Reel (Hollywood Renaissance 1)

“Amen,” Mama says at the end of the prayer. “God got both of my girls. I don’t have any doubt.”

“Ms. Mathis,” the nurse says. “You need to go to your room. Mrs. Olson, we need to begin the preparation.”

Terry and I look at one another, and I see a measure of the fear return. I feel it, too, now that we are really about to do this. Her recovery will be harder, but my surgery is more invasive. Through laparoscopic surgery, they will remove her kidney from an incision just below her belly button. During mine, which also should take about three hours, they’ll enter through my lower abdomen, and my kidneys will actually be left in place, and nearby blood vessels used to attach her kidney to one of mine.

Three hours, and my life will be changed.

“You ready?” Terry asks, smiling tremulously.

I nod, the reality of what we are about to do landing on me like a house. “Thank you, T.”

“I’ll see you on the other side.” She laughs, her voice shaking.

The nurse shoos me out and down the hall to my hospital room where a team waits, ready to prepare me for my surgery.

“I’m here,” Canon says, coming to the door, looking more flustered than I’ve ever seen him. “Sorry I cut it close. Galaxy had a million questions and didn’t want to let me off the phone.”

“We’re about to start preparations,” the nurse says sternly. “You’ll have to leave, Mr. Holt.”

“Please,” I beg from the hospital bed. “Just one minute.”

“One minute,” she relents. “We need to get in your IV and get you prepped.”

Canon flashes her a grateful smile and walks over to the bed, sitting down and taking my hand.

“How’d it go talking to your sister?” he asks, his voice low and concerned.

“It was good.” I laugh ruefully. “I hate it took me needing an organ to bring us back together, and I’m sure we still have issues to work through, but I needed to go into this with a clear heart. And now I can.”

“I’m glad.” His eyes sober, his full lips flattening into a line. “Are you scared?”

“Are you?” I counter with a smile.

“Yeah. I know you’ll be fine, but I just . . .” A frown disrupts the smooth arch of his brows. “You’ve become the most important part of my life. I want this over. I want your body to accept the kidney. For us to know it won’t reject it. For you to start healing.”

“You want a lot.”

“Just you.” His smile is tender and warm, and something I never would have thought I’d see from the man who intimidated me the first night we met. “I—”

Before he can say it, I say it first this time. “I love you, Canon.”

He swallows, blinks and kisses my forehead, lingering like he’s having to drag himself away. “I love you back.”

68

Canon

Neevah’s laughter floats down to me from upstairs when I walk in the front door. Thoughts of all it will take to finish Dessi Blue—shoot the last few scenes, go into post-production, editing, not to mention promotion and the work Monk still needs to do on the score—crowd my mind. A lot of time has passed since the day I found that little green sign footnoting Dessi’s life on Highway 31. There have been a series of delays, stops and starts, but the fire to tell her story, which is the story of so many Black performers from that era, is no less bright than the day I found her. Once Neevah is cleared to finish, and not a minute before, we will get it done. I didn’t just find one amazing woman when I saw that sign. I found two. The other one is upstairs, filling my house, which used to be so empty; hell, lonely, with the sound of her happiness. I want to see that sound on her face, so I set aside all the to-dos that came out of our meeting with Galaxy, and quietly make my way up the stairs.

I pause in the door, watching her on the bed. She’s lying on her stomach, her legs bent and swinging back and forth as she grins at her iPad screen. Her niece, Quianna, whom I think looks as much like Neevah as she does Terry, laughs, displaying her new braces.

“So you think Canon will be okay if I come visit for a few weeks this summer?” Quianna asks.

“I think he will be,” I speak up, walking farther into the room and into the camera’s view.

“Hey, Canon!” The young girl’s pretty face brightens. “I won’t stay long, and I won’t break anything.”

“You have to ask your parents first,” Neevah says, her chin resting in her palm.

“Oh, you know she already did,” Terry says, walking into the frame. “Think I’ll turn down some time where I’m not worrying about this child? Shoot, I’ll be what? Unbothered.”