Laney was up before the boys, before the sun burned the wet out of the trees. The house still held night in the corners. The AC had cut off a few minutes earlier, leaving a soft stillness. She stood at the small dresser, working lotion into her hands. Her palms were already clean. Rub across the knuckles, over the back of her hand where the skin got dry from bleach water at the daycare, down each finger.
Her Bible sat open but closed at the same time, cover pulled over most of it, spine slack from years of being bent back. Tabs in different colors stuck out in a fan. Some bright. Some faded to a tired pink. Her wedding ring sat right on top of it, dead center, catching the thin strand of morning light that made it through the blind.
She looked at the ring before she looked at anything else.
The tabs were the same ones her daddy had stuck in there when she was 13. Ephesians 5. Twenty-two through twenty-four. Her daddy’s thumb on the page. “Wives, submit yourselves…” A red tab on 1 Peter 3:1. Green on Colossians 3:18. Another red at 1 Timothy 2:12. Titus 2:5. Genesis 3:16. Submission lined up for her so she couldn’t miss it. Even now the edges of those pages were a little darker from where his hands had sat. The front cover had a wrinkle from being folded back one-handed while she stirred a pot or wiped a face or stood outside the fellowship hall waiting for her mother. The leather smelled faintly of lemon oil and paper.
She pressed her thumb at the base of her left ring finger where the band should’ve been. The skin there had a soft groove. She’d taken the ring off before bed because her fingers had swelled in the heat. It lay there on the Bible, small, gold, patient.
Her phone buzzed on the dresser.
She reached without looking, already knowing.
“They’re extending the training a month.” Tommy’s voice came in low and rough, no greeting, just the report.
Laney stared at the ring. “Okay,” she said. Her voice was flat.
On the other end there was a scrape, like he was shifting his gear or moving in a hallway.
She switched the phone to her shoulder, kept rubbing lotion over her wrist bones. “Knox’s first football game’s next Friday.”
“Okay.” Tommy didn’t lift his tone. “Make sure he doesn’t cry when he’s not good at it. That’s not going to help him get better.”
Laney’s jaw shifted once. She looked past the dresser to the doorway, to the hall where she could see the boys’ rooms dark and slept-in. She wanted to tell him to call his son and tell him that himself. To tell Knox he was proud of him for just wanting to play. To tell him not to be so hard on a seven-year-old. She didn’t do it.
She almost said. She swallowed it. “Okay,” she said instead. “I’ll tell him.”
On the line Tommy breathed out through his nose. Not a sigh. Just air. “I gotta go. Bye.”
“Bye.” Laney didn’t slow it with anything else. No I love you. No I miss you. She clicked the call off and set the phone down beside the Bible.
The room went back to quiet. Outside, she could hear one of the neighbors’ cars start. A bird knocked on the gutter.
Laney dragged her thumb over the tabs, one by one. Ephesians. 1 Peter. Colossians. 1 Timothy. Titus. Genesis. The pages flashed up at her in pieces. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands. Even as Sara obeyed Abraham. As is fit in the Lord. She didn’t have to read to know them. They lived in her mouth. Her father had taught them in their kitchen, on the back porch, in the church office when she was too young to understand everything he was packing into them. He’d slipped the tabs in himself so she could find them fast.
She let the cover fall shut over them. The Bible gave a soft thump as it closed.
Her ring was still sitting there on top. Gold against dark leather. She picked it up. Rolled it between finger and thumb. The metal was cool. She slid it back onto her finger, past the lotion that was still sinking into her skin. It caught a little, then settled in the groove it had made over all the years.
She turned it once.
Then again, to make sure the diamond sat straight.
She looked at it to be certain it was aligned the way it always was when she walked out of the house. Band snug. Stone facing up. Everything where it was supposed to be.
~~~
The union was loud. Voices bouncing off the high ceiling. Trays clacking. Somebody laughing too hard at a table over. The smell of fried food drifting up from the line. Caine, Donnie and Kordell had claimed one of the small round tables near the middle, out the way enough they could see everything but not be right in the traffic.
Caine had already put away his food. Wrapper folded into a neat square on the tray. Napkins balled on top. He took a sip from his cup, checked the time on his phone and set it face down. Donnie was still picking through fries. Kordell was working on a burger he should’ve finished five minutes ago.
For a minute it was just the sound of campus moving around them.
Caine gathered the trash with one hand, stacking it so it didn’t fall apart. He twisted in his seat and reached back to drop it into the can behind him.
Kordell watched him, mouth full, and hit Donnie on the arm with his wrist. “How he got so clean and shit if he grew up in nasty ass New Orleans?”
Caine turned back slow, eyebrows up. “I got so clean because I grew up in nasty ass New Orleans,” he said. “Just like you put on weight enough for football by fucking pigs and sheep and shit on them farms out there in the boonies.”
Donnie’s head snapped toward Kordell. He stared for half a second and then started laughing, hand over his mouth so he didn’t spit food. “Aye, nah. Nah. He got you.”
“Man, fuck you,” Kordell said, pointing at both of them with his burger. “Y’all gon stop actin like I grew up on some Deliverance shit.”
“You my nigga, bro, but you did,” Donnie said, still laughing. “Y’all named the fucking pigs.”
“That was for food, man,” Kordell said.
Caine shook his head, smiling, shoulders loosening. He leaned back in his chair, about to say something else, when movement in his periphery made him look.
Rylee was coming through with a group of girls, books hugged to her chest, hair pulled back. She was mid-laugh at something one of them said, then saw him. Her mouth curved up more. She said something quick to her friends and peeled off from them without losing stride.
“Hey,” she drew out, hand landing on the back of his chair so she could lean in. “I ain’t been seein you around.”
Caine tilted his head back to look at her. “You been busy running them streets.”
“Don’t say it like that,” she said, popping him on the chest with two fingers. “It sound like I’m doin’ somethin’ illegal.”
He laughed, low. “You a pastor’s daughter. It might be. That sound like some shit Georgia would make a law.”
She rolled her eyes at him but kept leaning on the chair. Her friends waited a little ways off. “You wanna hang out tonight?”
He hesitated only long enough to pull up the list in his head. “Can’t. It’s gonna be a late one. I got to go do my hours at the church then get back up here for study hall.”
Rylee’s brows lifted. “They make y’all study?”
Caine looked across the table and nodded toward Donnie and Kordell. “Ask them.”
Donnie pointed his fry at her. “Three times a fucking week.”
“For real,” Kordell said.
Rylee sucked her teeth. “That’s dumb.”
“They want to make sure we eligible,” Caine said.
She eased off the back of his chair but didn’t go yet. “Aight. I’ma text you. See when you free.”
“Aight,” he said, already turning a little back toward the table. “Do that.”
She smiled, small, and walked off to rejoin her friends. One of them looked back at him. Rylee didn’t.
Donnie watched her go. Then he leaned across the table toward Caine, dropping his voice. “You know they gave this nigga a roommate from Willacoochee?” He jerked his chin at Kordell. “They knew his ass was country.”
Caine blinked. “That’s a real fucking place?”
“Yes, nigga,” Kordell said, pushing his tray away now, offended like they had disrespected his grandmama. “That’s a real place. I don’t think he really think we free though. If you know what I mean.”
Donnie started laughing again. Caine laughed with him, the sound fading while his eyes cut back toward where Rylee was headed across the union, already talking to her friends. She was still pretty. Still Rylee. It just wasn’t pulling on him the way it had been over the summer.
~~~
Mireya crouched in the thin band of shade beside the open back door, evening light sliding low across the lot. The sun was dropping behind the buildings, not gone yet but tired, so everything was lit sideways. Heat still held on in the concrete and came up slow. Air had that dusk damp to it. Somebody’s porch light had already clicked on even though it wasn’t dark.
Camila was arched in the car seat, face wet and loud, curls stuck to her forehead. She kicked at the straps like they were the problem. The cry was full, from her belly, the kind that made people look out windows, but in this complex nobody did. Kids cried out here all the time.
“I know, nena. I know.” Mireya kept her voice low, almost a murmur under the scream, trying to give Camila something to follow. She ran her hand down her daughter’s leg. “You gotta chill for me. We’re late.”
“I want Daddy,” Camila screamed, voice bouncing off the stucco.
Mireya let her head rest against the hot plastic of the car seat. The sky over the roofline was turning purple-blue, streaked with the last orange. Street noise was softer now, people getting home. She breathed once, slow, so she didn’t let the frustration come out sharp.
“Daddy’s in Georgia, baby,” she said. “We’re gonna see him again in a couple weeks. You remember? When he plays.”
“Nooo. I want Daddy now.”
The word now cut through the lot. Somewhere on the other side of the building a TV was on too loud. A car drove past slow, headlights not on yet. Evening in New Orleans, heat not fully gone, everything a little sticky.
“Alright,” she muttered. “Alright. Fine.”
She pulled her phone out, screen already smudged. Hit Caine’s name. The ring sounded small out there. He picked up almost right away.
His face came up lit by softer indoor light and the fading light outside, like he was near a doorway. Behind him was the church building, brick turned darker in the evening. He was walking. He heard Camila and his face changed.
“What’s wrong?” he said. “What’s that?”
Camila stuttered on the cry when she heard him, not done, but the pitch dropped.
“Can you just talk to her for a while?” Mireya said, tired under the words. “I know you’re at work and you called earlier. I need her to calm down so I can go to work.”
“Yeah. Yeah. Give her to me,” he said right away. “Let her hold it.”
Mireya freed Camila’s arm and put the phone in her hands. The little girl grabbed it with both. Mireya let herself sink down onto the warm pavement. The open car door made a dark wedge over her. The air smelled like hot tires and somebody frying down the block.
“Daddy,” Camila cried into the screen.
“Hey, mamas,” Caine said, voice going soft. “What’s going on with you?”
“Come home.”
“I can’t come home right now,” he told her. “You know I’m in Georgia.”
“When you coming?”
“Not for a little while.” It was steady, not cold. “But you and Mommy can come see me. In a couple weeks. When we play again.”
“Now,” she yelled, fresh.
Mireya tipped her head back against the door frame and looked up at the sky getting darker. Streetlights at the front of the complex flicked on, one by one, buzzing. Her jeans picked up the day’s heat from the ground. Her makeup was holding but the sweat had started at her temples.
Caine shifted on his end, walking around the church so it was quieter. Evening shadows stretched behind him. “Breathe for me,” he said. “In. Out. In. Out. Do it with Daddy.”
Camila tried, jerky, still crying.
“There you go,” he said.
Mireya rubbed circles on her daughter’s leg, watching her settle in fits. Cars were pulling in from work now, people getting out with grocery bags.
“You staying with Abuela tonight?” Caine asked, eyes flicking up like he knew Mireya was right there off camera.
“Yeah,” she said from the side. “Sara said bring her before it gets dark.”
He nodded at that. “You gonna be good for Abuela?” he asked Camila. “Mommy gotta go to work. You gotta help her.”
Camila shook her head hard. “I want you.”
“I know, mamas..” His voice stayed warm. “I miss you every day.”
A door closed on his end. He stepped farther away so nobody would tell him to get off. The light where he was had that same end-of-day softness.
“Tell you what,” he said. “When y’all come see me we gon’ get ice cream. We gon’ go to the park. We can go watch the horses, too. You remember that?”
Camila sniffed, eyes shiny. She nodded.
“That’s in a couple weeks, though,” he said. “Not today.”
“Today,” she wailed again, but it didn’t have as much fire.
Mireya shifted her hips on the ground. Gravel pressed through the denim. Her open door made a frame around her, night slowly coming in behind the buildings. She still had to drive her over to Sara’s. She still had to cross town and then go work. She stayed right there because Camila needed to cry for him and he needed to hear it.
Caine knew it too. He didn’t rush. He just kept talking to his daughter in that steady way, walking slow around the church in Georgia while the light fell off in New Orleans, and Mireya leaned back against the car door and let it go on, knowing it might go on for a while.
~~~
The day had run too long for Laney to want to talk to anybody. The little boy in class had pitched a fit right before pickup, arms flung wide and hollering, applesauce cup flying like he meant to baptize the whole room in sugar. It had hit the floor and splattered up the cabinets and got in the bin of blocks and on the side of the cubbies. His mama had acted put upon about it, like a three year old losing his mind at 5:45 was the church’s fault. Then she left. The mess hadn’t.
So, it was Laney and one of the older ladies from the church, one filling in since all the college girls were coming to terms with their new schedules, down on their knees with rags and spray, wiping up sticky spots before the ants found them.
“Lord, he had some arm on him,” the woman said, pushing her glasses up where sweat had made them slide. “He oughta be out there on that field.”
Laney huffed a laugh and leaned back on her heels. “His mama’d have a fit if he come home dirty. She already said she don’t want him playin’ football.”
“Can’t stop a boy from runnin’,” the woman said. She got up slow, hand on her lower back. “You good with the rest of this?”
“Yes, ma’am. You done more than enough.” Laney’s drawl flattened the vowels, soft and tired. “Thank you for stayin’. I ‘preciate it.”
“That’s what I’m here for.” The woman smiled and patted her arm. “Your daddy’d have a heart attack if he knew you was back here by yourself this late.”
Laney made a face, because he would. “He ain’t gon’ know.”
They turned off the lights in the daycare rooms as they went. The church always felt different once the kids were gone. Quieter, but not empty. Sound carried too easy in there. Every door latch and shoe squeak sounded like it was being played through the big speakers in the sanctuary.
Laney walked the woman to the front door like she always did. It was dusky outside, sky washed peach and gray over the church lot. Out past the hedges she could see cars in the staff spots, and there near the end was one more. Caine’s.
She unlocked the door for the woman and stood with her hand on it while she said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Lord willin’,” the woman said, and stepped out onto the concrete. She lifted a hand and got in her car.
Laney watched her taillights go. She should have locked the door right then. That was what her daddy expected. But Caine’s car was still out there. So, she left the front door set to close but not locked and turned back, shoes soft on the carpet runner, moving toward the sanctuary.
The church was cooler in there but it still smelled like today. Disinfectant. Baby wipes. A faint sour where the kid had thrown his applesauce. Under it, the clean wood smell of the pews and old hymnals.
She went up the short hall behind the pulpit, the way only staff and family used. The sanctuary opened wide in front of her, rows of pews going back, lights low. She meant to just loop around and tug on the front doors and be done. Then she heard him.
Caine’s voice carried, not loud, just easy. The kind you heard in a house late when somebody was trying not to wake the baby. Spanish folded into English, smooth, like they were the same thing.
“...no, nena, escuchame,” he said, soft. “You gotta be nice to mommy, okay?”
Then a giggle, that light baby laugh that made Laney’s chest pull. She stopped behind the side wall where the choir sat on Sunday and listened before she could tell herself not to. He had his head bowed over the phone, elbow hooked over the back of the pew, sneakers braced wide.
“You gonna be good for mommy?” he asked her. “Si?”
There was nothing on the line. Laney could picture it though. A little baby nodding real hard, curls bouncing, because that was what toddlers did when they ran out of words. His mouth tipped like he was watching.
“Okay. Bueno.” His voice softened more. “Te amo, mi vida.”
That was not for the baby only. The rhythm of it shifted. Laney’s pulse jumped because she knew he was not alone on that call.
“You good?” he asked, same softness.
“Yeah,” Mireya’s voice came, faint through the speaker.
“Call me if you need me.”
There was the tiny electronic click of the call ending. The pew he sat on creaked when he leaned back and let out a breath. Laney realized her hand was still on the back wall, body angled like she was hiding. She stepped out so he wouldn’t look up and think somebody had been spying.
“Sorry,” she said quick, voice low so it didn’t bounce off the ceiling. “Ain’t mean to sneak up on you.”
Caine turned his head. The tired in his face smoothed out when he saw it was her. “You good.”
She nodded toward the phone that was now face down beside him. “Everything okay back home?”
He blew out a puff of air, cheeks rounding a little. “She don’t like going back after she see me.”
Laney’s mouth tugged up, not a full smile. “Girls love their daddies.”
“Yeah,” he said, a short laugh. “I know.”
She started down the center aisle toward the front doors, heels of her flats muffled by the carpet. Halfway there she stopped and turned back, chin tipped, hands on her hips how she did when she was thinking.
“Y’all always talked to her like that?” she asked. “In both.”
“In both what?” He let his head rest against the pew back, watching her.
“Spanish and English.” She waved a hand.
“Yeah.” He sat up, forearms on his knees now. “I was raised that way. Mireya too. So we just kept it.”
Laney nodded slow. It sat with her a second. “I like that,” she said. “Makes it seem real special. Like it’s y’all’s own little thing.” She laughed, catching herself. “Less you speak Spanish, I guess.”
He laughed with her, low. “Ain’t too many people in Statesboro speaking Spanish.”
“Ain’t lyin’.” She shook her head. “I took it in high school but I can’t speak a lick of it.”
He leaned back again, eyes on her. The mood in the room shifted, lighter and heavier at once. “¿Conoces ‘quiero’?” he asked.
Laney squinted. “I only know one of those words,” she said. “Quiero’s like want, right?”
“Sí.” He pushed to his feet with the fluid, athletic ease she’d seen on the field. “Como si quiero irme a dormir. O quiero filete.” He said it with a teasing lilt, walking down the aisle to her. His eyes passed over her in a way that said he remembered every inch from before.
She felt heat creep up her neck. “You sound like a whole different person when you speak Spanish.”
“Oh, te gusta?” His eyebrow lifted.
He was close now. Only a few inches between them. The sanctuary felt smaller. Out front, the sun was sliding lower and the glass in the doors threw long strips of light across the carpet.
“Caine,” she said, looking up at him because he had stepped into her space. “I said this can’t happen again.”
He dipped his head to her ear, breath warm, voice gone to that soft Spanish. “Quiero cogerte.”
Her name for him came out on a breath. “Caine.”
He didn’t pull back. “Sé que suenas pinche sexy cuando gimes.”
Her hands went to his chest on instinct, fingers flattening over the fabric, feeling heat and muscle. She didn’t push. Didn’t move back. “Caine.”
“You want to stop?” he asked.
She nodded, small, but her eyes went to his mouth like they had their own will. Then she closed the space and kissed him.
The hush of the sanctuary wrapped around them. Her hands slid down to the hem of his shirt, her wedding ring clicking against his belt buckle, and his went to the zipper at the back of her dress.
~~~
The track had barely faded before Mireya was on her knees at the edge of the stage, sweeping the last of the ones into her silk bag. Sweat ran down her chest. The light off the stage washed everything in pink and blue. She hooked the strap of the bag around her fingers, reached for the robe she’d dropped over the speaker, and tugged it over her shoulders without tying it. Her chest still rose and fell hard from the set.
“Luna.”
She heard it over the music. Familiar. She turned.
Boogie was two tables back, arm up, waving her over, a folded twenty clipped between his fingers. There was a dude next to him, toothpick moving slow at the corner of his mouth.
Mireya spotted Liana heading off the floor with her own bag and cut her off with a small gesture. “Hey. Can you put mine with yours for me?” She pressed the silk bag into Liana’s hand.
Liana nodded, no questions, bag draped over her forearm as she disappeared toward the back with the rest of the girls.
Mireya rolled her shoulders once, let Luna lead. Then she walked to Boogie’s table, robe loose enough to show her body underneath. She leaned on the table with one hand, hip set, hair pushed back from her face.
“You bring money to get a dance from me,” she asked, voice light, “or you just gonna vent again tonight?”
Boogie laughed, big and pleased. He smacked the dude next to him in the chest and tipped his head toward her. “Ain’t I tell you she a bad bitch, June?”
The man gave her a slow once-over, toothpick rolling. “Yeah, she cold. Them white hoes still my favorite, though.”
She didn’t give that any more than a blink. She looked back at Boogie.
He still had the twenty out. She took it from him, folded it over her finger. “My time’s worth more than that, papi.”
“Ain’t say that was all I had.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out a thicker fold. Money showed in layers. He peeled a couple bills off slow, wanting her to see it. “I got money, girl. Lemme get that dance.”
She straightened. “Come on then.” She held her hand out to him.
He took it, palm wide and warm. He pushed his chair back. June watched them go, chewing on the toothpick, eyes on her hips. Mireya led Boogie across the floor, past the booths, toward the spot they had curtained off for VIP. Music thumped through the walls, bass working at the air.
She pulled the curtain open for him.
Boogie went straight to the plush chair and sat down. He spread his legs, relaxed, eyes low on her. Mireya stepped in after him and let the curtain fall behind her. The music outside got softer. She shrugged the robe off her shoulders and let it slide down her arms. She hung it on the little hook in the corner. The room’s light was warmer than the floor’s, enough to shine on her skin without washing her out.
He watched every move.
She stood in front of him, weight easy, letting the beat from outside guide how she shifted. He pulled the fold back out. He peeled off bills for the dance. Ones. A twenty. Enough to cover what he knew it cost. Then he stopped, thumb on the rest, eyes on her face.
“You change your mind from the other night?” he asked.
Her mouth curved, slow. “About what, baby?”
“Givin’ a nigga some head or something?”
The words sat in the air. He said it plain. No shame in it.
She started to ease down toward his lap, body already tracking to the music, then paused halfway, keeping her balance on the side of the chair with one hand. Her mind flashed to Statesboro. To the old white men who threw money at Caine just to have him show up. To rent paid, stipends, food bought for him. And still they gave him more, always more without him needing to do anything but throw that ball.
She made her face smooth.
Mireya looked at the roll still in his hand and then at him. She lifted her hand and held it out right next to the money, fingers open, palm up.
…
The dressing room ran hot from bodies and bad AC. Liana sat hunched over, talking about her classes again, hands moving as she explained something about dosage or credits. Jaslene sat beside her, legs crossed, eyes on Liana like she was breaking down a show. Music from the floor hit the walls in dull pulses.
Mireya pushed the door open with her shoulder. She still had bills bunched in her hand, edges damp from her palm. Glitter clung to her chest. She dropped down between them on the narrow bench.
“Girl, they got me doing labs at eight in the damn morning,” Liana was saying. “Who brain working at eight?”
Mireya reached for the tissue box on the counter. She pulled out a fat handful and dragged the tissues across her mouth, wiping slow.
Jaslene didn’t break focus on Liana. She just reached forward, grabbed the water bottle in front of her, cracked it open and held it out sideways toward Mireya.
“Thanks,” Mireya said, voice low.
She took a long drink. Swished it. Leaned over and spat into the garbage can beside the vanity. Then she finished the rest, throat working, feeling how dry it was.
Liana kept talking. “And I told him I work nights so can he please move it and he talking about, ‘This the only section open.’ Boy, close the whole program.”
Mireya breathed out once. The adrenaline still in her. She reached for the silk bag Liana had dropped off earlier. She unzipped it and dumped the money out in a loose spill. Ones and a few bigger bills fanned over the glass and scattered near the makeup.
The bills from the VIP she set off to the side, separate for now.
She licked her thumb and started to count.
