His Last Wife

“Please. That nigga just whipped. One night and he thinks he’s about to be up on me. Probably broke. Probably saw this house and thought he’d hit the jackpot. Well, he can have it if he wants it so bad, and he can have you too, since y’all so damn close.”

Val dropped the cup and walked away from the sink.

“Obatala! Obatala! Eni Orisa!” Mama Fee cried out. “Please help my child. Help my blind child to see!”

“Oh, stop with all that shit! Cry out to Obatala, Jesus, Jehovah, whatever and whoever, ain’t nothing going to change.”

Mama Fee was compelled to rush toward her baby with her finger pointed out at her. “You know what I can’t stand about you, girl? You always angry about the broken parts. Can’t focus on nothing but what you don’t have and what ain’t yours. Want something from everybody’s plate on your plate. World ain’t right unless something wrong. And the worst part is that you can’t even see when you got it all. When you got a good thing.”

“What’s my good thing, Mama Fee?” Val cried, with her tears coming down then. “You? This house? Ernest?” Val laughed like a madwoman. “My dead baby? My dead husband, who didn’t even fucking love me? What, Mama Fee? What’s my good thing? What can’t I see?” Val rushed toward her mother in her anger and the women met in the middle of the floor in a standoff neither of them was expecting, until Val said the words, “My father?”

“Don’t you bring up my dead. Now, you called on yours, but mine is resting in peace and I don’t reckon he needs to be woke because his child is having some tantrum,” Mama Fee said in a rare order to Val.

“Resting in peace? How?” Val asked. “When the people who killed him are out in the world, walking around free and probably got grandkids and retirement homes and Cadillacs? How is he resting in peace?”

“I couldn’t do anything about that. You know that. Those white folks: They killed my husband and there wasn’t nothing—”

“You could’ve done something,” Val cut in.

“What?”

“Fight,” Val said. “Fight! Fight! Fight with more than your roots and herbs and chanting and prayers. Burn down their fucking houses and fight for me!”

Mama Fee was crying at the shame of the past.

“I had you girls. I had to carry on. Had to show you how to move on,” Mama Fee defended herself.

“Did we? Did any of us move on?” Val asked, staring into Mama Fee’s eyes for an answer. “Two of your daughters are afraid to leave Memphis, one is married to an ex-con, and the other got so many babies neither one of us can name them. And the third—” Val grinned sadly and pointed at herself. “Look at her. Just look at her, Mama Fee!”

An arm straight out, Val cleared everything from the kitchen counter in a fit, sending glasses and silverware and trinkets crashing to the floor. She looked at the damage, turned, and left the room and broken pieces behind. In the middle of the mess was a Post-it note with a number Lorna had taken from a man who’d called the house that morning when Val was away. Agent Delgado was written above the name.

Mama Fee hadn’t noticed it before, but sh

e felt an itch beneath her left breast and thought she should pick up the little note. She took it upstairs and burned it in a pot with poke root at the foot of her bed.

That night was something like many others for Val, like déjà vu, the “already seen,” lived and relived. She’d gotten out late and vowed to stay out until there was some warm body she could find to break the chill on her own. And though that was an accurate accounting of her most recent activities, it wasn’t what made the behavior so familiar. The aching that drove her into a pair of killer platform stilettos and the tightest dress with oval cutouts at the hips she could find in the closet, hot pink lipstick and enough eye shadow and concealer to hide the dark circles around her eyes long after midnight, had been riding her for a long time. It always seemed like something wasn’t right. Couldn’t get right. Be just right. Not for her. And what was she supposed to do about it? Lie in bed all night and think? Cry? Feel? For what? She had to keep moving. And within the four walls with vibrations from an unending stream of music and bodies moving to it all around, just for a little while she wouldn’t have to think, cry, or feel anything. She could focus on what she could do to fix things. Numb herself just enough to come up with a plan. Because that’s what she needed.

So, she was back at the bar. Well, a bar. This one was in one of those updated, chic lounges that hosted cliques of professionals who preferred to hide the heavy drinking and dirty dancing they’d consider immature or reckless once they exited the city and started making the long drive back to the suburbs, some place more upscale than a nightclub. It was the kind of place where thirtysomething single ladies sat at the bar in boring Ann Taylor LOFT dresses with two layers of shape wear beneath them, praying some “good catch” would speak to them, and fortysomething “good catch” guys walked in with their porky chins up and portly chests poked out, praying some “easy catch” would actually fall for their weak lines. Because of this ironic mix of corporate desperation, the drinks were strong and the service was friendly. Val sat at the bar and turned out toward the room with her third drink in her hand. While this mix of entertainment and attention could usually settle much of what was on Val’s mind, she couldn’t seem to get herself together that night. Maybe it was the parade of information that strung her through the day. The last twelve-plus hours led her from Kerry to Leaf to Mama Fee and whatever Ernest was. Every situation had a new problem she couldn’t solve easily or without guilt. She couldn’t understand how she’d actually felt bad about asking Kerry for the ten thousand dollars to pay Coreen. It was what was best for both of them, for all of them. But why was it so heavy on her heart? And just when a few sips made her cover up her feelings with lies or slick sentiments, she’d move on to Leaf and his suspicions about Thirjane and who really killed Jamison. She told herself she didn’t care who did it or why, but she wondered. Could feel Jamison’s lips on her back and wondered. Why? More sips. More lies and slick sentiments, but then there was Mama Fee and all of the issues Val could never solve between them. She loved her mother as much as she could, as much as she knew how, but it was so much to hate her for, to box on her, to blame. Val knew this was wrong; she always did. But who else could be the punching bag? Who else would know the exact role to play to drag out all of Val’s emotions and help her line them up as crosses to bear? It was a dramatic affair that had tired most everyone else in Val’s life. Friends. Family. Lovers. It certainly ran Jamison off. But Mama Fee always stuck around. Two more sips and lies about that relationship would come. Then slick sentiments about how bad of a mother Mama Fee was, anyway. Then there was Ernest. And Val needed a shot for that one. Who the hell was he? Who the hell did he think he was? Talking about he’d be back when she needed him. He’d already come back—from the past or whenever. And anyway, she didn’t care to remember when or how she’d known him. The point was, she was sending him away again. Why couldn’t he get that?

“I see you have some things on your mind, sweetheart,” Val heard from behind.

She didn’t move, though. Took two breaths before glancing over the wrong shoulder purposefully.

“I’m over here, dear,” the voice called in her right ear, sounding surprised at the slow and incorrect reaction. This was a game of patience and anticipation.

“I know where you are,” Val said, trying to sound aggravated, annoyed. “I was looking to see if you were maybe talking to someone else. I hoped you were.”

Across from Val’s seat at the white lacquer bar that looked like it was shipped from some closing nightclub in Miami, was a table filled with white women. She studied them hard to see their reaction to whoever was sitting beside her. One glanced over and then whispered something to her friend, who then glanced over and then whispered something to the woman on her other side. This chain went on until all eyes were on Val’s neighbor, each dragging behind them a sliver of thirst and unmistakable interest in the inhabitant. Val knew one of two things must be true about him without even looking: He was either very rich or very famous. She could tell from his voice that he was black. As such, fortune and fame would stand as the only reasons a table full of white women would be looking at him.

“Oh, shit,” he joked. “All the women in this club, and I come up to the one who’s going through a breakup! Just my luck.”

“Please, I haven’t been through a breakup since I was sixteen and had Raisinets for tits. Now, I’m full grown. I just cut my losses and move on,” Val said, rather seductively.

“Guess my luck is finally paying off, then. I’m Chuck.” A light brown hand slid right into Val’s point of view, begging for attention and connection.

Val laughed at how easy this game always was and ignored the gesture. Instead, she turned over her right shoulder for a first glance.

Her heart nearly stopped at what she was seeing. That brown hand was connected to a brown body in a blue, moderately priced and poorly tailored suit. The man was handsome, though. The face was familiar. Too familiar.