Before she could say anything else, he continued. “I want you to come to the funeral. But it’s going to be weird old-rich-white-guy stuff.”

She had never heard him sound like this. Stephen was speaking slowly, his voice creaking from emotional weight. They had known each other for almost a third of their lives now but the things she knew about Stephen’s father could be summarized as: he was very rich, he had been married four times but twice to the same woman, who was not Stephen’s mom, he was a white dad who was willing to see Black women as desirable but not willing to consider the complications of raising a Black son, he did not like that Stephen referred to himself as Black and thought it was a way to erase “his contributions as a parent,” and thought most minorities “should just get over it and stop complaining,” and he had season tickets to Pistons games. Oh, and he was a phenomenal gift giver. The man had met Ayanna three times, but because she was important to Stephen he had added her to his Christmas list. Last year, he’d sent Ayanna a luxury perfume from Ireland that was hard to find in the United States. She’d resented being sent a scent—too personal—but now wore it out to dinner or to events she deemed “nice.” The year when Stephen had graduated, he had given their entire friend group a trip to a cabin he owned on the Oregon coast. A place with a hot tub, fifteen bottles of good red wine waiting for them, and an exorbitant Tillamook gift basket. It was a trip Ayanna thought about every time depression told her she had no friends: walking on a beach just talking wild bullshit with Stephen, kissing Felix below an ancient tree, and sitting in the hot tub with Jane late at night and pointing at clouds and stars.

Stephen told her when and where, said his dad had left funds for people to use to attend the funeral if they needed it, and kept saying, “It was unexpected.”

“I’ll be there.”

She listened to his breathing.

“When my sister.” Ayanna paused, still uncomfortable saying the word, especially to other people who had just lost someone. “I was desperate to hear people talk about her, and then whenever they talked about her, it reminded me that she was gone, and I resented them for it.”

“Yeah, I really don’t want to talk about it.”

Ayanna wondered if he wanted to ask her about the work she was doing. If he was going to ask her whether she could help him speak to his father one last time.

“Can I tell you something fucked up?”