Chapter 4 #2
“I know,” Dominique said at last, and the honesty in her voice made Patrice stop smiling.
“That is the problem. If Jamal were foolish, I would not care. If he were shallow, I would not be afraid of disappointing him. But he is not foolish, and he is not shallow, and every time he looks at me like I am somebody he wants to keep learning, I feel like I should hand him the whole book before he gets attached to the chapters he already likes.” Patrice was quiet for once, her usual quick answers softened by the vulnerability she heard.
Dominique rarely admitted fear plainly. She wrapped it in jokes, work, beauty, confidence, or motion.
Hearing it exposed made Patrice treat it carefully.
“Maybe he will handle it,” she said. Dominique gave a small, sad smile.
“Maybe. But handling a fact in conversation and living near it are two different things. A man can respect what I do and still not want funeral flowers in the foyer when he comes to kiss me goodnight.”
Patrice looked toward the hallway where two large floral sprays had just arrived, their pale blooms wrapped in plastic and carried with the efficiency of people who knew grief often arrived on a schedule even when emotions did not.
“Then he needs to learn that those flowers do not mean what he thinks they mean,” she said.
“To you, they are love, care, memory, family, service. To somebody outside this world, I get it, they might feel heavy. But that does not mean you make yourself smaller so he can stay comfortable.” Dominique studied her niece with a mixture of pride and irritation.
“When did you become this wise?” Patrice grinned.
“I have always been wise. You were distracted by my shopping habits.” Dominique reached for the tea and shook her head, but something in her chest eased.
The advice did not remove the fear, yet it gave the fear company, and sometimes that was enough to get a woman through the next hour.
By early evening, Cedric was in Harlem, seated in his apartment with architectural drawings spread across the dining table and Trinity’s unanswered truth occupying more space than the blueprints.
He had spent the day telling himself he was not troubled, only curious, but the distinction had thinned by the time the city lights began appearing beyond his windows.
He liked Trinity too much to pretend he had not noticed her careful language.
Families. Services. Responsibility. Difficult days.
Business. She answered honestly, but never completely, and because he respected her, he had not pushed.
Still, respect did not erase the growing sense that he was standing outside a door she had not opened.
He thought of her hand in his, the warmth of her mouth beneath his, the way her eyes sometimes softened right before she changed the subject, and he wondered what could make a woman so confident become so careful.
He called her after eight, not intending to force anything, only needing to hear her voice because, despite the questions, or perhaps because of them, missing her had become part of his evening.
Trinity answered on the third ring, and the sound of her greeting moved through him with the familiar pleasure he no longer bothered denying.
“You sound like you are still at work,” he said after a moment, hearing the faint echo behind her voice.
“I am,” she replied, and he could picture her then, elegant even when tired, moving through some office or corridor with purpose in her steps and burdens she did not fully name.
“Long day?” “Very.” She paused, and he heard something shift, not in the room, but in her willingness.
“Cedric, about what you asked me yesterday.” He leaned back slowly, his attention sharpening.
“You do not have to answer tonight.” “I know,” she said. “That is part of why I want to.”
The silence that followed did not feel empty.
It felt like both of them had stepped closer to a threshold.
Trinity stood in her office, one hand resting on the edge of her desk while the garment bag still hung behind her and the service programs waited in neat stacks nearby.
Cedric sat in Harlem with blueprints spread before him, but his eyes were no longer on the paper.
“I work with families,” she began, and this time the phrase sounded different because she knew she could not hide behind it for long.
“Families who are making difficult decisions. Families who need guidance, order, dignity, and someone calm enough to help them when emotions are overwhelming.” Cedric listened without interrupting, and the steadiness of his silence gave her courage and frightened her at the same time.
“That sounds like what I have sensed,” he said gently.
“You carry people through hard places.” Trinity closed her eyes for a second, not to escape, but to gather herself. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”
He waited, sensing there was more, and Trinity heard the waiting.
It was not impatience. It was invitation.
That made the next words harder. “It is not something I usually explain quickly,” she continued.
“People hear certain words and begin imagining things before they understand the work, the families, the care, the responsibility.” Cedric’s brow drew together, not with suspicion, but with concern that she was bracing for judgment from him.
“Trinity,” he said, his voice lowering, “whatever it is, you do not have to prepare me like I am a child.” The statement was kind, but it struck a tender place because part of her feared men did become childlike around death, not cruelly, not intentionally, but unsettled in ways that made grown women feel suddenly responsible for managing their discomfort.
She opened her eyes and looked across her office at the flowers, the black fabric, the evidence of her life.
“I am not preparing you like a child,” she said softly.
“I am trying to protect the woman you have been getting to know from being swallowed by whatever image comes into your mind first.”
That sentence changed something between them.
Cedric heard the vulnerability beneath her control, and his irritation at not knowing dissolved into something more careful.
“Then tell me how to see it,” he said. Trinity’s breath caught, because that was not the response she expected.
It was not the response other men had given.
Most had wanted the simplest label, the fastest conclusion, the easiest reason to step back.
Cedric was asking for the lens before the picture.
“Not tonight,” she said, not because she was retreating, but because she knew the whole truth deserved a room, not a phone line between two tired adults.
“Soon. In person.” Cedric’s voice remained steady, but warmer.
“All right. In person.” Neither spoke for a moment, and then he added, “For what it is worth, I am not looking for a reason to think less of you.” Trinity swallowed against the sudden emotion in her throat.
“I hope you remember that,” she said. “So do I,” he answered, and the honesty in that reply stayed with her long after the call ended.
In Queens, Jamal was reaching a similar edge with Dominique, though their approach came wrapped in more humor because Dominique seemed incapable of walking toward fear without carrying a joke like a handbag.
He had called to confirm plans for later in the week, but the conversation drifted toward work when she mentioned leaving the office late again.
“You work more than some hospitals,” he said, and she laughed in the way she did when an observation came too close.
“That sounds like judgment.” “That sounds like concern wearing a nice jacket.” “Concern has jackets now?” “Mine does.” Dominique smiled into the phone despite the tension collecting beneath her ribs.
She was in her brownstone kitchen, still in her work dress, her heels abandoned near the island, a sympathy arrangement from the funeral home sitting near the hallway because a family had insisted she take it home.
The flowers were cream and gold, soft and lovely, and as Jamal spoke, she found herself looking at them as if they were waiting for introduction.
“What are you looking at?” Jamal asked, and the question startled her because he could hear the shift in her attention.
Dominique turned away from the flowers and leaned against the counter.
“How do you know I am looking at something?” “Because you stopped arguing with me, and that is not like you.” She laughed, but the laugh did not fully land.
“I am looking at flowers.” “Flowers?” His voice warmed.
“Should I be jealous?” “Of flowers?” “Depends on who sent them.” Dominique closed her eyes briefly, because there it was, the world she lived in brushing directly against the world he imagined.
“A family,” she said. Jamal was quiet for a moment, probably trying to fit the answer into the pattern he had been building.
“A grateful family?” “Yes.” “For your work?” She looked back at the arrangement, at the delicate petals and careful design, and answered with more truth than she had given before. “Yes.”