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i.
They’re in the living room, Nile stretching the final pack of kankelon—1b, cut in three—while cousin Kennedy braids up the last of Nile’s hair. That’s so Raven is on, at the request of Kennedy, who’d hit Nile with a ‘girl, too old for who?’ when she’d tried to pick something else to watch.
Secretly, Nile is glad. She loves the show, loves Raven’s goofiness and fashion sense and hair, which is always laid, regardless of the silly situation she always finds herself in. Just like Nile’s best-friend Lecia, who’s been allowed to dye her hair since they were ten, because her mom, Fabienne, is a hairdresser and always says you gotta have fun with it.
So does cousin Kennedy, who’d talked Nile’s mom into letting Nile add some color to her braids. It’s just one pack of dark blue (#28) and she’s only supposed to put it in the back but Nile is having Kennedy do those rows extra long so they peak out without needing to be put in a ponytail to show it off.
“Hair,” Kennedy says, holding out her hand. Nile passes her a piece then lifts her hand to her head to tug at her own loose hair. She gets poked in the palm with the tail comb, then again when she asks how many braids are left.
“Twelve,” says Kennedy.
“Twelve???”
“You want it cute or you want it fast?” There’s laughter in Kennedy’s voice as she drags the cool metal of the comb against Nile’s scalp. Perfecting her parts while Nile watches through the mirror hanging in the hall.
“Cute,” Nile says, and doesn’t pout. She’s tired, but the only other option is to ask Kennedy’s mom to help and Nile is not about to do that. Auntie Jackie has a heavy hand, and every time she braids Nile’s hair it hurts to blink. For days. Nile will take another five hours with Kennedy over that torture any day.
Especially since her cousin is leaving soon.
Smart, stylish, and the oldest of the cousins, Kennedy is Nile’s favourite family member that isn’t her parents or brother (when he behaves). She’s going to college this semester, early, and will be leaving in two days to get things settled. Which means their summer sleepovers at Freeman Farm are cut short until next year. Nile is pretending to be okay with it because isn’t some clingy little kid; she’s twelve which is almost grown. But it still stings. Just a little.
The other cousins are cool, but Kennedy is kind and caring and always makes time for Nile, no matter what. Right from when she was little and Kennedy would dress Nile up in her doll clothes and pretend she was an alien baby she had to take back to a spaceship. They’d graduated from games to actual hangouts, once Nile stopped being small and agreeable and able to fit into the toy strollers. It was Kennedy who first taught Nile how to ride a horse, taking Nile out on Gizmo, their prissy palomino. Kennedy had been patient, leading Nile round and round the pasture for weeks, until Nile wasn’t scared or shaky. Kennedy just knew everything; like how to double-dutch backwards, how to cornrow straight, and how to rap all the parts to Not Tonight (which all the cousins joined, even the boys, ManMan and KJ). She’d taught Nile what to say to Granny Pearl to get out of going to late night tent revivals; told Nile that it was okay if she didn’t like anyone in school yet, because boys at her age were smelly and silly and didn’t know shit about shit, anyway, and taught Nile how to cuss someone out in a way that stung but sounded sweet, so they knew she wasn’t someone to be played with. Summers in the Delta had always been great, but Kennedy had made them sparkle. And now she was going to leave.
“When you’re at school,” Nile asks, playing with a finished braid. “Will you miss Gizmo?”
“Gizmo? That lazy old horse won’t even notice that I’m gone.” Kennedy pauses her braiding, glances at Nile, then crouches so they’re face to face. “I’ll miss you though, baby Nile.”
No one’s called Nile that in a long time and suddenly, she wants to cry. She swallows, crinkles a strand of hair between her fingers. “I wish you didn’t have to go. Not yet.”
“I know. But I’ll call you and we’re gonna keep emailing, like always, and,” Kennedy leans in. “We’re sneaking out tomorrow. Me and you, girls night.”
“We are? Where!”
“Secret spot. But it’ll be fun, trust me.” Kennedy laughs at Nile’s excitement and Nile grins back. Picks at the pile of hair and starts to daydream about all the possibilities. Ice cream sundaes from Cherry’s with all the toppings, or thick turkey legs from the fair after getting on rides that make her stomach swoop or—
She’s pulled from her thoughts when she hears a loud laugh, then another, snippets of the conversation her mom and aunts have been having in the kitchen floating into the living room.
“Girl, I told that man that I ain’t got to do shit but stay black and die. And that he could keep his little attitude.”
“With his jheri-curl having ass.”
“A jheri-curl? Jackie, please.”
“Now you know good and damn well, that all that wet and wavy ain’t grow from his scalp like that—”
They dissolve into girlish giggles, uninhibited. Kennedy snorts, also eavesdropping, and when she catches Nile’s eye they snicker at the same time.
The sun is setting and the house is warm, cozy. Drenched in vanilla from Granny Pearl’s caramel pie, currently cooling in the kitchen. Squeals and shouts from the cousins playing freeze tag in the backyard break up the hum of TV in the kitchen and from the window, Nile can see the fireflies flickering. In a few months, she’ll be back in Chicago and the slow, syrupy days in the Delta will be lost to the stressful shuffle of school. Real life, back again.
But not yet.
/
The usually lively farm is silent and swollen with grief. Packed with prepared food and pity. People—aunties and uncles and cousins and friends—telling Nile’s mom they can’t believe it, that should she need anything, she shouldn’t hesitate to ask.
The constant crying and condolences should be comforting, but it only makes Nile angry.
Furious, actually. All that shallow sorrow. And to call it a home-going celebration of all things. Ernest Freeman is dead and there is nothing to celebrate. Distantly, Nile knows that everyone else has lost him too, that he was their family, their friend. She doesn’t care. He was Nile’s dad. Hers. And now he’s gone. He will never dance at another family reunion, or sneak some sweet potato pie during the holidays or do anything else, ever. Ernest Freeman is dead and gone. The end.
Nile wants to get away, to scream or hit something, hard.
She escapes to the backyard instead. Climbs up into the old tree-house that four summers ago, her dad had built while Nile supervised. Lying down on the wood and staring at the uneven ceiling, she tries to breathe like her mom taught her when she’d overwhelm herself with toddler tantrums, but it doesn’t work. The pressure in her chest is painful and suffocating, and Nile doesn’t know what to do with it, this unending ache that feels makes her heart hurt, her body numb.
Spotting her art box sitting on a shelf, Nile grabs it. Unsure what she’s looking for. Not until she sees the scissors. She’s cut off the middle of her right, then left pigtail, before she can think it all the way through, dark brown coils scattered on the floor, unraveling. Nile just keeps cutting. Snips away at her hair without any care, not stopping until she’s shaking, clipped curls dusting her face. It’s only then, holding the last of her hair in her hands, that Nile starts to consider the scope of what she’s done. What she’s going to look like and what her mama will say.
The sound of shoes shuffling up the ladder startles her into dropping the scissors and Nile kicks them away, forgetting that they’re not the only evidence of her actions.
It’s Kennedy who pops her head through the gate, who takes one look at Nile and immediately climbs all the way through to press her into a crushing hug.
Nile starts to cry.
Big, blubbering sobs that soak through Kennedy’s shirt. She doesn’t seem to care and won’t let Nile pull away, even when she sniffles and screams. Just holds her tight and lets her cry and says nothing of Nile’s snotty sobs or strangled cries for her dad.
She wants to stop but she can’t, because she keeps remembering new, devastating things that make her shudder all over. There will be no more silly sci-fi shows on weekends or extra tight bear hugs she sometimes pretended she was too old for or watching her parents dance on date nights, Nile and Etienne making faces at their dated moves while mama sang ‘go Ernie, go Ernie, go’ and teased him in Kreyòl.
That’s all done.
“Nile, hey, hey,” Kennedy is stroking her back now, gentle, but the care only makes Nile cry harder.
“I’m sorry,” she breathes, because it’s all she can think to say.
“For what?”
“Your shirt,” Nile whimpers. “My hair. For ruining everything. My mom is already sad and now she’s going to be mad and—“
Kennedy shushes her. “She won’t care. Not now. It’s okay, Nile, you’re okay. I got you.”
Nile doesn’t really believe her but Kennedy’s never lied to her before so she tries to nod. Puts her head in Kennedy’s lap and listens to her soothing whispers. Lets herself lulled into sleep.
When she wakes, her face is itchy from dried tears and Kennedy is calling up at her from down on the ground.
Nile walks over to the ladder, sees her cousin standing, surrounded by supplies. “What are you doing?”
“Told you I got you. Here,” she hands Nile shampoo, conditioner, and a wide toothed comb. Climbs up with a basin then goes back down for half a case of water bottles.
She tells Nile to sit, then drops down behind her. Carefully combs out Nile’s coils into a tiny afro. Makes even sections and works in a dollop of her conditioner (the fancy stuff she buys online that’s off limits to everyone but Kennedy) then tenderly detangles each section with practiced patience. Nile sniffles, then stills. Sinks into the solace. When it’s time to wash out the product, Nile helps Kennedy pour bottles into the basin. Leans back and dunks her hair into the water, shivering at the cold against her skin. It reminds her of being little, her dad washing her hair in the kitchen and taking time to spell out her name with the beads on her braids. Nile starts to cry again, tears sliding down the side of her face and melting with the soapy water.
“You’re good, let it out.“ Kennedy’s voice is rough, and Nile’s eyes are closed but she thinks maybe she’s also crying. “You’re good.”
“You too, Kennedy,” Nile says, voice sticky and small.
Kennedy inhales a sharp breath, squeezes Nile’s shoulder with a soapy hand.
Later, when Nile’s hair is dry and Kennedy goes to put the things away, leaving Nile with another hug and a sad, watery smile, when Nile is finally ready to go to the house and face the family, she finds she doesn’t have to go back alone.
Because her mom is there, smiling softly and saying Nile’s name like she’s the most precious thing in her world.
Josette Freeman, who has never been quiet about her hatred of heights, has climbed up the ladder with the same solid, stately determination she does everything else and wrapped Nile up in her arms. Says she knows Nile wanted her space but that she doesn’t have to handle this alone. That whatever she’s feeling is okay, that she’s going to be there, no matter what, no matter when. Always. She says nothing about the new…cut, just that it suits her. Brings out her beauty. Which makes Nile laugh without meaning to, because if there’s one thing Josette Freeman is going to do, it’s bring up her ‘beautiful and brilliant babies’. At least that will never change.
“Sorry about….” Nile sniffles, gestures at her hair. She wishes she could take it back. She hasn't seen it yet but knows it probably looks a mess, super short and uneven. Plus she can’t stop thinking about how much her mom loves it, how she’s always complimenting the thickness and length.
“No baby, I’m sorry you felt like this was the only way you could express your grief,” Josette presses a kiss to Nile’s forehead. “I was wrapped up in my own world and…” she sighs. “That’s not on you, okay? None of this is. I know you’ve been taking it on, all this sadness and pressure to be put together around the family, but cheri, that’s not your problem. You handle this anyway you need to, okay?”
Nile nods. Then, “I was very thorough.” She frowns at what she imagines is a mess of shrunken coils on top of her head.
“You certainly were.” Her mom smiles as she says it, like it isn’t a big deal in the least. The apprehension in Nile’s mind abates, some. She doesn’t love the idea of having short hair for now, but if her mom isn’t mad then none of the rest of it really matters.
Nile snuggles into her mother, sighs. “I miss him.”
“I know. Me too.” Josette squeezes Nile’s hand. “He would’ve just loved this. Made all sorts of silly jokes.”
“I know,” Nile says, with a small smile. She can easily imagine her dad’s reaction: Oh darling you didn’t hold back! Show me what those scissors look like because I know they hurting.
She mentions this to her mom and she laughs, loud and tickled. Her mom responds with a story of that Nile has heard before, but loves. Nile’s first Halloween, how her parents had dressed up as Uhura and Spock and put a wig cap and a tiny mustache on ten month old Nile, who was Captain Sisko. Nile giggles, recalling the picture that hangs on their fridge.
“Ernest loved that show,” her mom says, smiling through tears. “Even tried to get me to name you after Uhura but that definitely wasn’t happening.”
Nile didn’t know that. She snickers, trying to imagine herself with another name but can’t. “I’m glad you picked—“
Both Nile and her mother turn towards the gate, interrupted by the halting stop-step stomp of Etienne shuffling up the ladder.
“Nile! I missed you!” He rushes to Nile, his missing front teeth giving him a lisp that Nile finds endlessly adorable. “Hi mommy!”
Nile smiles. Pretends to bite his cheeks and laughs at his wild, babyish giggles. At her mom tickling them both, until they cry uncle, crown her queen of everything.
The sun is setting, streaks of bright color painting the sky. It makes Nile feel hazy, like she could be anywhere, at any time. But she’s not. She’s in a tree-house with her mom and her brother, missing the one person who should be there, but isn’t.
Nothing is okay and she doesn’t know how to fix it.
But she doesn’t have to. She’s got her mom and her brother and Kennedy. Plus an entire house waiting on her, ready to love on her, if she lets them. She just needs to say when.
ii.
The first time she wears her afro out to school—flat twists in the front, baby hairs slicked and her favourite heart earrings to bring the look together—she’s nervous. Not scared, but hesitant. There’s only one other girl with natural hair in her grade and her afro could swallow Nile’s. But Nile keeps her head up. She knows she looks good.
Until the moment Cal Collins says something dumb during science. He waits until the teacher steps out to talk to the principal, then strikes.
No one gets a chance to react because Lecia, who is sitting at the front, turns around and asks Cal if he knows he’s stupid.
As he stammers out an answer, Leica says, “You feeling froggy bozo? Jump.”
It’s silent. The class looking between Nile, Lecia and a brightly blushing bozo. Lecia’s lashes are lethal—people called Sarah S stinkasssarah the whole of fourth grade after she purposely stepped on Lecia’s foot during line up. No one wants to get on Lecia’s bad side, especially when it comes to Nile.
It’s Lecia-and-Nile & Nile-and Lecia, has been since before they were born, their moms meeting in college and becoming close, passing down the bond to their daughters. The two of them are one and the same. Where Nile goes Lecia is sure to follow and vice-versa; that’s never going to change.
“This isn’t even about you, Lecia,” Cal says, voice wobbling.
“Now it is. Go ‘head. Repeat what you said. Since you so big and bad.” Lecia leans back, relaxed. The class is tuned in, rapt. It’s not even about what Lecia says, it’s how she says it, like she’s figured out something stupid and true that was always obvious to her and now will be to everyone else, too.
Cal scoffs, then turns away. The teacher walks back in then and starts the lesson. Oblivious.
When the bell rings, Cal is out of his seat before the class is dismissed.
“Look at him running away, with his scary ass!” Shouts someone in the back. The class cracks up.
Lecia turns to Nile and grins. Mouths ‘you good?’ Nile nods, smiles back.
Styling her hair this morning, she knew she was going to hear things she wouldn’t like. She didn’t care. She thought she looked cute and still thinks so, even with the stupid comments. She’s got a mouth of her own to combat the jerks. Along with Lecia. Who can take anyone down, swift and sharp. She’s got Nile’s back just like Nile’s got hers.
Always.
iii.
The Clovers costume is a little big at the waist, but otherwise looks perfect.
Nile pats a stray strand of hair in place and nods at herself in the mirror. The Halloween party starts in an hour, which means they’ll be there in two, late enough that there’s a crowd but early enough not to miss anything interesting. Nile’s already got her hair pressed and flowing down her back—grown out from the spontaneous cut she’d given herself years ago—perfecting the look with two tiny braids topped with green and yellow beads, just like Gabrielle Union in Bring It On. All she needs to do now is help Lecia with her ponytail and bow, which isn’t part of the movie costume but cute enough that it blends.
Nile hadn’t wanted to go out, because they’ve got a test in two days and chemistry continues to confuse, but then Carter King said he might show up and Nile suddenly felt the urge to party.
It isn’t a crush. Not really. Nile just likes how he makes her feel, which is mostly nervous but also important. He walks her to her classes and lingers at the lockers and flirts, but hasn’t really made a move. Lecia is convinced Carter is into her, but Nile knows that’s just her best friend bias talking. Even if she’s right, it’s not like Nile actually knows what to do about it. She’s gone on exactly one date, with Derek Davis back in 9th grade. He was nice, but came on too strong and made Nile feel like he wasn’t so much interested in her as he was interested in how they looked together. With Carter, it’s different. He seems to genuinely enjoy her company, listens to what she says, and is always trying to make her laugh, blushing brightly under his light brown skin whenever she cracks up at one of his corny jokes. Plus, he’s fine, which isn’t the most important—those looks will fade, and then all you got is who they are, Auntie Jackie always says—but still matters, because Nile isn't blind and likes to be honest with herself.
“Girl, stop all that worrying and come fix this ponytail for me,” Lecia says, tossing Nile the extension from behind.
Nile laughs, walks over. “I wasn’t worrying.”
“And Haitian spaghetti isn’t the best spaghetti in the world,” Lecia shoots back. She smiles at their reflections as Nile hops on the bed, brushes out the pony and clips it in place. “Carter’s cute but he’s still just some guy. And don’t say I don’t know anything about it just because I think boys should be seen and not heard!” At this, Nile rolls her eyes, snorts. Lecia continues, “yeah him taking his time is annoying, but it’s also kind of cute. Remember those cupcakes he got you for spirit day? My guy is sprung. And probably just as nervous as you are. But if not, whatever. His loss. On to the next one.”
“Just like that?” Nile says, tugging on the pony to check that it’s secure. It stays so she adds the bow. Makes sure it’s centred.
“Yeah, actually,” Lecia turns. “Because Nile, tonight? In that outfit? Kraze yon zòn, you hear? Hell yeah, it’ll be just like that.” She snaps her fingers then wiggles her eyebrows to punctuate her point and it’s ridiculous and sweet and so very Lecia. Nile loves her.
“How are they going to notice me if they can’t take their eyes off of you, though?” Nile asks seriously, cracking up when Lecia stands and starts to strut.
“I do look good, don’t I?” She preens, ponytail swishing back and forth as she struts. “When’s Brit getting here again?”
Nile hops onto the bed, lies down. “She says ten which means—”
“—ten thirty. If that,” Lecia finishes, flopping down in the bed next to Nile. Leaning over, she stretches an arm towards her boombox and presses play. The Paramore CD Nile gifted Lecia for last Valentine’s Day blares on, both of them breaking into song. When it gets to the chorus of their favourite song, Lecia tosses Nile a brush and they stand on the bed. Shout, “how did we get hereeeee,” in off-key synchronicity. Laughing and loved, Nile can’t imagine anything better than this moment.
iv
She gets most of the blood and dirt out of her hair with a bottle of water and her regulated top, dabbing as to not totally mess up her cornrows. Three days old and already jacked up. Crisp parts, low tension and even rows, all gone to waste because of a trigger happy (alleged) immortal who is as irritating as she is skilled.
This is insane.
Nile isn’t naive, she knows the marines were going to lock her up and throw away the key; she’s bitterly aware of how the US government treats black people they deem medically important—Henrietta Lacks and the Tuskegee study come to mind—but this? Putting her trust in some grumpy white lady and hoping for the best?
Certain torture or into the unknown. Do not pass go do not collect 200$. Go straight to jail. Because this is what this feels like, a fucking prison.
God.
None of this makes sense.
She died. She knows she did. But here she is, alive and breathing; her own personal resurrection. And those people in her dreams, that was real. But immortality? No, thank you. And the so called answers Andy or whoever the fuck claimed she had? Not actually answers. Army of four her ass. That lady’s about to learn if she thinks Nile is going to shut up and follow orders without any push-back.
But isn’t that what you were already doing though? Echoes a voice that sounds suspiciously like Lecia, in Nile’s head.
God, Lecia. She’d been so angry when Nile told her she was going to enlist, their biggest fight since the black berry messenger debacle of ‘08. This fight though, was explosive. Both of them shouting intimately personal, painful things that cut, wielding the kinds of comebacks only born of years of familiarity and deep intimacy.
They hadn’t spoken for months after that, not until Nile saw Lecia’s post about her pregnancy—Lecia and Leo, grinning, holding up separate sides of the ultrasound—and yielded. Nile had ignored the sting of not being told first and driven straight over. Apologized and tried to explain—
“Fighting for a country that’s never once cared about us? Cuddling up to the system because what? Why, Nile? What do you think you’re going to be able to achieve? Because whatever it is you’re looking for, you won’t find it over there. Trust and believe that.”
Lecia didn’t buy it, and the more she laid out her argument, the more Nile wavered, too. In the end they made peace, because they were Nile-and-Lecia and not being on the same side wasn’t an option. Lecia needed Nile to be alive, to be okay, and could Nile please just think about it, please? And Nile did. But. She had made a choice and was going to stick to it, was going to go over there and try to make an impact from the inside, is what she’d told herself. After all, hadn’t her dad tried? The fact that he’d died for his efforts was a truth she conveniently ignored.
Nile’s naivety had been squashed as soon as she started boot camp. Because she had fallen in line. Mistake one. A cog in an imperialist machine who wasn’t unwise to the issues but still thought she could make a difference. Maybe once she was actually in it. Mistake two. Because being there, sand and sweat and seeing it, the ruin, she realized otherwise. And didn’t know how to reconcile it, the harm. The fact that world she’d bought into was an entirely different reality than she’d fooled herself into believing.
She’d been coming to terms with it, trying to figure out a future without minimizing or ignoring her past, the damage, when she’d suddenly found herself dead. Then alive again. A personal resurrection so severe it forced her to reevaluate her entire existence. Suddenly and painfully, the world had shifted below Nile’s feet and it is terrifying.
She can’t go home and she can’t go back but standing still isn’t an option either. So she decides. Takes the clothes Andy offers and removes her uniform.
Goes on.
v.
Nile has pulled out the fifth out of what is starting to feel like five millionth crochet braid—the downtime in Albania means she’s been trying out as many hair styles as she can; some great, some not—when she breaks.
It’s been three months since she helped with the Big Pharma Breakout (what she’s dubbed the event in her head) and she’s been trying to be good about the whole ‘pretend your family doesn’t exist and embrace everything immorality has to offer’ thing, but it’s been just a little bit excruciating. Plus undoing her hair always makes her antsy, so.
She checks her brother’s account first—still nothing— then her mom’s, private, but Nile is still one of her friends and can see the last post she made, a video memorial titled ‘To Nile’. It’s professional looking, which means Etienne made it. The thought of him going through their pictures, trawling through memories to make a memorial for his dead big sister, makes Nile sniffle against thick tears that are suddenly threatening to fall. She blinks them away and goes on to Lecia’s page.
Her newest post was uploaded a week ago. Baby Baptiste, coming soon. The post before that is a picture of Nile, her chubby toddler hands wrapped around Lecia. Both girls have their faces painted, Nile with a lion and Lecia with a butterfly; they've got matching afropuffs, with beaded braids on the side; Nile is looking at Lecia and Lecia is looking at the camera, grinning. It is captioned, goodness and mercy.
Psalm 23:6, Nile's favourite verse. She bursts into tears.
She doesn’t want to do this, travel the world and save it too, while her family mourns her and never knows the truth. It just feels wrong.
And it keeps feeling wrong, even as the months go on and she starts to find a place within the ancient group she’d found somewhat impenetrable in the beginning, what with the millennia and more they’d had on her making her feel like not only the newbie, but a baby. Only they don’t treat her like that. Sure, they teach her things—Andy’s adamant that she keep up with various fighting styles and it’s even fun, sometimes—and are sometimes overly patient with her, but she thinks that’s more to do with her inexperience and age than because they think she’s incompetent or ignorant. And she’s learning about them too. She knows that Joe makes the most jokes after missions, as a way to right himself, that Nicky cooks with bossa nova in the background when tired, making everyone taste test the food before serving, and that Andy going extra hard during training means she’s sore and trying not to let it show. Nile is settling and in someways it’s been so easy, immortality aside, learning that these strangers really aren’t strange at all.
But she still misses her family and after another few months and some more social media stalking she’s over it.
Lecia’s newest post is celebrating her daughter at 3 months. Lanise and Leila (full name Leila Nile Baptiste, born early with the same bright brown eyes as her mother) sleeping wrapped around each other, both children on someone’s lap. The second picture is of Lecia, asleep on Nile’s shoulder in the back of a car, a blurry thumb obscuring logo on the shirts that Nile remembers announces them as students of Miss Minnie’s Dance School, the ballet studio they’d pestered their parents for months to join.
The picture is captioned,
“Lani & her Nile / Me & my Nile. Miss you sis ♥️
After Nile wipes her tears, after she’s stopped shaking at the thought of life going on without her, she concludes that leaving it up to time was shit advice that she isn’t going to follow anymore. She can’t go back, can’t bring Lecia into the fold, but she needs more than watching her past life go on behind a screen, desperately wishing she was there.
So, she makes a plan.
Waits until the next time they’re on break, everyone relaxed and floating off the high of a good mission, then she asks. First Andy, because it’s going to come down to her decision in the long run, but also the others, because this affects them too. And lies and secrecy have not served this group well.
“Witness protection?” Andy says, frowning when Nile finishes explaining.
“What I said was like, witness protection.”
“I get it,” Joe says, fiddling with the stem of his wine glass.
“It does make sense,” Nicky adds. "You will have to be careful but it is not a bad idea."
Nile exhales. She knows it isn't but the validation feels good.
They all turn to Andy. She looks at Nile long and hard. “You can’t tell her about us,” she says, stern. “Absolutely nothing. But yeah, okay. If everyone agrees, then sure. Call Copley.”
"Thank you!” Nile jumps and a tackles Andy into a hug, pulling Joe and Nicky into it too, making them smile. "Thank you, this won’t be a problem I promise.”
Andy looks more than a little disbelieving, but only nods, finally smiling when Nile squeezes her tight.
/
“And this organization, you’re sure you can trust them? That they won’t sell you out when the time comes to save their own skin?” says Josette, a look of disbelief still on her face after two hours of talking. She’d been stunned, then scared, softening after Nile and explained that she was safe, yes, she promised, yes, but that something had happened, and she couldn't say what but that it meant going dark and staying dead and letting everyone, including the marines think so. That Nile wasn’t going to come home, ever, and that she was so sorry to put this on her, but she needed her mother to keep it a secret, forever. To which her mother had immediately said she had nothing to apologize for, that Nile was alive and that was a good thing—the best thing—and none of the rest of it mattered.
“No mama, they’re good. Really.”
“Thank god,” Josette exhales, smiling so widely she makes herself laugh. “My Nile. My baby.”
“This is crazy,” Etienne says, for the fourth time tonight, grinning as he leans into their mother. "You're really out there on some Wakanda shit, aren't you? Come on, tell me it’s real.”
Nile chuckles, her laugh deepening at her mother narrowed eyes at Etienne cussing. God. It's incredible to see them even through a screen. Being innately understood, the jokes, hearing her mom speak Kreyòl, asking her ‘ou manje,’ her usual refrain, immediately after she established that Nile was okay. She misses them so much more than she thought, and never wants to let them go. But she has to. That was always part of the deal. Let them in, but at a distance, so they can stay safe.
“You gotta go, huh?” Etienne is watching her closely; he could always read her so easily.
Nile nods. “I do, but I’ll try and call again in a couple of months.”
“We’ll be expecting it,” says her mom, tearing up again. “And Nile? If anything ever happens, you can always come home. Always. Okay?”
“I know, mama,” Nile blinks back tears of her own; it won’t happen but it’s nice to imagine. “I will.”
They say another round of goodbyes, lingering, until there’s a knock at the door and Etienne gets up to answer. “That’ll be Kennedy,” he says. “She's seeing this Australian who's vegan and got really into hiking so now she's testing recipes on us while she's on sabbatical from Columbia. The food isn't great but her girlfriend is nice."
Nile smiles. “I wish I could say hi.”
It brings the mood down and Nile hates that she mentioned it. She rushes to say goodbye, not wanting them to start thinking of all the things she’s missing; the conversation about Lecia had been rough, Nile telling them about the funds she set up for the kids through Copley and how she’d bought out the entire baby registry but that mom and Etienne will need to pretend it’s from them. It doesn’t feel like enough, but for now, it works. Nile says goodbye, listens to her mom tell her to eat more, again, to stay smart and safe and to call again as soon as she’s able.
The call ends and Nile exists her room, leaving one family to join another.
vi.
She does passion twists in Peru, crochet braids in Croatia, and a silk press in Senegal. Gives her self a sloppy undercut and immediately hates it, just like she’d thought she would back in high school when they were trendy. Well. Now she knows for sure. And there’s less hair to braid, so that’s a silver lining, of sorts. Maybe she’ll get boho braids next.
vii.
She runs into the bookstore to get out of the rain, heading to the back and claiming the cozy looking couch in the corner. They’re back in England after almost two years, Nile talking the others into doing the sightseeing thing, hoping for new memories to erase the ones of blood and betrayal, from all those years ago. Her hair, which is now soaked and quickly reverting from the silk press she'd gotten only two days earlier, drips into her eyes. The store isn’t busy—just a couple, two old ladies, and a cute guy organizing a shelf a few steps down, who’d looked up and smiled politely when she entered. Going through her bag for a hair tie and coming up empty, Nile starts a halo braid. Folds thick strands of hair between themselves and tucks them under each other, trying to keep them secure.
It works for all of 5 minutes before she feels her hair unfurl, tickling the back of her neck and soaking the collar of her sweater. Great.
“I have a spare,” says an accented voice. Posh sounding, at least to her. She turns. Sees the man in her isle holding up his wrist, pointing to a hair tie barely visible between his artfully arranged bracelets. He’s got nice hands. Nile isn’t looking, it’s just hard not to notice when he’s literally waving them in her face. Well, a few paces from her face but close enough.
“Oh, um." She wants to say no, but she really does need it, so she nods. Says thanks when he walks over to hand it to her, then ties hair back into a low pony she knows has a low chance of keeping. She stifles a laugh when the hair tie launches itself onto the arm of the chair and her hair pops out with what seems like excessive glee.
The man looks up at her again. Nile expects a comment about bushy, big hair or something similarly dumb, but he only unwinds what she’d thought was another bracelet, but looks to be a headband from his arm, and offers that, too.
“Thanks,” says Nile, exchanging the hair tie for the band. She pulls it over her head, easing it down her neck before tugging it back over her hair, making the perfect afro puff.
The man had gone back to his books, but catches her eyes and smiles at her. “Glad it worked.”
“Me too. Thought I had some in my bag but I guess not. Also wasn’t expecting the rain. Really had me on the ropes,” Nile jokes, unsure where this chatty urge came from and why she’s indulging it, or him.
The man laughs, and it’s a nice laugh, deep and delighted. “English rain, truly the worst, I’m Tuah, by the way.”
“Nile,” she says, taking his offered hand. They smile stupidly at each other until Nile pulls her hand away. What is she doing. She knows better than to offer her name, even to pretty, kind looking booksellers.
But when he asks if she’s a student she goes with it, says she’s doing a year abroad, a masters. The lie, which would’ve made her flinch a year ago, comes easy. This is her life now and that’s just what it is. Tuah doesn’t ask where she’s studying but does ask which program. Nile answers art history, then pivots, asking about him, instead. He tells her the store belongs to his father, that he’s only taking over until his dad recovers from a stroke. He says that last part like he's trying to convince himself more than anything, but Nile nods along. When she asks what he used to do, he says corporate accounting, then laughs again when she makes a face, agrees that it's boring. The conversation is easy, fun. Flirty too, if Nile wants to read into it. And she does. She tells him enough to seem mysterious rather than intentionally evasive, and when he asks her to drinks she isn't surprised. She says yes, gets his number and says she'll text him, knowing she’s about to have Copely background check the shit out of him. She’ll only come back if she checks out. She hopes he does. She's had the hookups and is getting a bit tired of it, the fun flings that go nowhere. Something deeper could be nice, even short term.
“I look forward to hearing from you,” Tuah says on Nile’s way out, so formal and sincere that she's charmed, even if she wants to roll her eyes a bit.
It’s stopped raining when Nile steps on the street and she smiles all the way to the station.
viii.
“No, Nicky, not so big. Do I have to show you the video again?” Nile says, squinting at Nicky through the mirror. “Because this is micro locs. Emphasis on the micro.”
“I got it Nile,” Joe says, taking the twist from Nicky and unravelling it.
They’ve been helping her install her locs for the last three hours. Nile had started the night before, talking to Etienne about his law school options while their mother cooked sòs kabrit that Nile could practically smell, in the background. They’d kept her company while she started the first fifty locs, the conversation helping her stay awake as her hands started to cramp and go stiff. She’d wanted locs forever, especially after Etienne started his in elementary, matching their mother. But she’d never found the right moment or thought she’d have to do them herself, hoping that when she decided to loc up, her mother would help.
That can’t happen but she’s got the next best thing. Three immortals of varying skill, who’ve been dedicated if a bit slow, helping her finish up the last of the twists.
“Is anybody hungry? Because I could eat.” Nile taps the top of her head. Not too many left, maybe 40ish, if she had to guess. She’s hoping to have around 200, to keep them even.
Nicky and Joe both say they’re hungry but Andy shuts it down. Says that there’s no use in stopping now when they’re so close to the end. It’s her mission voice, which Nile finds hilarious, especially since she was the one who took the longest to catch on to the concept of twisting, curling the ends with a twirl.
“But Andy, look, I’m fading away,” Joe pouts, sticking his trembling hand in Andy’s face. “Skin and bones.”
Nicky snickers. “A quick meal, Andy. Please.”
“Yeah, Andy, please,” Nile adds, putting her hands together to make it three against one.
Andy narrows her eyes. “One snack. And none of that lounging after shit. We eat, then come right back.”
They salute her at the same time, Nile hiding her smile. They are absolutely going to chill after the meal. It’s just what they do. But it's fine. There's no rush.
Nile has time.