“Hell, half your skill, talent and control you learned from Mama Joy here knitting.”
Noah shrugged. “I wouldn’t go that far. I do have some talent of my own.”
“Of course you do, but you were able to focus it because of what you got through her. That you can’t deny. Now, how can we just let what she built go so easily?” Jesse watched as shame clouded over Noah’s face. He afforded himself a breath of relief as he looked at each of his brothers. “We all learned valuable lessons from Mama Joy in this very room, and everything she taught us made us who we are. It helped center me and fixed the focus problems that I had in school.”
“Yeah, too bad it never helped focus you on any sort of career path,” Damian quickly countered, his voice full of snark.
Jesse sighed. “Seriously, do you list ‘professional shithead’ on your Tinder profile? Because if not, you could be sued for false advertising.”
“How about I come over there and show you just how much of a shithead I can be?” Damian snapped back.
Lucas stepped between the two of them. “Enough. We don’t have time for this. Decisions need to be made.” He looked at Jesse. “Listen, Jes, I get what you’re saying. And keeping the shop open, I know, would mean a lot to Mama Joy. But I really don’t see any way that can be done. Noah’s got his tour, Damian’s got his work, and I’ve got my schedule at the firehouse.”
“And?” Jesse asked.
“And what?” Lucas replied.
Jesse was exasperated. Exasperated and furious. Did they really think so little of him? “Are you all seriously not even going to consider me to run the shop?”
He watched as his brother did little to shield the disbelief that ran across his expression. Lucas’s tone when he spoke was slow and placating, as if he was talking to a small child, and it did nothing but infuriate Jesse more. It was made all the worse when he placed his hand on Jesse’s shoulder. “Like I said, Jes, it all sounds well and good, but I don’t see how we can make it work.” Jesse didn’t miss the emphasis Lucas used on the word “we.” Why was he using “we” when he was talking about “he”? He shrugged hard, pushing his brother’s hand away.
“Well, if we can’t make it work, what about me? I’m asking you all to consider me for once. Think of what I can do here.”
Lucas was shaking his head when Jesse heard Noah shift. He turned then and caught the self-satisfied smirk that was plastered across Damian’s face. “I think we’re done with this subject,” Damian started. “Now let’s get down to business and talk about how we’re going to liquidate the inventory, divide the insurance while paying off any debt and take care of dividing the rest of the estate. There is still plenty to take care of and lots of paperwork to look into. Mama Joy wasn’t the best when it came to record keeping, so the sooner we get on it the better.”
Jesse looked around the shop as Damian droned on as if his previous speech had never even happened. Of course Damian would take over. Since he was the oldest, the one with the highest degree and the resident financial advisor, it made sense that he’d be in charge, but it didn’t feel right. Nothing about this felt right.
As Jesse’s gaze roamed, all he saw now were the colorful remnants of Mama Joy’s dreams, and the idea of packing them up and sending them off made a hollow cavern form deep in his chest. He felt rage begin to smolder, the first small embers of a low, burning heat that licked at his toes and worked its way up his legs, quickly taking over his entire body. He banged his hands down hard on the wooden table, causing his brothers to turn in shock.
“Shit, bro! You’re losing it!” Noah said, coming over to his side and clapping his hand on Jesse’s shoulder. “Calm down, Jesse. I know this is hard. But understand, it’s hard for all of us. You have to see that this decision is for the best.”
“The best for who?” he asked, pushing Noah’s hand away and hitting them each with a challenging stare. “It’s not for the best, it’s just the easiest. You all are up in here acting like a bunch of goddamn wimps, and Kerry was right when she said earlier that Mama Joy would be ashamed of us. How can you just close down her life’s work at the first hint of adversity? Didn’t she teach us anything? What was all her sacrificing for?” Jesse ran a frustrated hand over his forehead. “Dammit. She gave us so much. What if she shut down when things were hard with us? Without her, where would each of us be?”
He paused for breath then, and instead of being met with an argument, he was met with silence. Though he didn’t know exactly where they would be without Mama Joy, he sure as hell knew it wasn’t in as good a position as they were in now. Even though, at eight, he was young when Mama Joy took him in, he was already a handful, and he knew after having been in and out of two foster homes pretty quickly that he didn’t have any place else but back to the group home to go when she took him in. He also knew that Noah and Lucas were on the verge of being separated when Mama Joy took them in as a pair. And as for Mr. Know-It-All Smart-Ass, he had been this close to juvenile hall or worse, and he knew it too.
Finally, Jesse cleared his throat and spoke again. “Not to mention this shop is an institution in this neighborhood. We close and what’s gonna take its place? Some chain coffee shop or another goddammed CVS? This is one of the last family-owned businesses in Harlem. We owe it to her and to the neighborhood to at least try to stay open.”
“That’s your problem right there, Jesse. You are too sentimental, and sentimentality won’t get you anything but heartache. It sure as hell won’t pay the bills or keep food in your belly,” Damian said.
Jesse looked at his brother. “You mean like it did for you most of your life?”
Damian glared at him, or maybe he was glowering. Whatever. He probably thought he was being all scary and shit, going his intimidation route. And on anyone else it just might work. He was sharp, that brother of his, so well put together—every part of him exuded downtown corporate businessman. Yep, his brother had cleaned himself up so well that no one would suspect he was an abandoned kid originally from the Bronx, shuttled from foster home to foster home until finally Lady Luck smiled upon him and he ended up just like them, in the arms of Mama Joy. No, no one would know that Mr. Dapper-Dan Mind-on-His-Money-and-Money-on-His-Mind Strong, as it were, when he first came here, was two grades behind for his age and labeled a discipline problem who would never even make it out of middle school, let alone get a scholarship to one of the best business schools in the country. Jesse knew though, and worse yet, Damian knew that Jesse knew who he was and where he came from. Not that his story was all that unique. At least not in this house. They all had one like it, or close to it. And they all owed what they had now to the love and teachings of Mama Joy and the neighborhood that had taken them in as one of its own.