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Denita and I both stared at him.
“My bad, but shit. I’m worried about her,” he admitted.
I reached for his hand. “I’m okay. I’m good.”
He stared down at me as I lay on the examining table in the little clinic room in our home. “Okay. I…okay.”
“I understand how Ray feels. Everyone at our house is excited like we’re having a baby!” Denita gushed.
After my stepmothers left—Pauline had accompanied Denita, bringing a gorgeous lemon pound cake with her—Ray made me lie down in our bed while he sat beside me in silence holding my hand. I was silent, too, my mind on everything and anything. He seemed to be deep in contemplation as well.
When he finally spoke, he startled me a bit. I suppose I really was on edge, but who could blame me?
“I think…I think we should fake your death. I’ll take you to an island or something, get you away from all this shit.”
“Fake my death? How? Wouldn’t there need to be a body?” I asked.
“Yes and no. Clients are given proof, but that could be a photo. A body would be more convincing, though. I could get one.”
“How? Where?”
He turned to lock eyes with me, and the look on his face told me all I needed to know.
“Hell no! You’re not going to kill some random fat woman in order to save my life. Are you insane?!”
“I’d make sure they had it coming. It’d be a random bad person.”
“Hell. No. I don’t need that on my conscious.”
“And to answer your question, I am insane. If I lose you, I’ma become diabolically mentally ill. Like, cartoonishly unhinged.”
“Then protect me.”
“I’m trying to!”
“I know, but I assume my family would need to believe I’m dead, too. I don’t want to put them through that, especially my dad. It’d kill him.”
“It would only be temporary until we find the client.”
“And what happens when you find them? You kill them and it all goes away?”
He shook his head. “No, I make them cancel the order and then I kill them.”
I thought for a moment and shook my head. “No. I’m fine here. You talking like this is gonna send my blood pressure through the roof. Just…just do what you’ve been doing. Keep loving me and keep me safe.”
“A’ight, baby. I got you.”
His phone chimed, and after he checked the screen, he said, “Your sister’s at the gate.”
“That’s Pauline’s cake, isn’t it?” Memphis surmised once she, me, and Ray had settled at the kitchen table, her eyes on the Tupperware container sitting atop it.
“How the fuck you know that’s what’s in that box?” Ray asked.
“She can smell it. Can’t you?” I queried.
“I smell cake, yeah, but how y’all know it’s hers sight unseen?” Ray questioned.
“Because we’ve been smelling it for years. Pauline’s the best cook of our stepmothers,” I informed him.
