Chapter 4 #7
Across town, Dominique was not receiving news of Trinity’s reveal with calm dignity because Patrice had arrived at her brownstone just as the text came through, and Patrice’s timing, in Dominique’s opinion, was a public nuisance.
Dominique stood in the kitchen wearing a fitted black dress she had changed into after work, one hand pressed to the counter as she read Trinity’s message: I told him.
Not everything, but enough. He knows funeral home.
Patrice, who had come supposedly to return a scarf but had clearly stayed for emotional surveillance, leaned over from the other side of the island.
“Is that Miss Trinity?” she asked. Dominique locked the phone.
“It is none of your business.” Patrice narrowed her eyes.
“That means it is absolutely my business and probably romantic.” Dominique gave her a look.
“You know, there was a time younger relatives feared their elders.” “That time ended when elders started hiding funeral-home folders before dates and acting like nobody noticed.”
Dominique tried to scold her, but the phone buzzed again before she could gather enough authority.
Trinity’s second message appeared: He is trying.
But I saw it hit him. Dominique’s face softened, and Patrice’s teasing faded when she saw the change.
“He pulled back?” Patrice asked, quieter now.
Dominique read the message again, hearing the hurt in the words though Trinity had typed them neatly, as if punctuation could keep pain in a straight line.
“Not exactly,” she said. “That may be worse. A man can stay and still make you feel the distance he is fighting.” Patrice came around the island and stood beside her, suddenly less niece and more woman learning from a life she had not yet lived.
“You think Jamal will do the same?” Dominique looked toward the foyer where the flowers still sat in their silver vase, beautiful and incriminating.
“I think Jamal is good. I also think good men can still be uncomfortable.”
Patrice folded her arms, her expression thoughtful.
“Then maybe the question is not whether they get uncomfortable. Maybe the question is what they do after.” Dominique glanced at her, surprised by the steadiness in the observation.
“You are making far too much sense lately.” Patrice shrugged, a little pleased with herself.
“I have depth. It has been hidden under excellent hair and unpaid student loans.” Dominique laughed, grateful for the release, and the laughter helped but did not remove the dread pressing against her chest. She knew Jamal deserved the truth.
She also knew that once the words left her mouth, she would lose the small protective space where he could still look at her without funeral flowers appearing somewhere behind his eyes.
“I am supposed to see him tomorrow,” she said.
Patrice leaned against the counter. “Then tell him before he figures it out from a sympathy card and makes that confused man face.” Dominique sighed.
“What confused man face?” Patrice widened her eyes, stiffened her shoulders, and stared at the flower arrangement as if it had insulted her personally.
Dominique burst into laughter despite herself.
“That is disrespectful.” “That is research,” Patrice said.
“I have seen men walk into this place and suddenly forget how doors work.”
The next evening, Jamal arrived at Dominique’s brownstone with no idea that he was walking into a conversation already rehearsed twelve different ways and ruined eleven.
Dominique had spent the day in motion, working, correcting, comforting, approving, and pretending the evening was not waiting inside every task.
By the time she opened the door, she looked breathtaking in a soft black dress with gold at her ears and wrists, her hair falling in long waves, her face composed in the way that told him composure was costing her something.
Jamal noticed before she spoke. He stepped inside slowly, leaning down to kiss her cheek, then pausing close enough for her to feel his warmth.
“You look beautiful,” he said. “And nervous.” Dominique closed the door behind him with a small laugh that did not quite reach her eyes.
“That is a dangerous combination.” “It is,” he said, studying her.
“But I am more interested in the nervous part.”
She led him into the living room, where tea waited untouched and the lamps had been dimmed to create softness she no longer trusted.
Jamal sat beside her, but unlike other evenings, Dominique did not immediately reach for humor.
She folded her hands in her lap, then unfolded them because the gesture made her look too formal, and Jamal saw that too.
“Dominique,” he said gently, “you do not have to perform ease for me.” The words were so accurate that her eyes lifted to his sharply.
“You have been talking to Cedric?” “No,” he said, though his smile flickered.
“I have been paying attention to you.” She exhaled, half laugh, half surrender.
“That is becoming a problem.” “I hope it becomes a solution.” He reached for her hand then, and she let him take it because refusing the comfort would have been dishonest, even if accepting it made the coming words harder.
His palm was warm, his grip steady, and for a moment she allowed herself to simply sit there with a man who had become dear to her before she had fully decided what to do with that fact.
“I told you part of it before,” she began, looking at their joined hands because his face made the truth feel too exposed.
“About working with families after loss.” Jamal nodded, his thumb moving once over her knuckles.
“I remember.” “I need to say more.” Her voice was steady, but her fingers tightened around his.
“My business is not counseling, not exactly, and not event planning in the way people might think. I own Toussaint Family Funeral Services in the Bronx. I am a licensed funeral director. I help families plan services, make arrangements, handle final details, and get through days they never wanted to face.” The room changed.
Not loudly. Not dramatically. It changed in the smallest way, in Jamal’s stillness, in the way his thumb stopped moving, in the way his eyes remained on her but seemed to receive too much information at once.
Dominique watched every shift, because women who feared a reaction studied it like weather.
Jamal did not pull his hand away, and that mattered, but something crossed his face, a startled discomfort he did not quite hide quickly enough.
“Funeral services,” he said, voice low, almost careful.
“Yes.” “You own the funeral home.” “Yes.” He looked briefly toward the foyer, where the flowers sat beyond the archway, and Dominique saw the connection happen.
The family flowers. The late calls. The vague language.
The garment bag he had noticed. She felt his mind building the house she had tried to show him piece by piece, only now the lights were coming on in rooms he had not known existed.
“That is what the flowers are,” he said.
It was not a question. Dominique lifted her chin.
“Sometimes. Families send them. Sometimes I bring them home. Sometimes they are simply flowers. My life does not separate into neat sections just because other people would find that easier.”
Jamal looked back at her, and his expression was complicated enough to hurt.
“I wish you had told me sooner,” he said, echoing Cedric without knowing it, and Dominique smiled sadly because apparently good men arrived at the same painful sentence by different roads.
“I know,” she said. “I wish I had not been afraid to.” That answer pulled his attention fully back to her.
“Afraid of me?” “Afraid of the look,” she said.
“The one I just saw.” His face tightened, not defensively but with regret.
“I did not mean to give you a look.” “I know,” she said.
“That is why it hurts in a different way. You are not cruel. You are not trying to shame me. But I saw the word enter your mind, Jamal. I saw the flowers change meaning for you.” He opened his mouth, then closed it, and the fact that he did not rush into denial gave her more respect for him even as pain burned beneath her ribs.
“I am trying to be honest,” he said after a moment.
“It surprised me. I was not expecting that. My mind went straight to funerals, death, grief, caskets, all of it, and I hate that it did because I know you are still you. Sitting here, holding my hand, looking at me like you are bracing for impact.” Dominique’s eyes softened despite herself.
“That is because I am.” Jamal drew a slow breath, then shifted closer, not away.
“Then let me say this carefully. I am unsettled, yes. I am also still here. I still care about you. I still want to understand. But I need a moment to catch up to what you have known all along.” Dominique looked at him, wanting to be satisfied by that, wanting the ache to disappear because he had said the right things, but the truth was more complicated.
“A moment I can give you,” she said. “What I cannot do is apologize for the work.”