According to Faye, he opened the notification casually.
Then his fork stopped halfway to his mouth.
On the live video, he saw an older gray-haired man in a charcoal coat carrying a diaper bag down our steps.
Loading it into a black Cadillac.
Opening the door for me and my baby.
“Whose car is that?” Beverly asked over his shoulder.
Roland was already calling me.
My phone rang as we entered the highway.
“Where are you going?”
“Somewhere Wren and I both count as family.”
“Simone, it was one dinner.”
“No,” I said. “It was simply the first time I stopped pretending.”
Silence.
Then:
“Who is that man? The one at the house?”
“My father’s driver.”
A longer silence.
“Your father has a driver?”
I looked at Wren sleeping beside me.
“I need to take care of our daughter. Good night, Roland.”
I ended the call.
We drove beneath the old oak trees of Peachtree Road.
Through the iron gates.
Past my mother’s rose garden.
The house was fully lit.
Upstairs, a lamp glowed in the window of my childhood bedroom.
Raymond stopped at the front entrance.
The door opened.
Gregory, the house manager, greeted me.
He had worked there since I was nineteen.
