Nathan: Busy?
Rachel: Trying to escape a sip and see.
Nathan: A what?
She looked up to see that Kat had disappeared, while Faith had found a group friends from her Jack and Jill chapter. Rachel strolled away from the ballroom, typing a long message explaining why Kat considered a pre-birth baby shower for her “spotlight-loving Leo” an insult.
Nathan: Is it a good party at least?
Rachel: I think the theme is the Harlem Renaissance? There are napkins with Langston Hughes quotes everywhere.
Nathan: Baby is a Hughes-head already? Good for her.
Rachel laughed as she walked outside. The sun had almost set, and the party had spilled into the rose garden. The smell of sweet smoke drew her attention down a winding walkway to a set of lawn chairs. Mia and Niles reclined in the matching loungers, smoking cigars. Niles stood quickly and squinted in the dim light. “Shit,” he said, relaxing. “I thought you were Kat.” He sat back down, stretching out his long legs, and then smiled, a blinding flash of white teeth that lit up his handsome face. “Pull up a chair, cousin.”
Niles was always like this—warm and familiar, lovingly teasing in a way that made her ashamed for not reaching out to him more.
Mia blew circles of smoke. “He’s not hiding from his fiancée at a party for his own baby. In case you were wondering.” She looked at her brother. “Did I say that right?”
Rachel sat in a chair next to Mia, who offered her the lit cigar. Rachel didn’t hesitate. She took it and filled her mouth with smoke. Niles watched her with wide eyes. “Okay. Unexpected.”
“I used to smoke a long time ago.” She rounded her lips and puffed out her own circles.
“I bet,” Niles said. “Living that artist life at Howard.”
“Okay, Chef,” Mia said. “You should talk.”
“I sowed some middling wild oats back in the day.” Niles stretched long and pushed back the black fedora perched on his head. Mia wore a navy romper with gold earrings. Rachel was starting to see a trend in who didn’t get the memo about the theme. “Those were good times. I did some shit. Saw a lot of shit.” He shook his head. “I was broke and tired and working my ass off for nothing. Wouldn’t have changed a minute of it.” He looked up at the house looming above them. “I’m grateful for all of this, but sometimes having nothing to lose sounds easier.”
“You miss it,” Rachel said. “Because you’re grieving.”
Niles frowned. Or stopped smiling, which was as close to negativity as he could get. “Grieving what?”
“The old you,” Mia interjected. “The one without a fiancée, or a kid, or things to lose. And you’re thirty-four, so it’s even worse. You’ve got decades of a former life to mourn.”
“I miss staying up all night,” Rachel said. “Because there was a TV show I wanted to watch or a book I wanted to finish. And then I would sleep in the next day because it didn’t matter. No one was waiting for me or expecting anything.”
“I used to sing in the shower,” Mia said. “At the top of my lungs. Now the walls are so thin, I’m afraid my daughter will hear me and have one more thing to hate about her mother.”
Niles tsked. “Livie don’t hate you.”
“Not today, no.” Mia sank into her chair. “But there’s always tomorrow.”
“Wait,” Niles said. “If I’m over here grieving, why is Kat fine? She’s too cheerful for me, and I’m a pretty happy motherfucker.”
“She’s twenty-three,” Mia said. “Sleep deprivation is for the young.”
“She’s also not doing as fine as you think,” Rachel said. “I spoke to her earlier.”
Niles winced. “Did she talk about the placenta?”
Rachel nodded and they all shuddered.
“This is probably none of my business,” she said. “But what’s it like being engaged to someone so much younger?”
Niles shrugged. “Kind of like being married to a white man, I guess. Some parts fit. Others don’t. Try to have more that fits.”
He stood and offered to bring them food. Mia gave him a long list of appetizers she’d seen on the way in. Rachel requested cake. “Two slices. I’d like to take one home.”
Mia and Rachel smoked in silence once Niles was gone. This far from the city, she felt like someone else. The Thomas girl who could smoke and drink and eat whatever she wanted, with whomever she chose. She’d worked so hard to be a good Abbott, but never thought to do the same with her own people. Years of neglecting them had robbed her of this kind of peace.