Page 184 of The Final Cut

Reva shakes her head. “I don’t remember that.”

“I didn’t think much of it at first. I heard Nana’s voice.”

Nana.

The word moves through the office like dragging chains.

Delia’s mouth curls with old bitterness. “I wanted to talk to her too. It had been a long time. I’d almost forgotten what she sounded like. So I walked in and started yelling because I was four and apparently already horrible.”

“You weren’t horrible,” Marisol says.

Delia doesn’t look at her. “I said it was my turn. I remember that. I tried to take the phone, and then Nana said your name.”

Reva has almost stopped breathing. My grip tightens.

Delia looks directly at her. “She said, ‘Hang up the phone, Reva.’ And it hurt my feelings because why didn’t she want to talk to me, too?”

The room breaks silently.

Marisol’s expression mirrors Reva’s so exactly it hurts to look at both of them at once. Same shock. Same horror. Same realization forming in the eyes before the mind can defend against it.

Reva slips from my grasp.

I go down with her, one knee hitting the rug as she folds to the floor, hands pressed to her mouth. Her lips move before sound comes out.

“My fault.”

“No.” My hand reaches for her and stops short.

“It’s my fault.” Her voice is thin now. Child-small. “It’s all my fault.”

Marisol is there before anyone else can move.

She drops to her knees in front of Reva with no care for grace, skirt twisting beneath her, hands reaching and stopping, reaching again because instinct is stronger than fear. She grips Reva’s shoulders first, gentle and firm, then takes her face between both palms.

Reva freezes. Marisol’s thumbs tremble against her cheeks.

“No, baby girl. No.” Her voice cracks clean down the middle. “It’s not your fault.”

Reva’s eyes are huge, glassy, fixed on her mother’s face like she doesn’t know how to process being touched by hands she thought were buried.

“I called her,” she whispers. “I called her, and she came, and Dad⁠—”

“No.” Marisol bends closer. “Listen to me. You were a child.”

“I knew the phone.”

“You were a child.”

“I heard her voice.”

“You were four years old.” Marisol’s tears spill unchecked now. “Four. That house was found because a woman warped by power and greed and madness decided children were property and disobedience deserved blood. That is not yours to carry.”

Reva shakes her head, but Marisol holds her face steady.

“Not yours,” she says again. “Do you hear me? Not yours.”

Reva’s mouth opens. Nothing comes out.