“Hey.” Takira loops her arm around my shoulders and pulls me close. “It’s gonna work out. Terry’s still making her way through all the tests, right?”
“Yeah, she and Mama had to go back, but Dr. Okafor is coordinating with labs there in North Carolina for the rest of the process. If she’s a match, there’s a transplant center not far from Clearview.”
“You’d fly there?”
“Yeah. The transplant is actually much harder on the donor than the recipient. If Terry’s a match, she won’t be able to travel right after the transplant. She’ll be out of work for up to six weeks. It’ll be better for her to be at home near her family. And she has Quianna to take care of, so getting stuck out here wouldn’t be great.”
“How were things between you guys when she was here?”
“It was . . . off and on. One minute I’d feel like we were making some progress, and the next we’d be at each other’s throats. There’s a lot we should have sorted through before now. It’s like a leg that should have healed a long time ago, and now it’s all rotty, but you can’t cut it off, so you still have to save it.”
“You do see me trying to eat, right?” Takira points to her popcorn. “And all this rotten limb talk ain’t helping.”
“Well you get my point,” I say, laughing and scooping up a handful of blueberries. “As much as I hate that I had to go on dialysis, even if just temporarily, I’m glad they came to see me in the hospital. We need to sort through some of this before her kidney is inside of me.”
“You guys considering counseling?”
“We actually are, which is something we should have done a long time ago, but counseling is part of the screening process before you donate. Usually just to make sure the donor is certain about giving up an organ and understands the risks, but for us, considering that we’ve been estranged, Dr. Okafor recommends we have at least a few sessions together.”
“And that’s if she’s a match, right?”
“Well, the counseling I think we need to do even if she isn’t. I’m open to that and think it’s overdue. I want to connect with my family again without this between us. I mean, that happened. We can’t undo what they did, and there’s a child, so there’s no forgetting, but you have to remember something before you can forgive it. Forgiving is harder than forgetting. Forgetting would be the oblivion of never knowing how you hurt me. Forgiving is accepting you hurt me, deciding that I’m going to keep loving you anyway.”
“And trust that you won’t do it again,” Takira murmurs. “Will you ever trust your sister?”
“I hope I can. We were soooo young, and both of us had emotions we didn’t know how to handle. You’re just a loaded weapon at that age. Old enough to drive and have sex and get into a bunch of shit that’s legal to do without a fully developed frontal lobe.”
“Where’s Brandon in all this?”
“I don’t care about him. I know that sounds bad, but he was a teenage crush I probably would have grown out of anyway. He got caught in the crossfire, but this is less about him than about restoring a relationship with my sister, and I hope, establishing one with my niece. If that can happen, it will be one good thing that comes out of this fiasco.”
“Speaking of fiasco, I’m here for this Housewives reunion show.” She points the remote at the television, frowning when nothing happens. “Damn this sophisticated technology. How are we supposed to know how to operate all this stuff?”
I take the remote and press the on button, bringing the screen to life. “That’s step one.”
“I hate you.”
“And yet, here you are. Now where do we find this debacle for the culture?” I start flipping through channels, pausing on a shampoo commercial featuring a stunning woman.
Camille Hensley.
She looks into the camera, her tawny brown eyes coy and flirty, and flicks a fall of long, shining, highlighted hair over one smooth, golden shoulder. She looks like every shampoo fantasy come to life.
“You know that’s a weave,” Takira says waspishly. “I mean, I make my living off extensions, so I ain’t trying to hate, but she walk around like she—”
“Shhh! I want to hear.”
The commercial is actually almost over, so we only catch the tail end of what she has to say.
“And I’m so honored to offer this all-natural product for us,” she says. “Designed with black hair in mind. Give it a try and in no time . . .” She twirls, the long hair fanning out in a shimmering arc. “Beautiful.”
The commercial changes into another for dishwashing liquid, but I can’t stop seeing all that beautiful hair. That flawless skin. Involuntarily, I reach up to touch the headscarf I’m rarely without lately. I’ve lost so much hair, I don’t even want to look most days. I’ve lost hair before and it’s always grown back, but never this much. And the rash has spread everywhere. I find myself hiding my body from Canon, and I hate it.