Keisha looked at her son’s hopeful face and smiled. “I don’t know, baby, but if they need us, I think they will.” She opened the envelope Mike had given her and gasped. There was more money inside than she made in three months at any of her previous jobs. Enough to pay her rent, fix her heater, and maybe even buy some proper equipment for her restaurant. But more valuable than the money was the note written in Mike’s careful handwriting “for Mama Keisha who showed us what family really means. We won’t forget. The Brotherhood”
For the first time in years, Keisha Williams went to bed, believing that tomorrow might be better than today.
Three days after the motorcycle club had disappeared into the gray morning, Keisha’s house felt like a tomb. The silence pressed against her ears with an almost physical weight, broken only by Marcus’s occasional babbling as he played with his toys. She had grown so accustomed to the sound of 25 voices, the gentle rumble of conversation, and the warmth of shared meals that the emptiness now felt suffocating.
The money Mike had left sat on her kitchen table in neat stacks. Eight hundred dollars, more than she had seen at one time in years. Enough to pay the overdue electric bill, buy groceries for a month, maybe even fix the heater. But somehow, looking at those bills felt like staring at the remnants of a beautiful dream that was already fading.
She had tried to restart her restaurant business using some of the money to buy fresh ingredients and making a new sign for her window. But the cruel reality hadn’t changed. In three days, exactly zero customers had walked through her door. The smell of her mother’s fried chicken had filled the house with hope and memory. But hope didn’t pay bills and memory didn’t feed a hungry child.
By the fourth day, the food she had prepared was beginning to spoil. Marcus had developed a cold that made him fussy and clingy, crying for hours despite her efforts to comfort him. The house felt colder somehow, as if the warmth the bikers had brought with them had been sucked out through the cracks in the walls when they left.
“Mama hungry.” Marcus whimpered from his high chair, pushing away the small portion of scrambled eggs she had made him. It was the third meal in a row he had refused and Keisha was beginning to panic. She opened the refrigerator and stared at its meager contents. The milk was nearly gone and she couldn’t afford to buy more until she figured out how to stretch the money Mike had given her.
The sight of her hungry child refusing food because he was too sick to eat properly made her stomach clench with a familiar desperation. “Come on, baby!” She pleaded, trying to spoon more egg into his mouth. “Just a little bit. For Mama.” Marcus turned his head away and began to cry a thin wailing sound that seemed to echo off the empty walls. His nose was running and his small body shook with each sob.
Keisha picked him up and held him close, feeling how warm he was getting. The beginning of a fever. She looked at the pile of money on the table and realized with growing horror that she had a choice to make. Use the money for medicine and food for Marcus or save it for the rent that was due in two weeks. There wasn’t enough for both.
The decision was no decision at all. Her son came first always. She bundled Marcus in his warmest coat and stepped outside into the cold afternoon air. The walk to Mrs. Henderson’s house felt like a march to execution, but she had run out of options. Mrs. Henderson was the closest neighbor, and despite their previous encounter, she was Keisha’s best hope for help.
The older woman’s house was neat and well-maintained, with a perfectly manicured lawn that even in winter looked better than Keisha’s yard ever had. She climbed the front steps with Marcus on her hip, his fevered face buried against her shoulder, and knocked on the door. Mrs. Henderson answered after the third knock, her expression immediately souring when she saw who was standing on her porch.
“What do you want?” She asked, not bothering with pleasantries.
“Mrs. Henderson, I’m sorry to bother you, but my son is sick, and I was wondering if you might have some children’s medicine I could borrow, or maybe just a little milk I can pay you back as soon as…”
“Absolutely not.” Mrs. Henderson’s voice was sharp enough to cut glass. “I told you before, I don’t want anything to do with your kind of trouble.”
“Please.” Keisha said, hearing the desperation creep into her voice. “He’s just a baby. He has a fever, and I need to get some medicine in him, but I can’t afford both medicine and milk, and he won’t take the medicine without…”
“That’s not my problem.” Mrs. Henderson started to close the door, but Keisha stepped forward, her hand reaching out instinctively. “Wait, please. I’m begging you. Just this once. I’ll do anything.”
Mrs. Henderson’s face twisted with disgust. “Get your hands off my door, and get off my property before I call the police.”
“Mrs. Henderson, please. He’s burning up. I just need…”
“I said, get off my property!” The older woman shoved Keisha backward with surprising force. Already off balance from carrying, Marcus Keisha stumbled down the front steps and fell hard onto the frozen sidewalk. Marcus screamed as they hit the ground, and Keisha felt a sharp pain shoot through her elbow where it had struck the concrete.
“Stay away from decent people,” Mrs. Henderson called from her doorway. “Take your child and your problems somewhere else. This is a respectable neighborhood.” The door slammed shut with a finality that echoed through Keisha’s chest like a physical blow.
She sat on the cold sidewalk holding her crying son, feeling the sting of tears on her cheeks and the deeper sting of humiliation in her heart. “Mama hurt,” Marcus sobbed, reaching up to touch her face.
“I know, baby. Mama’s hurt, too.” She struggled to her feet, her elbow throbbing, and her pride shattered into pieces she wasn’t sure she could ever put back together. The walk home felt endless, with Marcus’s weight seeming to increase with every step and the cold seeping through her worn coat like a living thing.
As she passed the last house on the block, she heard a voice call out behind her. “Honey, are you all right?”
Keisha turned to see an elderly black woman standing in the doorway of a small house she had never really noticed before. The woman looked to be in her 70s with silver hair pulled back in a neat bun and kind eyes that were filled with concern. “I saw what happened over there,” the woman said, stepping out onto her porch despite the cold. “That Henderson woman is nothing but meanness wrapped up in Sunday clothes. You come here, child. Both of you look like you need some help.”..
