Chapter 13
Ezekiel
I saw when Noa’s Infiniti pulled up to the cemetery and of course I got wind of the grave she was planning on visiting this trip.
Every inch of the cemetery was mine to keep so no one could come and visit without me knowing about it first, no matter the time of day.
I was down in the undertaker’s room at the funeral home filing away paperwork on Judge Samson when I got the call, so I immediately made my way over.
The fact that she was visiting my aunt’s grave told me that she was on track to finding out much more. I could see why Bishop and Solomon were on guard and ready to crash out over her presence. She was a persistent lil something, but I didn’t expect anything else from her.
I swiftly made my way to Vivienne’s grave but before approaching it I stood back just to watch her from a distance. Pulling out my phone I went to our Magnolia security app, then clicked on the emblem that was on her headstone and watched Noa closely as she stood there… staring and taking pictures.
I clicked on the backend tab for the cemetery and temporarily blocked my aunt’s security camera eye.
I didn’t want anyone else to know that she was here other than me, especially after last night with Bishop and Solomon.
Both of their hands were itching to get at her, and it wasn’t going down like that on my watch.
Slowly approaching her from behind, I continued to watch her intently periodically glancing down at the gravesites I was passing along the way.
Right as I got behind her, she turned around.
Had it been anybody else, my presence would have startled them but not Noa.
She looked at me almost as if she expected it to be me.
“You know her personally?”
I didn’t respond right away as thoughts of my aunt’s death started to creep into my mind. Pushing them back, I waited a few seconds before saying, “Of course.”
“Who was she to you?”
“My aunt.”
When I said that Noa turned around and looked at me with sadness in her eyes.
“She was murdered because of the things she shouldn’t have known?”
“Some things shouldn’t be spoken on.”
“Were those the same things my dad died over?”
“Knowledge is power. When you’re powerful, you’re feared. When you’re feared by those with power you put yourself in harm’s way.”
I wasn’t here to tell her what she wanted to know. I was here to tell her what she needed to know. We stood there, side-by-side staring at Vivienne’s headstone in silence. Crimson blooms softly fell to the ground covering her grave…a few of them landed on top of her headstone.
“Does the pain of losing someone ever stop hurting?”
I didn’t know how to reply to that at first because I had learned a long time ago how to stop the pain from losing those that I loved.
When you dealt with death every day, you became numb to it.
I was more than numb to the pain of loss, it was dead to me.
I looked up at my aunt’s headstone and for the first time I felt a twinge of something different yet slightly familiar.
Her headstone didn’t just symbolize another buried secret, it was proof that her life was cut short and I, at a young age, took part in her demise. That was something that haunted me daily but today, it hurt and it was a feeling I hadn’t felt in decades.
“Nah. It only stops genuinely hurting once you’ve joined them.”
Noa didn’t say anything, she just stood there staring down with sadness in her eyes like she personally knew her.
“The fresh flowers…did you put them there.”
“I always replace them before they ever get the chance to wither.” I replied as I looked at the fresh bouquet of flowers Noa had placed next to the ones I had already had there.
“Since I got here, I’ve never felt the type of pain I feel about my dad’s passing.
You already know I never got to know him so in a way I didn’t feel any kind of attachment to him.
But coming here and feeling like he died because he may have known something so important that it cost him his life is breaking my heart in ways I never would’ve imagined.
His death is hitting me different than losing my mom over natural causes.
His feels so tragic…like Vivienne’s. How do you manage? How do you move forward?”
Hearing that she thought her mother died of natural causes made me feel a pinch of sadness for her because that was hardly the case. Had Celeste left all things pertaining to Magnolia Graves here in the graves, she’d still be alive to this day.
“You don’t,” I replied. “You just get better at pretending you have.”
Noa looked over to me and did something I didn’t expect.
She rubbed my shoulder in an empathic way instantly causing my entire body to go stiff.
Showing and receiving affection was something I didn’t partake in.
Even though I loved my mother and sister immensely I didn’t show them affection so for her to give it to me took me by surprise.
Had she been anybody else, I would’ve made sure that they never got the opportunity to do that again, but Noa… I let it slide.
“I received a letter at the hotel…you know anything about it?”
“Should I?”
“So, you didn’t write it?”
“Obviously…what did it say?”
Just that fast I’d gone from receiving affection to being back in a dark space mentally.
She had piqued my full interest. Of course, it was no secret that every Dubois knew where she was staying at, right down to her room number, but to hear that she’d received a letter from someone, and I didn’t know about it first, was troubling. Someone had some explaining to do.
She handed me a small envelope, and I couldn’t open it fast enough even though I took my time so that I wouldn’t come across as anxious.
I read it, then handed it back to her. Instantly, I was seeing red.
I thought I had made it clear to Bishop and Solomon last night that I had things under control.
There was no one else beside them or my father that would’ve done this and I was ready to shut the fucking town down behind it. My phone started vibrating in my pocket, but now wasn’t the time to get distracted, nothing was more important than the conversation I was having right now.
“Am I in danger, Ezekiel? Is someone going to hurt me because I’m here?”
“Depends on why you’re here?”
That was the question I needed to know the honest answer to the most.
“I came to see where my parents are from. My mom didn’t like to talk about Magnolia Graves and from the pictures she had and the research I’d done over the years, I feel like I’m owed that if nothing else. Now, I feel like I’m playing a mean game of chess, I just don’t know with who.”
“Some powerful players. Now you have come and seen…you know who your father was. It’s time you do as the letter says.”
“You think I should leave?”
“I know you should.”
“Or maybe I should do what my mom couldn’t and finish what my dad started,” she rebutted.
She had this challenging defiant side to her that was hard to ignore.
It made my dick thump. “I have a right to know what happened to my dad and I’m not going to let up until I find out.
I will find out what he knew, and I know it’s going to lead me right to who did it. ”
“Suit yourself.”
“So that’s it? That’s all you have to say? I get a threatening letter, and you maybe didn’t write it, but I know you know why I got it and all you can say is suit myself…what are you implying?”
She was really trying to test me and take me there. I wasn’t used to people especially women testing me like that. Everyone knew better than that, except for Noa.
“Isaiah didn’t know when to stop. He didn’t listen to the warnings…he didn’t take heed. You’re just like him, Noa. I’d hate to see you suffer the same faith as him simply because you’re hardheaded.”
I walked away briskly, ending the conversation hoping that I’d said enough for her to understand that it was time for her to go.
The only way I was going to be able to protect her was to send her back to where she came from before she dug a little further and I’d be forced to do something that I really didn’t want to do.
Once I made it out of the cemetery, I checked my phone and saw that I had missing calls from both August and my mother. I already knew what they both wanted, but my mental could only deal with my mother, so I called her back.
“Now son…I get you putting hands on Solomon. He asks for it like a child begging for candy, but pulling a gun out on your uncle…” My mother went in as soon as she answered the phone.
“Was the most disrespectful shit you could’ve done, gotdamn it!” August roared in the background. “Shit wouldn’t went down like that had I been there.”
“Don’t matter who it is…it’s going down exactly like that each and every time my peace is disturbed.”
“See Del, that’s that shit I was telling you. He don’ got too big for his britches. Damn boy don’ forgot his muthafuckin’ place. And the day you pull a weapon out on me gon’ be yo’ last!” August yelled.
“I can head home now, and he can try me too.” I rebutted, jaw twitching and anger spiking.
“Now the both of you need to wait just a damn minute!” My mother interrupted. “Babe, calm down. I didn’t call him for you to make this go left…and son, don’t be disrespectful to your father.”
“Mother, respectfully and disrespectfully…ain’t no man or woman EVER walking into my shit thinking is a G to disrespect me. I was taught to be a man before anything else.”
“Understood son, and we all know how Bishop and can be…especially when he’s been drinking.”
“Nah, fuck allat!” August interrupted but my mother put him in his place.