I waited several days before telling Liora about Anthony, days I should’ve used sooner, but fear kept my tongue tied and my courage small. I told myself I was waiting for the right moment, for her mood to be soft enough to hold what I needed to say. So, I waited until she came home glowing from an evening out with Mr. Claude, humming like a girl without a care in the world.
She sat at her vanity, removing her jewelry piece by piece, the lamplight catching on her rings and earrings like tiny stars. I stood behind her, seeing to her hair, my hands steady though my heartbeat wild in my chest. I drew in a deep breath to still myself.
“Liora, honey… I need to speak with you,” I said quietly.
“Hm?” she murmured, looking up at me through the mirror. Her humming stopped. Her body stilled. She waited.
“I… You know that bein’ here with you, I have no complaints. You are my sister, and despite everything that’s happened in this house, I love you. I will always love you, always try to protect you. But I’m a woman grown now. I need to start thinkin’ about my future.”
“Oh?” she said softly. “And what future is that, Nadira?”
Her voice was calm, but her face had gone cold, no smile, no softness. I knew that look. It meant she was listening too closely. It meant she was holding herself back from somethin’ sharp.
I wanted to swallow my words, take them back, pretend I had never opened my mouth. But Solange’s voice echoed in my mind, “Don’t let fear keep you stuck”. So, I told her the truth. All of it.
Meeting Anthony. Spending time with him without her knowing. His interest in seeing me. His desire for us to marry and build a family together.
She didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe.
But when I said I wanted those things too. I wanted marriage, children, and a life of my own with a family. That was when the dam broke.
She stood so fast her chair scraped across the floor. Before I could speak, her hand came down hard across my face. The slap sent me to the floor, my cheek burning like fire. I lay there stunned, staring up at her.
Liora stood over me in her nightdress, her curls loose around her shoulders, her beauty sharpened by fury.
“You want to marry?” she spat. “Have children? You? My sister who’s been with me since the day I was born? You talk of leavin’ me?”
She jabbed a finger into her own chest, trembling with rage.
“You think you gon’ marry him? Bear his children? And what then? Leave me alone in this house? Leave me with Mama’s ghosts and Papa’s sins? Leave me to rot while you go play wife?”
“You selfish girl,” she hissed. “You selfish, ungrateful girl. I been givin’ you everything. My clothes, my food, my protection, my love, and you repay me by sneakin’ around with some carpenter like you ain’t nothin to me. ” ”
“Liora… please…” I whispered, trying to sit up. “I ain’t abandonin’ you. I just……”
“No!” she snapped. “You think he gon’ understand you? You think he gon’ stay when he sees what you really are? When he sees the visions? The spirits? The darkness Mama left in you?”
“That ain’t true,” I said, tears stinging my eyes. “He’s kind. He’s patient. He…..”
“He’s weak,” she hissed. “Weak and stupid. And you……” she pointed at me again, her finger shaking, “you too blind to see he only want you ’cause you quiet and soft and easy to control.”
I shook my head. “Liora, baby, listen…..”
She slapped my reaching hand away.
“No. You listen.” She leaned down, her face inches from mine, her voice trembling with hurt and fury.
“I will not be left. I will not be abandoned. I will not be replaced.”
My heart pounded painfully. “I ain’t leavin’ you,” I whispered. “I just want you to understand. I want you to be happy for me. I want you to let me have somethin’ good.”
Her expression twisted. Fear, anger, desperation all tangled together.
“You want good?” she whispered. “Then you stay with me. That’s the only good you gon’ get.”
I shook my head slowly, tears falling. “Liora… that ain’t love.”
Her eyes flashed, bright and wild.
“It’s the only love I am going to allow you to have.”
I tried again to speak, but Liora had already turned her back on me. She drifted toward the window like a shadow, her nightdress trailing behind her, her curls spillin’ down her shoulders in wild, angry waves. She stood there quiet as a grave, starin’ out into the dark yard where the willow branches swayed like mourners.
I stayed where I was, gatherin’ myself piece by piece. My cheek still burned from her hand, and my tears had dried stiff on my face. I wiped at them, tried to smooth my hair, tried to make myself look less shaken, though my heart was beatin’ hard enough to shake the floorboards.
For a long moment, she didn’t speak. The silence stretched thin, tight, dangerous. Then, to my surprise, Liora’s voice came cold, clipped, stripped of all the sweetness she wore like perfume.
“Fine,” she said. “Go on and marry that carpenter.”
My breath caught.
She didn’t turn around. “Have your babies. Build your little life. Do whatever it is you think you need to do.”
Her tone was too calm, like a pot with the lid pressed down tight, steam rattlin’ underneath.
I swallowed hard. “Liora… honey, I ain’t tryin’ to hurt you…..”
She turned then, slow as molasses, her eyes dark and unreadable. She walked toward me with that eerie grace she had when she was holdin’ somethin’ sharp inside her. She leaned down close, her lips brushin’ my ear, her breath warm against my cheek.
“You can do all that,” she whispered. “Marry him. Bear his children. Build your future.”
Her voice dropped lower, almost tender, but there was nothin’ tender in the words that followed.
“And then,” she murmured, “you can see what happens.”
A chill ran through me so deep it felt like my bones turned to ice. Before I could speak, before I could reach for her, she straightened up and walked to the door. She didn’t slam it. She didn’t curse. She didn’t look back.
She just slipped out of the room, quiet as a spirit, leavin’ me standin’ there with my cheek throbbin’, my breath shakin’, and a fear in my chest that felt older than both of us.
I didn’t know what she meant. I didn’t know what she planned. But I knew one thing for certain.
Liora’s silence was far more dangerous than her rage.
