“Do I?” She searches my face. “Have you?”

“You have my friendship and my promise to be the best father I can ever be to this baby.”

“And what if Kimba won’t accept it?” I hear the hope in her voice and have to squelch it.

“Even if Kimba won’t have me, that’s still all I can give you, Ko.” I squeeze her hand. “But that’s a lot. It will have to be enough, because it’s all I have.”

Everything else belongs to Kimba, whether she wants it or not. Whether she’ll keep it or not.

Aiko nods, blinks at tears and tries a smile.

I bend to catch her eye. “You know I got you, right? I won’t let you do this alone. It’s my kid, too.”

“Aren’t you the teeniest bit excited, Ezra? You did always want another baby.”

I manage a nod. There is a distant part of me that will at some point find joy that I’ll be a father again because I love children so much. I’m sure once things settle with Kimba, however they go, I’ll get excited for the chance to be someone else’s dad. Today, there’s no room for excitement. Dread and hope have taken up equal residence in my heart, and I have no idea who’ll get to stay.

When I pull up in front of Janetta Allen’s home, I don’t get out of the car right away. I sit in this moment between hope and hell, between the possibility that Kimba can live with this, can stay for this, and the certainty that she won’t. Knowing she’s inside, wanting to see her as much as I’m dreading this conversation, it’s not a place I can stay very long.

She answers the door almost as soon as I ring the bell. We stand there for a few seconds just watching each other, a wary wanting springing between us. One side of her hair is pulled back, exposing the high beveled bones of her face.

“You look beautiful,” I tell her.

She is dressed for what, in her world, constitutes battle. The crisp linen dress is starkly white against the rich copper of her skin, with tiny sleeves fluttering at her shoulders like petals. It’s not the clothes that give that impression of don’t fuck with me—it’s the confidence she wears inside. She’d probably give the same impression no matter how she was dressed. I assume her attire was carefully chosen with Serena Washington in mind.

“Thanks.” She steps back and waves me in. “We can talk in here.”

It’s the front room, similar to the one Mrs. Allen had in their old house. No one sat on that furniture or actually breathed in there. This is an upgrade, a much more opulently outfitted room, but it feels the same—like I can’t breathe.