"I want you to stop asking your sister for a ruling and start building a decision that can survive daylight," Ifeoma said. "But since you asked: if Nia goes, you visit. You plan the visits like projects, not like favors. If Nia stays, she writes down what she is giving up so it does not turn into a ghost that haunts your marriage. Either way, you move the wedding date if you need to. A wedding is not a hostage."
"The wedding is in April," Nia said faintly.
"April can move," Ifeoma said. "Pride cannot heal what honesty has not yet touched."
When Ifeoma left, the apartment felt scoured. Xavier stood at the sink and washed the chin chin bowl with more attention than a bowl required.
"She's terrifying," he said.
"She's right," Nia said. "Which is more terrifying."
X.
Kwame met Xavier on Saturday morning at a basketball court in Harlem that still had the same bent rim from their twenties. They played one game to eleven. Kwame won. They sat on the bench with water bottles and the particular quiet of men who had known each other long enough to skip the weather.
"So it wasn't a woman," Kwame said.
"It was Accra."
Kwame whistled. "That's a harder opponent."
"How."
"A woman you can rage at. A city you have to respect. Respect makes anger complicated."
Xavier bounced the ball once between his knees. "I keep waiting to feel generous. Mostly I feel replaced. Not by Bertrand. By a version of her life that doesn't need me in the room to be true."
Kwame considered that. "You founded a company with her. You asked her to marry you. That is not a life that doesn't need you. That is a life that is big enough to include a chapter you didn't write. Those are different threats. Your nervous system is confusing them."
"When did you get this wise."
"I dated a dancer who toured for two years," Kwame said. "I tried to make her choose between art and me. She chose art. I deserved that. Then I learned how to love a person without owning their calendar. It is the only adult skill I have that I didn't learn in school."
Xavier looked at the bent rim. "What if she goes and we don't survive it."