Page 77 of Omar

"Baby, how could I forget? You used to sit at my kitchen table eating everything I put in front of you." She let go of my face and turned back to the stove. "Now come and eat. I made rice, chicken, greens, and cornbread. You're too skinny and I'm fixing that today."

I sat down at the kitchen table. Shanay sat next to me and squeezed my hand once under the table. Portia put a plate in front of me piled so high I couldn't see the pattern on the china.

"Eat," Portia instructed. "All of it."

I ate. The food was rich, warm, seasoned properly. I ate every bite because Portia Baptiste told me to, because for the first time since I could remember I was sitting at a table where nobody was watching me perform. Nobody was timing my responses or monitoring my face or waiting for me to say the right thing at the right moment.

I was sitting in Omar's apartment eating his mother's food with his brother's wife beside me and the door to Supreme's cage was closed behind me for good.

My phone buzzed again. Cee: Miss Asha, everything good? You been gone a while.

I looked at the screen for a long moment. Then I turned the phone off, set it on the table face down, and went back to eating.

Portia watched me finish the plate, then put another spoonful of greens on it without asking.

"Good girl," she said.

I ate those too.

Chapter 30

Omar

Iwas in East New York when it happened. Me and James, sitting in a parked car outside a building TK's people had been using as a stash house. Kadeem had sent us to confirm the location before Devon ran the full surveillance package. Standard work. Sit, watch, log, leave.

My phone was on my thigh the entire time. I kept looking at it. The screen stayed dark.

"You expecting a call?" James asked from the passenger seat.

"Nah."

"Cos you been checking that phone every thirty seconds for the last hour."

"I said nah."

James held his hands up and went back to watching the building. He was good like that. Knew when to push and when to leave it alone. Right now he was leaving it alone.

Shanay was walking into the salon right about now. Sitting in Asha's chair with a cape around her shoulders, talking about hair color while Cee scrolled his phone ten feet away. The extraction was happening and I was sitting in a car in East New York watching a stash house because Kadeem had told me I couldn't be the one to move her.

"You too close to it," he'd said. "If something goes wrong and you're there, you'll react with your heart instead of your head. Let Shanay handle it. She knows what she's doing."

He was right. I hated that he was right.

My phone buzzed. I grabbed it so fast James actually turned to look at me.

Devon: Clean.

One word. I read it three times. Then I put the phone down, leaned back in the seat, and let the air come out of my lungs. My hands were gripping the steering wheel even though the car was parked. I loosened them one finger at a time.

"We done here?" James asked.

"Yeah. We're done."

I dropped James at APEX and drove to Bed-Stuy. The traffic on Atlantic was light for once and I made it in twelve minutes. I parked outside the building, took the stairs two at a time, unlocked the door.

Asha was sitting at the kitchen table with Ma. Two plates in front of them, both nearly empty. Shanay was on the couch with her phone. The apartment was warm and there was food on the stove and it looked like a normal afternoon in a normal home.

Asha looked up when I came through the door. Her eyes were red from crying but her face was calm. She stood up from the table.