He looked at me and I could see again just how tired he was. “It’s not because of my parents. I’m always like this after we wrap up a trial. I sort of run through everything in my head a dozen times, trying to figure out where we fucked up. It’s how I keep my expectations in check. I need to be prepared for disappointment because I have to face the families after and I can’t go to them feeling like the outcome came out of nowhere.”

“I get that, I hope that jury does right by her.”

After a second Easton lifted his head and glanced up at me. “How are things at work? Are things still good?”

I nodded, glad to see the restaurant was near. “Yeah.” The meeting with the dean had gone a lot better than I’d thought. He’d basically called me in to ask if I wanted to be involved in a task force looking at implicit bias in the faculty, which I did not expect. “Task force thing is moving surprisingly fast.”

“Good,” Easton said, as we arrived.

Nesto, as expected, had drawn a crowd. I knew Jude and his best friend Carmen had been helping him with the planning and the place looked great. The usual crowd of college students and young professionals that frequented OuNYe had been replaced by very wealthy-looking and older people. As we walked in, I once again took a moment to look around my friend’s restaurant. The place was lit by vintage lamps hanging from the high ceilings. On the red walls were enormous aerial photos of the islands Nesto, Camilo, Juanpa and I came from. I glanced over at the gigantic photo of one of my favorite places in Haiti, the old fort on the northern tip of the island called Cap Haitien.

I was still bowled over by what Nesto had done and how he was honoring all our roots with this place. Nesto had built all this with his hard work and being tenacious. Like he always said, we really were our ancestor’s wildest dreams.

Easton let go of my hand as he took his own look around and pointed his chin in the direction where Nesto had placed a coat checker. We spotted my best friend too, and as soon as he saw us, he grabbed Jude’s hand and made a beeline toward us, a big grin on his face.

He came in close to give me dap as Jude smiled at us, waiting for his turn to say hello. Nesto gave Easton a pat on the shoulder and angled his head in the direction of the courthouse. “I heard you kicked ass in court today. Cindy’s around here somewhere, she came in buzzing about how she’s going to make you run for DA.” Easton groaned as Nesto and Jude both grinned.