CHAPTER 11
After sharing our stories, we became more than friends—we became sisters. Pkay had fallen, and Lupita had taken over, but unlike Pkay, we weren't heartless. We ruled the cell, but we did so with restraint and respect. I had grown tough too; surviving meant keeping our reign intact without letting anyone push us around.
Indira was the only one with family visits. Her children and husband came twice a week, bringing her toothpaste, soap, and deodorant, which we all shared. It was small gestures like this that strengthened our bond. Day by day, our friendship deepened, and we were no longer just inmates—we were a family forged in fire.
One cold day, on Jordan's birthday, I got a visitor. I thought it might be Taylor, that worthless man, coming to show off the child I barely got to hold. I couldn't bear the thought of Jordan seeing me in a prison uniform, marked as INMATE on my back. I refused. My heart raced when they told me it was a lawyer. Maybe an appeal? I was hopeful—until I picked up the phone.
He didn't speak. He slid a paper under the glass. Divorce papers.
I didn't care. Emotionally, I felt nothing—no pain, no anger, no heartbreak. I signed them and walked back to the cell. My sisters asked if I still loved him. I didn't. That part of me had died long ago, replaced by a cold, impenetrable shell.
Then came the day Indira disappeared. Two female officers took her without explanation. The entire day passed with no word. When she returned at night, everything about her was off. Lupita and I didn't press her. We let her be and went to sleep, but the next day her silence worried us. She skipped meals. Her family didn't visit.
One day, returning from the shower, I found her on the edge of suicide. I grabbed her, pulling her back from the ledge, and our sisters gathered around. Only then did she break down, telling us the unthinkable: her entire family had been killed. The police claimed it was a robbery, but she refused to believe them. When she had been allowed to view the scene, they asked if anything was missing. She lied, saying yes, because if she said no, they would push for a murder investigation. She wanted to find the killers herself.
That was the moment I understood fully: anything that affected one of us affected all of us. We were inseparable, bound by experiences that no one outside those walls could ever understand.
Years passed like endless, isolated days on a deserted island. My motherly instincts never left me, and every year, on Jordan's birthday, we celebrated quietly in the cell. It was a bittersweet ritual—he wasn't there, but we marked his life as if he were. The longing for my son never left me. Sometimes it twisted my stomach so sharply I thought I might be sick. But with my sisters, the ache was bearable.
Finally, Lupita and Marissa were released in the first week of our final year. Our turn came soon after. Free, black women, we stepped out of confinement into sunlight. Our sisters awaited us. We went back to our shared house—empty, bare, but ours.
My thoughts immediately went to Jordan, but Indira was right: I needed to rebuild my life first. Kora, mischievous and seductive as ever, stepped outside and returned with food. When we asked where she got it, she only winked. I knew she had charmed a shopkeeper to get it. We ate, and for the first time in years, sleep came easily.
The next day, we faced the reality of the outside world. Job hunting was brutal. On the first three days, we were turned away repeatedly. Employers were polite but firm: our criminal records stained our chances.
We almost gave up on rebuilding our lives, but Kora landed a job as a bartender at a Caucasian bar. By sheer luck, the restaurant next door, newly opened, needed workers too. By God's grace, we all found employment. I became a waitress, Lupita's discipline earned her a supervisor role, and eventually she became the manager. Marissa, with her tech skills, joined a tech company and started earning more than all of us combined. Indira stayed at home, the glue holding our lives together.
Two months later, we bought two cars. Slowly, steadily, our lives were getting back on track. I even bought myself a black stallion, fulfilling a childhood dream inspired by my mother's jokes. When I told the sisters, they bought horses too. It felt like we were reclaiming pieces of the freedom that had been stolen from us.
I returned to my old home, the place where I once had a family. The house was locked down. Neighbors claimed they didn't know where the owner had moved. From across the street, a child told me he went to school with the son of the man who had lived there. Hesitant at first, he finally gave me the school address when I whispered, "I'm Jordan's mother."
The next day, with Indira by my side, we waited outside the school gate. The bell rang, and a wave of laughter and excitement washed over the students as they poured out. My heart hammered against my ribs. Would he recognize me?
Then I saw him. My Jordan. Light-skinned, curly hair, green eyes—the very image of what I had longed to hold in my arms for eleven years. But the smile I had dreamed of was gone, replaced by anger, disappointment, and something I couldn't name.
He walked toward me, and my arms instinctively reached for him. He pushed me away. My chest constricted at his words:
"You think showing up and acting all hurt, trying to hug me, will fix anything? After you left me and ran away with another man? It doesn't work like that! I'm ashamed to call you my mother—which is why I won't."
Taylor had poisoned his mind, filled it with lies, turning my child against me. My heart shattered. I sank to the ground, tears streaming, hot and burning. Jordan turned and walked to a waiting black car. It drove away, and with it, the last fragments of the mother-son bond I had once hoped to repair.
Indira helped me up, her comforting presence steadying me. My knees felt weak, my body trembling—not just from grief, but from rage. Taylor had taken eleven years and six months from me. I hated him. I wished death on him, and I knew one day I would make him pay.
I refused to give up on Jordan. With Marissa's help, I tracked Taylor's house. I went to see him. As usual, he shut me out. He had remarried, and his wife—a kind woman—tried to mediate, but he refused. I would not be denied forever.
One Sunday evening, I went again, this time with Lupita. The door opened, and there he was—the traitor who had stepped on me to reach where he was. His face was priceless, red as a cherry left in the sun. He couldn't believe what he saw: Brandi, alive and standing before him, skin and bone, very much alive.
He stammered, "What… what are you doing here?"
I didn't answer. I shoved him aside and walked in. His wife smiled warmly, hugging me gently, telling me Jordan was asleep. Outside, I met Taylor's gaze. I smiled, a quiet, deadly promise in my eyes.
Back home, I shared my plans with my sisters: I would take down the twins and Taylor. They tried to advise caution, but they knew my resolve. Indira revealed her own plan to find the person behind her family's murder. Together, we were unstoppable.
I had no special skills, but Lupita tried to teach me martial arts. I could only learn self-defense before giving up. One day, I was in the backyard picking twigs for a fire. A knife rested in my hand, not for harm, but to trim thorns. Absentmindedly, I threw it at a tree—and it hit the mark. Lupita, watching from the window, challenged me to do it again. I threw it once more—and again, it hit the same spot.