I smile despite the ache in my chest. Shook? Over Lotus?

I still am.

34

Lotus

“You can do it!”

My throat is raw, but I force the words out one more time, praying that something will end my cousin’s agony soon.

“I can’t,” Iris say, tears running from the corners of her eyes. “I can’t, Lo.”

“Yes, you can.” I mop the sweat from her brow and hand her a cup of ice chips. “You will.”

“I want August.”

“I know, honey.” I glace at the clock on the wall. “He’s on his way.”

“I hate basketball,” she says, her bottom lip quivering.

“I been trying to tell you,” I joke. “Took labor for you to hear your girl.”

Her mouth twitches the tiniest bit.

“He’s really almost here?” she asks again for the one hundredth time.

“He is. The team landed a little while ago and he called from the airport.”

It’s pre-season, and the Waves had a game in Toronto. Iris wasn’t due for another few days.

“First thing I’m gonna do when little man gets here,” I say, giving her a smile, “is tell him to synch his schedule. Got all of us thrown off.”

I wasn’t supposed to fly out to San Diego until the weekend, and was planning to spend a few days in Hawaii with JP. Fortunately, I got the call before we left for the airport and was able to change my flight.

The upside is that I’ll get to see my boyfriend before the team leaves for China in two days. When Kenan said his schedule would be brutal, I didn’t think he was lying, but even the pre-season is intense.

“Ahhhh!” Iris bellows. Rivulets of sweat sluice her forehead, making the fine hairs at her temples curl.

“How’s Sarai?” she pants once the pain passes.

“Good. I got an update from your friend a few minutes ago. She says Sarai’s playing with dolls.”

Iris smiles, her eyes shifting past my shoulder. “Dr. Matthews, hi.”

“Hi, Mrs. West,” Iris’s obstetrician, Dr. Matthews, says from the door. Her voice is calm, but carries a hint of urgency. “We need to talk. You’ve been in labor for eight hours and have stalled at five centimeters dilated. I’d like to do a scalp test.”

Iris has been given some drugs for pain, though she didn’t want an epidural. I know she hasn’t been sleeping much for weeks. Dark shadows rest beneath her eyes. Between contractions, her lids droop drowsily. She’s exhausted. I need to be alert on her behalf.

“What’s a scalp test?” I ask.

The doctor looks at me questioningly and then to Iris, whose head has lolled to the side.

“I asked you a question,” I remind the doctor with soft firmness. “What does the test involve, and why do you need to do it?”

“Tell her,” Iris whispers. “She’s my only family.”

Technically not true. We both have mothers alive and well in New Orleans. Neither of us have seen them since MiMi’s funeral. I haven’t spoken to mine since I was twelve years old.

“And Mr. West?” Dr. Matthews asks, brows up.

“En route,” I reply, my stare unwavering. “The test?”

“We place a plastic cone in the vagina and against the baby’s scalp,” she explains. “We take a small blood sample, which will be analyzed, and tell us in minutes if he’s getting enough oxygen.”

“You okay with that, Bo?” I ask. “Did you hear the doctor?”

Iris nods weakly and licks over the teeth marks on her lips. “Okay,” she says. “Do it.”

They get Iris in stirrups and conduct the test quickly.

“I was afraid of this,” Dr. Matthews says when she comes back a few minutes later. “We need to get that baby out. We should start discussing other options. Possibly a C-section.”

“No, I don’t want . . .” Tears course down Iris’s cheeks. “We wanted to do it naturally.” She looks at me, distress and panic flooding her eyes. “Where is he, Lo?”

My phone rings and it’s August. Thank God.

“It’s him!” I laugh and hold up the phone before answering. “Dude, how close are you?”

“I’m around the corner,” August says, frustration in his voice. “But there’s an accident. Hoping this clears soon. How’s she doing?”

“Great,” I say, smiling reassuringly at my cousin. “She’s doing great. They’re a little concerned the baby may not be getting enough oxygen and are talking about a C-section.”

“No, she doesn’t want one,” he says.

I walk a few feet away from the bed and turn my back to Iris.

“She may have to, August,” I say, pitching my voice lower. “She needs you. I don’t care if you have to get out of that car and run, get your ass here.”

I look over my shoulder and give Iris another smile. “Wanna speak to him?”

“Yes.” She nods, her dark hair fanned out in a tangled mess against the pillow. “Please.”

I can’t make out August’s words, but she draws a deep, calming breath and blows it out.

“I know,” Iris says, her voice wavering. “I remember. I just want you here. I’ll get the C-section if I have to, August. I don’t want to do this without you.”

Her voice breaks, and fresh tears roll over her flushed cheeks. “I want you. Please don’t miss our son’s birth.”

When they hang up, I take my phone back and sit beside Iris’s bed. Just as I’m about to find something to distract her while the doctor goes to make arrangements, another scream tears through Iris.

“Dammit!” she yells, screwing her face into a pained mask. “This shit hurts. It didn’t hurt like this before.”

With Sarai, Iris had a difficult pregnancy, but the delivery itself was relatively easy. This time the pregnancy was a breeze, but the delivery is being a little bitch.

“I can’t do this, Lo,” she whispers. “God, I’m so tired.”

“Yes, you can.” I grab her hand and lose the train of what I was about to say when Iris grips my hand so tightly I fear it might break. Damn, that hurts.

Iris grits her teeth and sits up to push as Dr. Matthews walks in with a team to prep for the C-section.

“What’s going . . .” She checks between Iris’s legs and peeks back up, beaming. “That’s what I like to see. Not sure what you did, Mrs. West, but you’re at eight centimeters.”

“I am?” Iris asks, a smile breaking across her pretty face like sunshine. “How? I didn’t do anything.”

“I guess your body just needed a few more minutes to recover and move things along,” she says with a wink. “You had a power surge. Now let’s push.”

Iris is on her second hard push, and the scream is bloodcurdling. I’m not sure how much more I can take. For as long as I can remember, her pain has been my pain, and my pain has been hers. Tears prick my eyes, but I never release her hand, even when my fingers go numb from the pressure. She unleashes another screech when August barrels through the door.

“I’m here, baby,” he says, rushing to her side.

I start to move so August can take my place, but Iris won’t let go. She shakes her head that I’m not to leave.

“Hopscotch,” she whispers tearfully. “Don’t leave me, cuz.”

We’ve always been there for each other, done what the other needed, and that word has been our touchstone through the hardest, darkest things life had in store for us. Emotion scalds my throat, but I manage to nod, determined to withstand the bone-crushing grip for as long as it takes, for as long as she needs. She’ll do this for me one day.

Our eyes hold and our gris-gris rings lock together like our lives, our destinies, have remained entwined. It could be my imagination, but as she bears down and squeezes my hand for one final agonizing push, I feel that power surge the doctor mentioned. The power in our veins passed between two little girls in the Lower Ninth. We held it in a field of rotting cane, even when we were torn apart. It flows between us now through years and heartache and unconditional love. The power of an unbroken line.

We are the magic.

35

Kenan

Is it really only the pre-season?

I sink into the ice tub I keep at the Waves arena. Even though it was only an exhibition game, I gave it my all.

There are definitely times when we have to ease up and play conservatively. Tonight wasn’t one of those. Cliff, my one-time friend and teammate, bounced around the NBA like a rubber ball kicked all over the playground after I left Houston. This is probably his last year, and despite winning one ring with us, he hasn’t prepared for retirement as well as I have. He hasn’t had the career I had or the success. He doesn’t have the money.

But he had my wife right under my nose for weeks, and we played his team tonight. No way I was taking an L from that motherfucker. It’s not even about Bridget. It hasn’t been for a long time.

The first time I faced Cliff after everything came out, people thought I might fight him on court, or erupt in violence. I did the opposite. I froze him out. I froze them all out, encasing myself and my game in a wall of ice. Many in my position would have taken the fine for not being available to the press that night. Not me. Every time a reporter asked a question about Cliff, about Bridget, their affair, I just stared at them in wintry silence until they sat down and the next question came.

Now reporters know better than to ask questions about my personal life. They haven’t for the last two years. Depending on how much of our dirty laundry Bridget decides to air on her reality show, that could change.

The door opens, and I glance over my shoulder to see our president of basketball operations, MacKenzie Decker, stroll in. He recently turned forty. An injury forced him into retirement a few years ago, earlier than he would have liked, but I doubt he misses those last seasons he could have had. He’ll be first ballot Hall of Fame, and after just a few years out of the league, he’s already a front office exec poised for partial ownership of the Waves. Not bad.