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I sat there, holding that napkin like it might save me.
And I let the tears come.
Because I wasn’t just grieving now.
I was afraid.
The tears came slow at first—silent and shapeless—but they didn’t stop. They dripped down my cheeks and soaked into my tank top, and I didn’t wipe them away. I let them fall. Let them remind me I was still human. That I hadn’t gone entirely numb.
But the fear that settled over me wasn’t just about jail. Or being alone. Or even being blamed.
It was about the truth—that the one person who’d always known how to talk me down, talk me through, was gone. Jessa, who could read my moods before I even spoke. Jessa, who would’ve known what to say. She’d have grabbed my hand, madea joke, stolen my keys, and ordered greasy fries on the way to the hospital or court or whatever fresh hell I’d gotten myself into.
And now, all I had was a napkin with a name and no one to call.
Or maybe … maybe there was someone.
Not someone who could fix this. But someone who used to make it all feel a little less broken.
I stood slowly, pressing my hands to the wall for balance.
A guard passed the bars, his boots echoing down the corridor.
“Hey,” I called, voice rasping. “I want my call.”
He didn’t stop.
“I want my one phone call,” I repeated, louder this time.
He paused, turned, looked me over like I’d finally remembered I was a person. “You processed?”
“Yes.”
He said nothing for a second, then nodded. “Five minutes. That’s all you get.”
He led me to a small, sterile room that reeked of bleach and regret. A metal stool sat bolted to the floor beside a grimy wall-mounted phone. I lowered myself slowly, picked up the receiver with trembling fingers, and dialed the only number I still knew by heart.
The memory care facility in New Orleans answered on the third ring.
“Saint Cecilia’s,” came a soft voice. “Evening shift, this is Martha.”
My throat tightened. “I’m—uh. I’m calling for Maureen Laveau. I’m her daughter.”
“Hold on,” the woman said, tone shifting. “She’s not usually up this late.”
“Please. Just for a minute.”
A beat of silence. Then muffled footsteps. A door opening.
Shuffling sounds.
Then her voice.
“Hello?”
It was barely above a whisper. That same delicate, singsong cadence that used to tell bedtime stories and yell at carpool lines. Only now, it wobbled. Like a thread coming undone.
“Hi, Mama,” I said.