His Last Wife

“Oh, you want some too?” Val said. Any Buckhead bourgeoisie Val had garnered during her days as the first lady of Atlanta were gone from her then. She was pointing her index fingers at their foreheads and everything.

Luckily, Kerry was there to calm her.

“Wait! Wait!” Kerry tried. “I don’t think you understand. I am not here to speak to your people or to help them. I am here to find Jamison Taylor. I was told he was here and that’s it. When will I see him?”

“In time, my sister. You must believe,” Brother Krishna said, trying to take Kerry’s hand.

“I need a definite date and time. I came all this way and I need to see him. Now,” Kerry said firmly.

“Let’s get out of here, Kerry,” Val said. “These people are fucking crazy.”

“Excuse your words, sister,” Nzingha ordered Val.

“I have something for you to excuse,” Val said.

“When?” Kerry posed again loud enough to stop their bickering.

“Tomorrow,” Brother Krishna said nervously. “Tomorrow will be the time.”

Back at the hotel, Val and Kerry were sitting on the bed in Val and Ernest’s room explaining what had happened at the compound in words that sounded like something out of a science-fiction movie. Not one part of it sounded real—well, maybe the part about Val cursing the holy man out. Ernest sat on the small pullout couch, trying to keep up with it all.

“It was just fast. I was standing there and then he said—he claimed I’d seen Jamison,” Kerry explained to Ernest.

“Why would he do that?” Ernest asked.

“Because he’s fucking nuts. Because they were all nuts,” Val said.

“Did you think the same thing, Kerry?” Ernest posed, trying to ignore one of Val’s outbursts.

“Not crazy. Different. They were different.”

“Different? Please. Dude was up in there talking equality for all, when he was in the big-ass building with air-conditioning and three teenage girls running around behind him.”

“So?” Kerry said to Val.

“So, did you see his nails? He ain’t building no houses. He ain’t working in no fields, and I doubt those girls are just feeding him fruit and putting flowers around his neck. I know Nzingha ain’t.”

“I doubt that,” Kerry said.

“Humphf.”

“Anyway,” Kerry continued. “The main thing was that they said Jamison was there. So, different or weird or crazy, that’s all I care about. That’s why I came. Right?” She looked at Val to remind her of the little speech she’d given Kerry before they left for the compound.

“Right, but that still doesn’t get to what the deal was there. And where was Baba Seti?” Val added.

“He wasn’t there?” Ernest said.

“No. Well, maybe. No one was really talking about him. It was like he didn’t exist. I don’t know and I’m too exhausted to worry about it.” Kerry rubbed her forehead and got up from the bed. “Let me go to this room and see about this little boy. I know he’ll be looking for me soon.”

“I doubt it,” Ernest said. “He was pretty tired when we got in from the beach. Little buddy went hard in the water. Fun kid.”

“Really?” Kerry asked. The whole time she’d been away she’d been worrying about him, wondering if he’d started asking for her or crying.

“Yeah. I took him to the restaurant downstairs to get a little dinner before we came upstairs and he was going on and on about how much he loves it here. He asked me if people live here or if it’s just for vacation. That little guy asks some interesting questions. You know he asked me if I knew his father? I told him no, but that I heard he was a great mayor who did a lot for Atlanta. He told me he loved the beach so much because he remembered his father taking him to a beach just like the one here.”

Kerry held back tears as she stood there at the door listening to Ernest recounting his time with Tyrian. She remembered that trip Jamison took Tyrian on. Just the two of them went to the Dominican Republic after the divorce. Kerry told Jamison she felt he hadn’t been spending enough time with him and Jamison booked the trip. He’d called it the boys’ trip. When they got back, every single picture Jamison had taken on Tyrian’s iPad was on the beach.

When Kerry got back to her room that night, she opened the blinds at the window and got into bed with Tyrian. She sang a song Thirjane used to sing to her when she was just a girl and longed for the past when things weren’t simpler, but just the same.