said, “who actually does the thing.”
Tabby looked at me. “And comes back.”
I set my glass down. “I’m not dying.”
“Not the point,” Tabby said softly.
I smiled, wobbly around the edges, and picked it back up. “To my family.”
We clinked, the glasses meeting in a soft, uneven chorus.
Then I turned and saw her just inside the entrance.
She wore a stiff blouse that belonged in a different kind of room. She looked around like she didn’t understand the language of this place and didn’t respect it anyway.
My smile fell.
Her eyes found mine. Then she was standing beside the table.
“Mama.”
“So you’re alive,” she said.
“I—”
“You didn’t answer my calls.”
She looked at my friends, who stared back with varying degrees of speculation and caution.
“You can’t pick up your phone, but you’ve got time for a party.”
“How did you even know I was here?”
She didn’t answer that. “Your brother told me what happened.” Her voice went sharp. “I can’t believe you would say those things to him.”
I wasn’t even surprised. “Did he tell you why I said them, or does that part not matter?”
“There is no reason to speak to him that way.”
“He shoved me. I think that’s more than enough reason to say what I did.”
Beside me, Tabby set her glass down hard.
My mother blinked. Only once, but it was enough. Shaun had left that part out.
Of course he had.
“He shoved you?” Her gaze moved over me as though the evidence might still be visible beneath the silver sequins.
“I had a bruise the size of a fist on my back.”
For one brief second, my mother looked shaken. Then she put it away. “Well, I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Would you still be saying that if I’d shoved him?”
“Of course I would. You’re a grown woman, Yasmine. This rivalry between you and your brother is petty and getting old.”
“He put his hands on me.”
“And you always have to make everything bigger than it is,” she snapped. “Say what you want, but Shaun has never asked me to turn against you. You’re the one who keeps trying to make me choose sides.”
She kept talking about sides like I’d drawn the line between us. Like I was the one demanding a choice. But she had been choosing for years.
I just wanted, once, to be worth defending.
I stood slowly. “I’m not asking you to turn against him, Mama. I’m asking you to stand up for me.”
“Yasmine—”
“No,” I snapped. “You came here. You’re going to listen.”
Her mouth closed.
“I have this friend,” I said. “His father has Alzheimer’s. His father doesn’t remember him anymore. Not his name. Not his face. Nothing.”
Nobody at the table moved.
“But he goes to see him every week. They talk. They laugh. He keeps showing up even though I know it breaks his heart that there’s no memory of him left.
It’s all been wiped clean. I kept thinking about that.
About what it would feel like to sit across from your own parent and wait for some small piece of them to remember you. ”
Her eyes narrowed. “What does that have to do with me?”
My eyes watered, and though the words felt too ugly to say out loud, I knew I had to.
For every phone call I answered only to be told how I’d failed someone else, every apology dragged out of me to restore a peace I hadn’t broken, every time she had looked directly at my hurt and found a way to make it inconvenient.
I had to.
“I realized that if you forgot me, I’d feel relieved.”
It hung between us.
Cruel.
True.
Her hand tightened on her purse strap. Genuine hurt crossed her face.
“I know, Mama. I know how it sounds.”
“How can you say that to me?”
“You have made me feel like an afterthought my entire life.” My voice shook, but I didn’t lower it.
“And I keep trying to earn my way out of that. I keep thinking if I explain myself better or make myself easier to love, eventually you’ll choose me too.
But you don’t.” I swallowed. “And I’m done begging. ”
She stared at me. “Yasmine.”
Waiting.
For the apology.
For me to soften.
For the woman who would come to her senses and carry both sides of the hurt home.
“I leave for Antarctica in three weeks and I’ll be gone for six months. I’m not calling when I get there.” My throat closed around it, but I kept going. “And I’m not calling when I come back.”
Her chin lifted, but her eyes looked bright. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
Silence.
Real silence.
My eyes burned, but a warm hand closed over mine. I didn’t look to see whose.
“Now, excuse me. I’m having a good time with my friends, and I’d like to get back to it.”
She let out a short laugh. “Fine.”
But she didn’t move. Her gaze moved across the table, across my friends, then back to me.
I turned away.
“Madam.” Ferdinand’s voice came from behind me.
Great. I’d finally gotten us banned.
“Madam, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
I turned, but he wasn’t looking at me.
“Don’t touch me,” my mother snapped.
“I haven’t.” Ferdinand’s voice remained level. “But you are no longer welcome here.”
I sat down and picked up my fork like nothing had happened.
The jazz kept going.
Then came the click of her heels, sharp and fast across the floor. The door opened. Closed.
Ferdinand straightened a cuff and inclined his head. “Mesdames.” Then he went back to work.
Slowly, the room began stitching itself back together.
Ava started to rise. “Honey—”
“Sit down.”
She hesitated, then lowered herself into her chair.
Annie hadn’t taken her eyes off the door. “Say the word.”
“No need.” I breathed deep. “I’m okay.”
Nobody said anything. Somewhere behind us a cork came out of a bottle.
Tabby covered my hand with her own. “You sure?”
I picked up my drink. The liquid trembled inside it. I set it back down without touching it. “Ask me tomorrow.”
Her face softened. “Okay, hun.”
I looked around the table, at the untouched brownies no one trusted, and at the three women who hadn’t moved an inch the whole time.
My people.
“We’re not letting her ruin this,” I said.
Annie sat back. “You’re better than me.”
“I know.”
She snorted. “Humble too.”
“Yup.” I raised my glass. “Where were we?”
Annie answered before anyone else could. “Trying to figure out if Ferdinand is seeing anybody. Y’all see the way he stood on business just now?”
“Girl, stop,” Tabby said. “He could be your grandfather.”
“I like them with some seasoning.”
Ava laughed. “He’s also been married for thirty years.”
Annie squinted. “Happily?”
“He likes his wife, Annie.”
She clicked her tongue. “All the good ones.”
Ava reached for the brownie box. “Have one. It’ll cheer—”
“No,” Tabby said immediately.
I laughed. It came out wet and a little broken, but it was real.
And the night became ours again.