Limelight

Epilogue

~~Juneteenth~~

Today was one of Xavier's favorite days out of the year. Almost as much as he loved Christmas.

Juneteenth was one of the few days a year when his whole family and friends would turn out at his Uncle's house in Hoboken. His back garden would be packed full with music being blasted from as early as ten AM to as late as three the next morning. The barbecue grill would be fired up, smoke would rise from it wrapping everyone in the smell of grilled chicken and burgers. All his family members would be yelling over each other, laughing and dancing as they drunk to their heart's content, smoked until they could barely see in front of them. The kids would be running around bumping into everyone as they did, laughing and playing as they did, a moment away from knocking over the stereo.

Xavier didn't really like Juneteenth for the family part. He didn't like being around people too much, but he did love his mother's food, which somehow seemed to be just that much better for the occasion. Yazmine was head of the food committee (and of course, when you had a family as big as Xavier's committees had to be assigned, or else his mother, Aunt Bernice, and Aunt Cassandra would spend the night drunkenly arguing over whose potato salad was objectively better, even though everyone already knew it was Yazmine's) and she went all the way out for Juneteenth, from her potato salad and sweet potato pie, and her pumpkin pie for the weirdos in their family, who preferred it to sweet potato. There were her chitlins and cornbread and her fried chicken. She made Mac and Cheese, rice and beans, and Jollof Rice too, just to be that extra bit cultural, all of which Xavier indulged in heavily before he worked out excessively over the next few weeks to work off the holiday fat.

They were celebrating a little harder this year, considering the country made Juneteenth a National holiday. Not like it was going to make much of a difference, but his family would find any reason to celebrate.

But all the celebration preparation this year only made Xavier more anxious. Yazmine just started her chemo treatment, and he was sure his mother was masking how bad it seemed to be affecting her. She was sleeping a lot more during the day now, which Xavier decided to take as a win, considering she rarely slept before the chemo, but at night he could hear her throwing up in the bathroom. The first time he was immediately by her side, but she was quick to shoo him away, screaming at him to get away from her. They didn't talk about it, but he didn't try to help her again. He did always make sure there was a full jug of water in her room, antiemetic pills and always made sure she had something to eat afterward. 

Watching his mother in the kitchen cooking for almost three dozen people, made him feel nauseous, and he tried bringing it up once, but his mother wasn't having it. She wouldn't even let him, help cook. It was as though she was adamant in acting like nothing was wrong or different, but then she almost set the kitchen on fire whilst he had been out getting more groceries. And when he would try to bring it up, she would deflect and ask about Aaliyah.

And she knew that that was enough to shut him up.

She'd been gone for almost a month now, and there hadn't been a day that had gone by that he hadn't thought about her, thought about calling her or texting her, or just dropping everything and flying to whatever city she happened to be in at the time. He was sure she was in Atlanta, getting ready to perform for her second night at The Benz now, which he thought was fitting for Juneteenth, but he remembered what she told him. She needed space, which he completely understood. After learning the truth about her past, of course, he did, he had to. He hated it though, hated not talking to her, not being able hearing her voice. He wouldn't admit it, but he had begun to depend on her for his sanity. Talking to her about everything that was going on in his life made him feel better, she had a way of rationalizing everything he felt in an almost soothing way.