Sidney didn't leave the condo until they ran out of food. They spent their days cycling in and out of sleep. Phil trying to restore his body and Sidney trying to restore her mind. Sid was on edge waiting for the other shoe to drop. It had been eerily quiet. Sidney knew that Kru had been back in town for a few days and yet there had been no tornado. The earth had not quaked. Her phone wasn't ringing off the hook. Fort Greene wasn't up in flames. The only disaster that she had experienced was unsettling quiet. It was like waiting for a bomb to detonate. Sid was becoming anxious and it was taking everything in her not to storm back into her hood and call Kru out into the streets for a public duel. But she couldn't. She had put a plan in action and in order for Kru not to kill her on sight, she needed him to know that she had possession of something that he needed. She had to wait.
Now, as she strolled the aisles of the supermarket pulling down ingredients for chili, she dialed Chante.
"Hey, Sid." Chante answer halfway through the first ring. If anyone was on edge as much as Sidney, it was Chante. She was hiding out in an Airbnb in New Jersey with her daughter, sisters, and her mother while she waited for Nixon to call her with any news.
"Hey, how are you guys holding up out there?" Sid asked as she pulled paprika from a shelf and tossed it into her cart.
"We'd be fine if Tina would stop trying to schedule a dick appointment! We're in hiding. Are you dumb?" Chante shouted into the background. Sid heard angry shouting come back through the phone but couldn't make out what was said. "These bitches are driving me crazy." Chante sounded exasperated and Sid could relate.
"Any word on Kru?"
"No. Nixon said that Frenchie told him that Kru asked her to search people's houses but when she went back to his office to tell him they were gone he wasn't there and no one has seen him since," Chante whispered into the phone. Sid felt a chill run down her spine and she whipped around the see if anyone was watching her. Following her at this very moment. But all she saw was an elderly woman behind her holding a jar of pickles less than an inch from her face trying to read the label.
"Are all the businesses still closed?"
"Yeah. Everybody took off like you asked."
He'd definitely come looking for her. Sid just had to remind herself to be patient and let things play out. Jumping the gun could be detrimental to everyone at this point. She waited six long years to get him in her sights. She could wait another few days if she had to. For Kru, he had to be hemorrhaging money at this point. With all that drug money rolling in and nowhere to clean it he was undoubtedly in a tight a spot. She was squeezing him where it hurt most and she just had to keep applying the pressure.
"Call me if you need anything?" Sid was about to hang up but Chante kept on talking.
"How's Phil doing?" Sid made her way to the registers and began putting her items on the belt. She threw a smile at the cashier as she thought of her and Phil's time over the past few days. They were really in their own little cocoon of safety where nothing could hurt them. They knew they wouldn't be able to stay there forever but for the time being, they reveled in it. Sid nursing Phil back to health as he tried to regain his strength between long stretches of sleep. He constantly apologized for dozing off but Sid didn't mind it at all. She could spend hours next to him, just listening to the steady drawing in and pushing out of his breath. Watching his peaceful face. She was trying to etch that one into her psyche to replace the damaged one. The bruised one that had haunted her for so many nights. Both Tomi and Aiden had made sure she could take some time off of work to handle all of this and while she was grateful she did miss the kitchen. But she made up for it by being Phil's personal chef in their little bubble of protection. When he awoke, she fed him any cuisine that popped into her mind and he gobbled it all up.
"He's doing great. He's healing. Still in pain but nothing a few Vicodin can't solve."
"Tell him to save me some!" Chante shouted into the phone. Sid chuckled out loud for the first time in the last few days. The joy felt good rolling through her body. It felt defiant and she loved having a moment of that. The cashier smiled at her as she bagged the groceries and handed the receipt to Sid.
"You're...just...thank you," Sid said to Chante.
"What?"
"You've always been so you. It's helped me...be. It's just helped me be." Sid said as she fought against tears rushing to her eyes. She'd cried so much these last few weeks and she was completely over it. She felt like such a softy.
"Aww, I knew you loved me. You need to work on your people skills but I think you're a boss bitch too."
"I will work on it." Sid wiped the tear that stubbornly escaped as she made her way into the building and pressed the elevator to return to her cocoon.
"I'll call you if I hear anything." Chante tried her best to sound reassured but she couldn't hide the fear in her voice from Sid because she was terrified too. It sounded just like hers did anytime Phil asked why she was obsessively checking her phone. Pressing her to know exactly what she meant when she said she was going to handle Kru. She had remained tight-lipped because she didn't want to be talked out of doing this. Trying to do this was all she had. She could only continue to live knowing that she did all she could to make a better life for herself and her people.
When she entered the apartment she tried to readjust her face and remove the tremor from her voice. They were in their bubble and she would do all she could to keep it intact for as long as she could. As she entered, she tried to close the door quietly in case Phil was sleeping. Surprisingly she saw him slowly emerging from the bathroom. Any moves he'd made recently had been with her assistance. She was happy to see him up and moving on his own but sad that she would lose one of her excuses for being close to him.
"Look at you." She said as she hoisted the bag full of groceries onto the kitchen counter. Phil smiled and threw a weak solitary fist pump into the air. He turned and made his way toward her like a slow-moving tortoise. She fought against the urge to rush over, loop her arm around his waist, and throw his left arm over her shoulder for support. Instead, she busied herself with pulling pots and pans from the cabinets. They were all pristine because Tomi never cooked. She downloaded every food delivery app and never thought about preparing food again.
"What's on the menu today?"
"Chili con carne and some buttermilk cornbread. Put some meat back on your bones." Sid giggled and put oil in a pan to sear some steak and chorizo for the chili. The sizzling of the pan was the only thing she could hear. Phil had gone quiet. She turned around to find him watching her. Leaned against the small island as his hip rested against a stool. The look in his eyes somewhere between sorrow and joy. "You don't like chili? Or is it the cornbread? Nah, everybody likes cornbread."
"I kept thinking about you."
"What?" Sid threw glances at him as she watched the meat cook. Using it as an excuse not to fall into his eyes again.
"I would feel the world falling away from me. Over and over again. I was afraid that it wouldn't come back again. But if I thought of you... it kind of like pulled me back to earth. It grounded me here. I didn't feel like I would float away. I wanted to stay here."
"If you didn't make it out of there...I..." Sid's words caught in her chest.
"I made it back because of you."
"No. I put you in this situation in the first place. I should have never taken anything from you. Especially because you've always been... I can breathe when I'm with you. Finally. It's like I'm not holding my fucking breath. Even with all that I still stole from you. I was out of my damn mind."
"I didn't belong in that world. I knew it. I'm not cut out for it but it was all I knew. I couldn't see a way out and regardless of how painful that shit was, you gave me a way out. There's no reason I have to go back there. I can start fresh. With you. I'd love to start fresh with you, Sid."
The thought of buying a plane ticket and moving to a place far away had crossed her mind more than she would have liked to admit. And it did again just then. Maybe the only thing the world owed her for all of her pain was a clean start. A clean slate that she could build her world on. But she could never fool herself into believing that peace meant more to her than justice. It never had. Starting over fresh wasn't justice. She would happily live in turmoil if it meant she was closer to righting things. The scales had to be balanced for her, her father, Chante, and even though he didn't want it, Phil.
"I have to make sure I'm leaving a place that I can come back to."
"You'd never have to come back here. The world is big as hell. Aside from the middle of the country, we can live anywhere we want." He laughed and winced. Sid laughed for him and shrugged her shoulders. Maybe he was right but still. "You're one of those rappers who get big and still come back to the hood, huh?"
Sid furrowed her brow. She'd never thought she would be compared to a rapper. Leave it to Phil to make such a weird correlation. But, after she considered it for a minute she nodded.
"Yeah. I guess I am." Sid felt an unexpected sense of pride in that. She moved the meat around in the pan for a moment before her phone trilled on the counter. Ahsan's number filled the screen. She hoped that Ahmed wasn't pressuring them to come back home already. He'd been reluctant to leave but his wife took the chance for them to return to Lebanon and visit family after not going back for more than twenty years.
"Hey, Ahsan. You guys get settled in fine?"
Sid tucked the phone between her shoulder and ear as she opened a can of kidney beans.
"I'm sure they are considering you're handling all their affairs." The can slipped from Sid's hands and landed on the floor. The liquid splattered, soaking her sneakers, and sending earth-colored beans skidding across the kitchen floor. She froze. Kru's voice flowing the phone was like a shard of ice being plunged into her chest.
More coming tomorrow!