Page 14 of The Deadly Candies

She froze, her heart skipping a beat. José stood, his face pale and his eyes red-rimmed. Without a word, she ran up the steps and into his arms. They clung to each other, their tears mingling as the weight of the past few days crashed over them.

“Let’s go inside,”Debbie finally whispered, her voice breaking.

José nodded, and she fumbled with the keys before pushing the door open. They went up the stairs fast to her tenement. Once inside, he sank into a chair, his shoulders shaking as he wept. Debbie hurried to the kitchen and poured him a fresh Pepsi. She handed it to him, and he drank it down like it was water, his tears still streaming.

“I talked to her today, José,”Debbie said, her voice soft but steady.

“You did?”His eyes widened in hope.

Debbie nodded; her face crumpling as fresh tears spilled over.“She’s okay. She’s close to Butts now. She’s safe. I prayed so hard, José. Kathy’s always been the one with the best prayers, but I did my best.”

José set the glass down and wiped his face with his hands. Debbie handed him a towel, and he cleaned his face. His breathing slowed.

“I came to tell you goodbye,”he said, his voice barely audible.

“What?”Debbie’s heart dropped.

“We’re moving to the Bronx,”José said, his voice cracking.“Daddy got a better job. I have to switch schools.”

Debbie stared at him, her mind reeling. José was her best friend—her only friend left. She rushed over to him, wrapping her arms around him as she begged him to say it wasn’t true.

He explained his family’s good fortune, his voice thick with emotion. They promised to stay in touch, and José shared that they’d have a telephone soon so they could call each other. They sat on the floor, eating junk food and reminiscing about the days when it was the three of them running through the streets of Harlem—Kathy, José, and Debbie. They laughed through their tears, the memories a bittersweet balm for their aching hearts.

When it was time for him to leave, Debbie clung to him, her fingers digging into his jacket.

José pulled back just enough to look her in the eye.“No matter what happens, Debbie,”he said, his voice steady despite the tears in his eyes,“I’ll always be your friend. I’ll always love and protect you.”

She smiled through her tears and let him go—for now.

7

Kathy Sweets, Harlem, 1978

“Wow,” Daphne breathed, letting go of a deep, long sigh. Gently closing the diary, her fingertips lingered on its worn leather cover as if afraid to disturb the ghosts trapped within its pages. The scent of old paper and faded ink mingled with the faint tang of burnt sugar drifting up from the cakes they had so many people in the community deliver downstairs—a smell as constant in the Freeman brownstone as the water stains on the ceiling. “I didn’t expect to read about my Daddy… and your daddy, and all that.”

A taxi horn blared outside the window, followed by the throbbing bassline of Parliament’s “Flashlight” from a passing Cadillac. The sounds of Harlem buzzed through both open windows of the bedroom. So many people they loved were gone now, their absences carved into the neighborhood’s cracked sidewalks, and the pages of the diary.

Sandra nodded. “Mama told me she and Daddy grew up together,” she said, her voice steady despite the tremor in her heart. “But she never shared this. Turns out they met again in Mississippi after Granddaddy threw her out.” She paused, the revelation settling deeper. “If Mama and Carmelo hadn’t been stopped and she hadn’t been sent to Mississippi, I wouldn’t exist. One decision, and here we are.”

Daphne nodded silently, her gold bangles clinking as she kept with the traced action over the diary’s cracked edges. Daphne wore her glam, just like her mother Debbie, on any day. Flared jeans, a halter top with butterfly sleeves—but paired it with her own touch: a headwrap tied in the style of Ntozake Shange’s.

“I guess, if you look at it that way, I just think that we should—never mind,” Daphne murmured.

Sandra’s gaze drifted to the window, where the silhouettes of water towers and fire escapes. The cityscape felt different now—a puzzle with missing pieces. “We’re grown, Daphne. Not kids sneaking Now & Laters from the bodega.” She stood. The floorboard near the door groaned—the same one that had betrayed their teenage escapades to the Apollo.

“This family’s buried too much. I’m reading every diary. Even if it is hard.”

“For what?” Daphne’s voice sharpened, her Bronx-meets-Harlem accent thickening. “Truth won’t raise Aunt Kathy from ashes.” She paced to the dresser where their mothers smiled from a ’59 Polaroid, Debbie’s beehive hairdo frozen beside Kathy’s pressed curls. A dusty 8-track ofSaturday Night Feversat untouched—Debbie had sworn disco was “the devil’s elevator music. But danced to it, drank and smoke cigarettes all the time. For Daphne her mom was a walking contradiction. Her beauty was unmatched, only next to Aunt Kathy. Many men cast her gazes, but she never paid any of the men any attention. In fact, she turned away from any man’s attempt to even be her friend. Though they couldn’t enter any event without her flirting with every man she found attractive. It was odd. And it had been like that for years, and years. Daphne knew of her mother’s refusal of advances from men because a few would even step to her to ask that she put in a good word for them.

When she tried, her mama preached, God this, and God that. But she didn’t live that life. They rarely went to church unless Aunt Kathy insisted. And for the most part Debbie rebelled in all other aspects of her life.

Now, the Butcher was out of jail, and her mother was missing from her bedroom at night. It made her scared. There was always something there, with her mother. Something Junior saw but Daphne refused to see. Those dairies would certainly tell it all.

Sandra bit back the secrets—Matteo’s confession, the whisper that Kathy might still be alive, the blood connection tying Daphne to Matteo instead of José. She studied her cousin: the scar under her chin from when they’d raced Big Wheels down 126th, the tap-tap of her Candie’s sandals on her feet as she paced the floor.

José had taught Daphne to double-dutch right outside when she was eight, his laughter booming over thewhipof ropes. He really did have a special bond with her. Would let Daphne do his curly hair with her bows and put makeup on him when she was a little girl. Silly games then, but definitely a uniqueness in their family where men were too macho to entertain daughters. Some truths were landmines dressed as answers that should never be told.

“Enough for today,” Sandra said briskly, buttoning her gunmetal-gray blouse. “Ms. Gladys’ll skin us if we’re late.”

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