“Where do you wanna go?” the driver asked.
“Outside the city—anywhere.”
The driver hopped on the George Washington Bridge, then he dropped them off at a Marriott in Weehawken, New Jersey. A bellboy was walking back and forth across the entrance mat when the women arrived, and when he opened the car door on Amara’s side, he caught her fall before she smacked her forehead on the concrete. Hallow begged for any spare room they had no matter the size, and the bellboy guided them to a side entrance to avoid a scene. He suggested they call an ambulance, but Hallow refused. In an otherwise unattended corridor near the courtyard, Hallow propped Amara against the wall and heard her groaning by the time the bellboy returned with a key and directions for sending payment once they checked into their hotel room.
There in the deluxe suite, Hallow placed pillows underneath Amara’s head and feet, then fetched ice from the machine in the hallway. She was about to start toward the bathroom to wet a washcloth for Amara’s forehead when the view of the New York City skyline captivated her. The lapping waves of the Hudson River glimmered from the Midtown skyscrapers towering above them, and the George Washington Bridge lights were pearls against the backdrop of the obsidian sky. Hallow sat on her knees on top of the chair near the window, and her heart quickened with the revelation that she’d escaped the Melancon brownstone.
Amara breathed heavily and curled into the fetal position on the bed. To avoid waking her, Hallow moved to the sofa and traced every feature of her mother’s face with her eyes. From the top of her mother’s widow’s peak down to her dimpled chin, she wanted to know what was burrowed in her cheeks, what resided behind her eyes, and what other secrets were nestled in her mouth. She wanted to know everything. But most of all, Hallow wanted to know if Amara could be home and replace the one she’d fled. Hallow moved farther down to inspect Amara’s neck and then her arms and hands before she drifted to sleep.
The following morning, she awakened with a large blanket over her body and a pillow behind her head. The TV had been turned on to MSNBC programming, and Amara was sipping a cup of coffee at the edge of her bed. The chyron read: MAYHEM ENSUES IN HARLEM OVER RISING DA AND ABANDONED CHILD—followed by a professional photo of Amara Danville sitting next to the American flag and a candid photo of Hallow somewhere out on the street. One of the MSNBC national correspondents, a Black woman with a pixie cut, moderated a roundtable discussion with other Black women about police violence. According to the correspondent, the police officers used excessive force against pregnant Black women, and sources said that several miscarried en route to Mount Sinai Hospital. The conversation cut to a local organizer, who was standing in front of the Melancon brownstone with a crowd of protestors whose posters said LEAVE HARLEM and ALL SKINFOLK AIN’T KINFOLK, and who yelled into the interviewer’s mic about how much the Melancons had damaged the bonds between Harlemite Black women with their unwillingness to help others. Someone jumped in front of the camera and blurted out how the Melancon family hadn’t helped an auntie of hers: “Danville and the Melancons are family. It’s been exposed. They the feds. They don’t help nobody ’round here. A stain on the community,” she said and spat on the ground.
“I think I gotta go home,” Hallow said.
“No, Hallow.” Amara shook her head and turned to face Hallow. “You can’t go back there. It’s not safe. Those people are angry, and they’re out for blood.”
“Well, thank God I got something extra to protect me.” Hallow waved her arm in the air and stood to her feet.
Amara watched as Hallow dusted off the sleeves of her shirt, bewildered. “You want to go back to them after what they done to you?”
“What they done to me?”
“Yes! Hallow, they cut your body and sold it to people. They abused you, and you wanna go back to that?”
Amara placed her hands on Hallow’s shoulders, and Hallow swatted them away. “They did not abuse me! They were my family.”
“You call that a family? Hallow, think what other kind of life you could’ve had away from them.”
“What, with you? If you didn’t have the chance to give me up, would you have thrown me in the garbage too?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it? Maman and Josephine helped you, didn’t they? They took me in and you got this fancy, important job, didn’t you? From the looks of it, life turned out great for you.” Hallow flicked her hand at her mother, pursed her lips, and crossed her arms over her chest.
“No, it didn’t.”
“Oh, give me a break.”
“No, Hallow. Listen.” Amara moved her head toward Hallow’s face to force her daughter to look her in the eye but was met with resistance. “I wasn’t ready. I—”
“But who is ever ready for a baby?”
“Let me finish. As soon as I felt you leave my body, I closed my eyes, afraid that if I got a good look at you, I would’ve held on to you. And I couldn’t have given you the life that I would’ve wanted to give any child. You would’ve been raised with resentment for what kind of parent I could’ve been had I had you at a later time. What I’m saying is . . . mothers are made just like children are, and I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough.”
Hallow looked her birth mother in the eye and loosened her arms. Together, they sat down on the bed. “Is that why you went to Blessed Waters? Were you looking for me?”
“I was looking for the Melancons so I could prosecute them.”
“So you wanted to hurt me?”
“No, sweetheart, listen
