Should Have Known Better

“Read a book?” she asked, frowning. “I can read already. Those are kiddie books.”

“There are plenty of other books we can read.” I put my arm over her shoulder and she rested her head against my chest. “We can even read poems.”

“You know any poems?”

“Oh, I meant we need to get some books to read poems,” I said, laughing. “I memorized some poems . . . when I was about your age, but I don’t remember any of them anymore.”

“None of them?”

I looked up and rested my head on the top of the couch.

“Hum . . . There was this one by Maya Angelou that I memorized for a talent show I was in. I don’t know if I remember the whole thing. It was called ‘Phenomenal Woman.’ ”

“Phenom—?”

“Phenomenal.”

“Phenomenal. What does that mean?”

“I means someone who’s special. Not common. Not like everyone else,” I said. “Kind of like you.”

“Really?” She looked up at me. “You think I’m special?”

“You’re strong, Cheyenne. You’re strong and smart. You don’t take any mess. Not from me. Not from your brother. Not from your father. Not from anyone.”

Cheyenne and I started laughing.

“You don’t remember it, Mama? Come on, say it! You can try!”

“Oh . . . it was so long ago,” I started. “It opened kind of like—‘Pretty women wonder where my secret lies . . . I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size . . .” I tickled Cheyenne’s stomach and looked at the ceiling trying to remember the rest of the poem. I got through a good bit of it. I know I left out a line somewhere, but the last, I could never forget the last lines: “‘It’s in the click of my heels/The bend of my hair/the palm of my hand/The need of my care,/ ’Cause I’m a woman/Phenomenally./Phenomenal woman,/That’s me.’”

I smiled at my half-baked sunrise performance and I looked down at Cheyenne expecting a round of applause or a smile, but she was fast asleep. Nestled under my arm and fast asleep.

I watched her and thought to carry her upstairs, but my baby girl, who was soon going to be a young woman, was growing so fast, and even with her lanky arms and legs, I knew we wouldn’t make it past the first step.

I rested my head on top of hers and went to sleep, too.

In Essence® bestselling author Grace Octavia’s most exciting, volatile novel yet, charismatic bad boy mayor Jamison Jackson has finally taken a spectacular fall. But that doesn’t mean he’s going down alone . . .

Don’t miss

His Last Wife

On sale in November 2014!

Driving into Atlanta that morning after refusing the aid of John the Conqueror’s bloom, Val was preparing to cover up a murdered politician’s scandal. Ironically, she’d once been in the same shoes as the woman who was waiting for her in a back booth at the Buckhead Diner. But that was when she was trying to get everything she had. Now she just wanted to protect it.

“So, you’re Coreen,” she said, sliding into a booth across

from a petite, light-skinned woman with a fiery red bob that swooped over her right eye.

Coreen hardly smiled as a response.

Neither woman held out her hand for salutations. They’d slept with the same man years apart, but still there was envy simmering between them. One had the baby. The other had the ring. Neither had the man.

“Do you have my money?” Coreen asked tightly.

“Well, let’s order some drinks, a little food, before we get down to business,” Val said, beckoning the waiter over to the table with a dubious smile Coreen could easily read.