LOGINXena“Mr. Okafor, you have until nine-fifteen to tell me why I shouldn’t dismiss three motions in one morning.” Judge Albright did not look up from the stack of papers on the bench.“Because all three rest on the same document, Your Honor,” Okafor answered, rising slowly from our table. “And only one side has told you where it came from.”Peter sat at the petitioner’s table in a charcoal suit with his hands folded on the wood. His attorney, a narrow man named Calloway, rested a pen against his lip.Behind us, my mother sat in the front row beside Dante with her purse in her lap and her eyes on the seal on the wall. My twin sister, Hannah, had taken the seat on our mother’s other side, still in her work jacket from a shift she hadn’t explained. The Delacroixs sat in the aisle seats, her Bible on her knees and his cane propped between them.Reporters filled the back bench, and Reyes stood ne
Xena.“Mrs. Cross, did you harass an eighty-one-year-old man in a hospital bed?” The reporter stepped into my path with her microphone out, and the camera light turned the lawn white.Dante’s truck had barely stopped in our driveway. The news van sat at the curb with its door open. Across the road, Mr. Delacroix had walked onto his lawn with his cane and planted himself there.“Mrs. Cross?”I kept my hands at my sides. Behind me, Dante pushed both of his into his coat pockets and held them there.“I sat in a waiting room until my husband came out of his father’s room.” My voice came out even. “I will answer everything else in court at nine.”“Your brother-in-law says you’ve been intimidating the family for weeks.”“Then he can say it under oath.” I stepped around her microphone. “Good night.”“Mrs. Cross, are you afraid o
Xena“Xena, don’t say anything, just listen.” My mother’s whisper came through the phone flat and quick. “That’s why I didn’t talk when you called. He was standing at my window. There’s a man on my porch, and I have the coat.”“Stay where you are, Mom.” I pressed the phone to my ear with both hands. “Where are you?”“In the hall closet, behind the vacuum. He rang the bell four times. He keeps saying, ‘Ma’am, it’s family.’”Dante took the corner onto the avenue with one wheel off the pavement. Adrian braced both hands on the back of my seat, and the truck’s frame shuddered over a pothole.“Is he still knocking?” My knuckles had gone white around the phone.“Every minute. He’s patient.” A dry swallow rasped on the line. “He’s the kind of man who waits.”“Don’t open the door. Don’t answer him. I’m eight minutes away.”“I have the coat on my lap, Xena. I haven’t touched the pockets.”“Good. Don’t.”Dante’s phone buzzed on the dash. He thumbed it to speaker without taking his eyes off the
Xena.“He’s stable, Mr. Cross.” The doctor peeled off her gloves and dropped them in the bin beside the bay. “It was a short arrhythmia from stress, and it corrected itself. I want him quiet, one visitor at a time, and no raised voices.”“Can I go in?” Dante’s hand was already on the curtain.“Five minutes.”He turned to me. His palm cupped my jaw, and his thumb stopped at the corner of my mouth. “Stay where I can find you.”“I’m not moving from this wall.”He held my eyes a moment longer, then slipped through the curtain. I heard the low murmur of his voice on the other side, and a thin voice answering him. I leaned my shoulders against the corridor wall beside the double doors that opened onto the waiting room, where I could see Peter’s row of chairs and Adrian could see me.Adrian sat on the floor beside my feet with his ba
Xena.“Ma’am, the patient’s son says no visitors.” The security guard stepped into the middle of the emergency doors and spread his arms. “He has paperwork.”“Which son?” I demanded.“Mr. Peter Cross.”Okafor held up his bar card at the guard’s eye level. “I represent Mrs. Dante Cross, and I’d like to speak to your charge nurse. We can do that at the desk or in front of your lobby camera.”The guard looked at the card, then at the camera, and stepped aside.Behind me, Adrian’s boots scuffed to a stop, and his breath came fast.The waiting room was full. A woman held a toddler against her shoulder, and two men in work jackets sat beneath a muted television. The woman with the toddler looked up when the doors opened, then past us to the intake desk, where Peter stood with a manila folder open in front of the charge nurse.“Hallam House has a bed ready and a car coming at three,” Peter was saying. His voice was warm and carried across the whole room. “My father is eighty-one. He needs a
Xena"No." I lowered the phone to my hip and faced him. "You don't get to hear her."Peter stood on the top step with one hand on the rail, his coat buttoned to the throat. He had crossed the road without hurrying, and his shoes had left damp prints on our boards."Mr. Cross." Reyes's voice carried from the street, flat and hard. "Step off that porch.""I'm speaking with my sister-in-law, Detective, in front of this entire street." Peter did not turn his head. "I'm not touching her, and I'm not inside her door.""Dad." Adrian had stopped working the key, and the lock clicked back against his fingers as he let go of it. He stood with his back against the door and the key hanging from his fist. "Go home."Peter's eyes moved to his son, and for the first time that morning his voice lost its polish. "Adrian. Come away from that door.""No.""I said come here.""I heard you." Adrian's chin shook once, and he held it level. "I live here this week."Peter's face did not change, but the knuck
Xena.I have had some strange experiences in my lifetime.Being born illegitimate into a family that kept me like a footnote. Being sent to a wedding that wasn't mine with twenty minutes of notice. And spending three years married to a man who looked through me at dinner every night.But none of th
Xena. Was Hannah drunk?I stood there waiting for the punchline. April Fools was months away but maybe someone had lost track of the calendar. Maybe this was some elaborate Yale family bit that I hadn't been briefed on. Maybe —Adrian crossed the room to stand beside her."It's true." He turned to
Xena.I gasped for breath, my legs still aching from the last round. Yet Dante stood over me like this was nothing but probably another of his one night stands.The bed was wet beneath me, wet from my juices. I stared at the ceiling for a while, the memories of his cock inside of me played over an
Xena.The ceiling in Dante's room was different from the one in the guest room.I noticed that first, which probably said something about the state of my brain. I stared at it and waited for regret to arrive.It didn't.What arrived instead was a very thorough physical awareness of every decision







