Free Black Cake: A Novel by Charmaine Wilkerson Page A

Lynette’s number. Maybe it’s not about his ma, at all. Maybe Lynette needs something from him. Calling about Ma would be a way in. His friend Cable would tell him he’s being a jerk for thinking aboutLynette that way. Cable would say that of course Lynette was calling about his ma. And Cable wouldn’t mince words if he believed otherwise.
    Byron will call Lynette later. Or maybe he won’t call. She’s the one who walked out on the relationship. He feels that old burn just below his sternum. He’s pissed that Lynette should still get to him this way. He looks one more time at the flashing screen on his smartphone, then taps reject to silence the call.

Byron and Benny
     
    B yron wants to finish listening to his mother’s recording, but Benny is off and wandering around the house. Benny, who always used to say that she needed to go to the bathroom when she really just wanted to take off and do something else. Sure enough, Byron finds Benny in her old bedroom, wearing an ancient college sweatshirt and hugging something small to her chest.
    Benny looks at him, her face all knotted up. He knows what she’s thinking.
    “Who is she, Byron?” Benny says.
    Byron shakes his head. “I have no idea,” he says. “This is the first I’ve ever heard anything about us having a sister.”
    “I don’t mean this sister person. I mean Covey. Who in the world was she?” Benny’s shoulders slump. “What did she have to do with our mother? They must have known each other, with all those things they had in common. The island, the sea, the black cake. Don’t you think?”
    “I don’t know what to think.”
    “This is taking too long. Let’s just go and make Mr. Mitch tell us right now.”
    “No, you heard what he said, he’s not going to tell us. Let’s just go back and listen.”
    Benny nods. She has that cloudy-looking face of little Benny at age six and, once again, Byron must resist the urge to hug her. He needs to remember that this is not his baby sister anymore. This is a woman hehasn’t seen in eight years, who didn’t come to their own father’s funeral, who wasn’t there for their mother’s seventieth birthday, and with whom he’s exchanged only a handful of words in all that time. Apparently, no one is who they used to be. Not his sister and not even his own mother.
    Byron holds out a set of keys.
    “What’s this?” Benny says.
    “I had to change the locks on the front door. This is your set.”
    “But I never come in the front door.”
    “Well, we have a front door, so just take the keys.”
    Benny puts out her hand. “What happened? Burglary?”
    Byron shakes his head. “Earthquake. Shifted the doorframe.”
    “Oh, yeah, now I remember.”
    “You do?” Byron says, the sarcasm making his upper lip curl. “What do you mean, you remember, Benny? You weren’t even here. And, by the way, you didn’t bother to call, did you, to see if we were all right?”
    “I didn’t have to. Ma let me know.”
    “Ma? You talked to Ma?”
    “No, not really. Ma would leave messages once in a while.”
    “You were in contact with Ma? All this time? I thought you weren’t talking to each other.”
    “I told you, once in a while she’d leave a message. Birthdays, holidays, you know. Then the earthquake.”
    “But you never came to see her.”
    Benny shakes her head. “She never told me to come and see her. She never even asked me to call her back. I did call the house a couple of times, but she didn’t answer. I wrote her a letter, not long ago, and she left me a short message. She didn’t say she was sick.” Benny opens her mouth to say something else, then stops, shakes her head.
    “She was on some heavy-duty meds the last few months. Of course she wanted to see you. She was just very hurt, you know?”
    “Ma? She was hurt? And what about me? I was the one who was rejected by my own parents.”
    “They did not reject you, Benny. They were upset because you walked out on them.”
    “They were