Free Of Blood and Sorrow by Valerie Wilson Wesley Page B

unquestionably as I would mine.
    This was his son, there was no mistaking that. His eyes were the long-lashed ones of his father, which could charm an uncharmable woman with a wink. He had DeWayne’s build, and seeing the two of them together reminded me of what I’d once loved about the man. His voice had grown deep like DeWayne’s even though it kept the easy rhythm of my brother’s.
    “How about a drink?” DeWayne said, bringing me from my thoughts. “Should be some of that red wine Shelia left in the wine cellar when she split.”
    “So Shelia left you?” DeWayne had been involved with so many women for so many years, I’d stopped keeping count. According to Jamal, Shelia was the latest and the best. She was about my age, which made her ten years younger than DeWayne, smart and classy, with a PhD in English from Rutgers and a pedigree from a family tree of New Brunswick doctors. DeWayne had wooed and won her as he had so many others—with his
GQ
good looks and the sharpest wheels in town. But I noticed with some satisfaction that he was beginning to show his age. His eyelids had a droop, and his dull skin hinted of too much good scotch gulped down with too many fast women.
    “Yeah. They all leave me sooner or later, don’t they, Tammy?”
    “If you call me Tammy again, I’m going to stab you through the ear,” I said; I was in that kind of mood. He actually looked scared for a moment, then chuckled.
    “All that time we were married, you’d think I’d remember by now, don’t you?”
    It had been the eyes that had gotten me, that lazy smile that promised a woman more loving than she’d ever had before. I’d found out the truth of that pretty damn fast.
    “Another one gone, huh?” I couldn’t resist it.
    “You’re still my favorite.”
    “Mom,” Jamal warned, spotting the loathing that flashed in my eyes.
    “Let me get you that wine, Tamara.” DeWayne saw it, too, and headed out of the kitchen and down into the basement. When he was gone, I hugged Jamal again, and my eyes filled with tears.
    “I’m sorry, Mom. I just didn’t know what else to do. Everything happened so fast, I knew you were mad at me, and—”
    “Do you know the police are looking for you? They came by the house.”
    “Cops? Why are they looking for me? I didn’t do nothing!”
    “Lilah Love is dead, Jamal. Somebody beat her to death.”
    He didn’t move but looked straight ahead as the terror gradually overcame him, beginning in his eyes, traveling down to his trembling lips, then down to his young, broad shoulders. I got out of my chair and held him, big as he was, like he was my little boy again.
    “What happened, Ma? What happened? Why would that person kill her?”
    I stopped and studied his face. “Why would
what person
kill her?”
    “The person who got into the car with her, the person she said she was picking up! Why would somebody kill her? She wasn’t going to do anything to anybody, she was really nice, and she—”
    “You don’t know what that bitch was capable of doing,” I said, angry at him all over again for getting into the car to begin with. “What in the hell is wrong with you? How could you risk your life like that? Why would you—”
    “Stop yelling at the boy and let him tell you what happened!” DeWayne interrupted me as he strode into the room with an attitude and a bottle of wine. “You yelling at the boy ain’t going to do no good. Did I hear you say something about the police?”
    “They came to the house tonight.”
    “About what?” he eyed me suspiciously.
    “About a woman who was murdered, the one who was going to bring him down here.”
    Fear was in DeWayne’s face now, too. “Was that the woman who you said didn’t come back, your mama’s friend?” DeWayne asked Jamal, throwing me a dirty look, but his eyes softened as he sat down. “We in this together, Tamara, you know that as well as me. We got to take care of this together.”
    This sudden talk of togetherness