Chantal pulls me away from her. Pri has her head down and is shaking it over and over again.
“What, what, what?” I yell at her again. “You want to fight me, Pri? I will fight you if you don’t tell me the truth.”
“Yo.” She laughs. “Chantal, please calm her the fuck down.”
Chantal grabs both my arms and pushes me against the bathroom door. “Fabiola. Calm down. There’s no reason for you to be getting all hyped for something that has nothing to do with you.”
I inhale and exhale. This has everything to do with me, but they don’t know it. Everything has changed and I will not be able to get my mother back. I cannot give Detective Stevens my cousins. I cannot get my manman home.
Pri paces back and forth in the short, narrow hallway. Donna covers her face with her hands, and I can’t tell if she’s crying or not.
“The girl on the news?” I ask, a little bit calmer now. “The one the people are protesting for? Is that your fault? Did you do that?”
Chantal lets go of me. “Now why in the world would you connect a dead white girl to us, huh? Why would you even think we have anything to do with that?”
“I’m not stupid,” I say. For a moment, I am afraid I’ve said too much. Detective Stevens has told me too much. “I heard that man, Uncle Q, say it. Grosse Pointe Park, right?”
They’re all quiet. Then Donna starts to walk into her bedroom.
“No! You have to tell me what’s going on. There is all this money. I don’t even see Matant Jo working. Is that what you have been sending to Haiti all this time? Drug money? If everything I ever had in my life is because of drug money, I need to know.” I speak as if my words are running. I’m out of breath. My heart is a conga drum. I wipe sweat from my forehead.
“It wasn’t always drug money,” Chantal says.
“Chant!” Pri calls out. “What you doing?”
“She’s family. She asked a question, so I’m telling her.”
Pri rushes to me and puts her finger in my face. “Fabiola, I swear on my father’s grave, if you so much as utter a word to any one of your so-called friends, I will . . . Ooooh! You don’t even wanna know.” She steps away from me.
Chantal takes my hand and walks me into her bedroom. She sits me down. Donna and Pri come in, turn on a nearby lamp, and close the door behind them. Chantal doesn’t let go of my hand. She takes the other one and looks me in the eye. I look her in the eye, too.
“Maybe it was supposed to be Four Bees all along,” she says.
Pri sighs long and deep, and she plops down on my mattress. It makes a hissing sound as if the air is slowly escaping.
“Maybe we’re not supposed to be like a pyramid,” Chantal continues. “’Cause that’ll mean somebody would have to be on top. And we don’t want nobody falling off.”
“Chantal, what the fuck you talkin’ about?” Pri asks.
Chantal shushes her. “Maybe you’re here to make us more like a square—four points—a solid foundation.”
“I can’t believe she’s turning this shit into a geometry class,” Pri mumbles.
I pull my hands away from Chantal. “Don’t treat me like a baby,” I say. “How are you going to get the money for that man by the end of the month?”
“I don’t know yet. Uncle Q was like a father to us,” Donna says. She’s standing by the closed door with her arms folded across her chest. A silky scarf is tied around her head and for the first time, I get a good look at her face without all the makeup. I see my face in hers, my mother’s face in hers—so small, simple, and pretty. “He looked out for us after our father died.”
“Yo, son.” Pri sits up on the air mattress now and pounds her fist into her palm with each word she speaks. “He’s out fifteen Gs. You think he’s gonna let that shit slide?”
“He’s not gonna let it slide,” Chantal says.
“Wait, wait, wait,” I say. “What happened to his money? Why don’t you just give it back to him?”
Chantal sighs. “Fabiola, our father was making a drop for Q when he got shot in the back of his head. He wasn’t dealing or nothing. He just needed some extra cash, like everybody else around here.”