“Why not? A blind man can see how much everyone cares for you.”
She almost deflected. Almost changed the subject. But he’d been honest with her.
“Because my body’s not the same as it was.I’mnot the same. Because I have scars. They’re my family, but they—people look at me, and I don’t know what they see anymore.”
Maurice was quiet for a moment. “I see someone who showed up. Who’s trying. Who kept pace with me today while the world rushed past.”
Monique’s eyes stung. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
They stood there, just breathing. And for the first time in longer than she could remember, Monique didn’t feel the need to hide behind snark and jokes.
He simply let her be.
They turned and gazed out over the city. The way the lights spread and then stopped, a few sacred, special ones bobbing in the dark distance, were hypnotic.
A yawn caught her by surprise, jaw-cracking and sudden.
Maurice smiled. “You should get some sleep.”
“So should you.”
“I will.”
“You gonna pray first?”
He considered the question. “Probably not.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Yeah. Because if you don’t want to, you shouldn’t have to. Even if you’resupposed to.”
Maurice looked at her like she’d said something profound instead of obvious. “That’s deep.”
“I have my moments.”
They walked to the door together. Monique stepped into the hallway, then turned back. “See you at the beach, Mo.”
“See you at the beach, Mo.”
She was back at her room in a step or two, unlocked the door, and stepped inside. Through the wall, she heard water running. Maurice, probably getting ready for bed.
Monique climbed under the covers, placed her phone to charge on the nightstand, and stared at the ceiling.
You look alive, Mom. Maybe Jasmine was right. Maybe this, whatever this was, was what living felt like.
CHAPTER 11Monique
Monique stretched, languid in a cloud of Egyptian cotton, and reached for her phone to check the time: not quite eight in the morning.
“Wow,” she said, chuckling her way through another stretch. “And no missed calls and texts.”
For years, she woke before six every day, beating her alarm. There were hundreds of tasks to accomplish and problems to solve. Relaxation and Monique rarely kept company. Maybe her kids were right, and this trip was good for her.
She couldn’t remember the last time she rested. Even after the surgeries and floating on a cocktail of drugs, rest had never lived up to the hype. For the first time since… she couldn’t recall… she barely noticed the knot of anxiety in her chest that heralded each day. Her bladder, however, let her know that she’d slept through her internal clock.