As soon as we got in the car and started to drive away, I broke down crying. Shayna didn't say anything, but held my hand until I stopped.

"I have to tell you something," she admitted once we got on the highway and headed toward Norfolk.

"What?" I asked, alarmed.

"No. Nothing like that." She knew I was thinking that they were trying to take us out of the house. I felt weak when I realized how easy it had been for them to separate us and I immediately wanted to go back to my daughter. "Natasha, it's ok. They'll be there when we get back." I started wheezing and she rolled down the window so that I could get more air. "Wow, those anxiety attacks have gotten really bad, huh?"

"Yeah," I nodded, fanning my face with my hand.

"Jasmine told us to come get you," she said quickly and looked over at me.

I stopped fanning and looked back at her.

"She knows, Natasha. We all do."

"Knows what?"

Shayna looked over at me again. "You know her husband's a cop, right?"

"Husband?"

"Yeah. She married that dude...you met him at church." She looked at me, waiting for it to click. Suddenly it did. "He was at your house the other night. When you called them..."

Shayna knew, as sure as I was sitting there still alive, that it must have been life or death for me to call the police out to Collin Stewart's house. We all knew that just wasn't how it was done when it came to Collin.

"So..." she continued, "are you ok?"

"Yes."

"Is the baby ok? Did he hurt her?"

"No. She's ok."

"Then...what happened?"

"Nothing."

"Ok..." She looked out at the road. "We're about to go through the tunnel. You cool with that?"

"Yes." I loved Shayna for asking me that. And I was suddenly happy to see her. "Where are we going?"

"Jasmine asked me to bring you by the club. She's going to take off early and come hang out with us."

"Really?" She didn't seem like the hanging out type.

"Yup." Shayna nodded, but didn't give any more information. "Here," she handed me her cell phone, fully aware that the old Collin wouldn't have let me have anything that could have possibly had a GPS tracker on it, so the new Collin probably didn't either. "In case you want to call them...at any time tonight."

"Thanks." I smiled at her. It felt good to have someone...it just felt good to have someone. "Collin probably won't come back tonight, anyway. He hasn't been home in...a really long time."

"Hmm." She nodded, expressionless.

Her lack of judgement encouraged me to say more. "He's been gone for like, a month."

"Hmm...is he coming back?" I shrugged and she looked back out at the road.

When we pulled up to Jasmine's, I almost didn't want to get out of the car. Truthfully, I realized that at any time Collin could be anywhere, and see me...without the baby, anywhere. It wouldn't take him but five seconds to realize who the baby was with if he spotted me out with Shayna without Sammie.

Shayna read my mind and ran in to get Jasmine while I waited outside. I was out of the car and climbing into the backseat when they came back out. Jasmine walked right up to me and put her hands on my shoulders, then looked at me for a really long time, just like Kenney had looked at me, and then the baby.

"Hi sweetie."

"Hi."

"I know." She was as straight forward as ever. I loved that about her.

"I know you do."

"I want to take you somewhere, but after we eat. I'm starving." She gave her easy smile. "Ok?"

I nodded. "Ok." I didn't even ask where she wanted to take me. Hopefully it wasn't to the police station.

Dinner was cool. We kind of laughed and talked while we all skirted around the subject at hand. Jasmine said she couldn't wait to meet the baby, and I told her I'd bring her by sometime.

It was a really good, relaxing...sort of...time. But I couldn't shake the feeling that she was trying to put me at ease to get me ready for something...stressful. I thought about the boys again and looked down at the cell phone that I hadn't yet put away, but kept in my hand all through dinner. I decided not to call them, in case the baby was asleep. But the feeling didn't subside.

"Jasmine," I gave her a steady gaze. "You're not...trying to rescue us or anything, are you?"

"What do you mean?" She gave me that hard/soft look.

"I mean...you're not trying to take us away from our home, are you?"

She kind of tilted her head and looked almost into me. Her grey-brown eyes could be really scary at times.

She chose her words carefully. "I...would never try to force you to do anything that you don't want to do. Do you...want me to get you out of there?"

"No." I looked down at the phone again.

"Then no, that's not what I'm doing." She gently put her hand over my hand to stop me from fiddling with the phone. She knew exactly why I was so nervous. "They'll be there when you get back." She put her hand lightly under my chin and tilted my face up to look at her. "Or if you change your mind, they could meet us here, too. It's up to you."

"No," I shook my head and looked at Shayna, who was watching me silently. "I want to stay at home...with my baby." I had to make sure they knew that Sammie wasn't going anywhere either.

They both nodded silently and exchanged a look that I caught, but didn't comment on. This was all one big set up. I knew it. I knew one thing for sure, my baby better be there when I got back, or I would tear that city up looking for her. I didn't play about my child.

"Natasha," Aunt Jasmine cut into my extremely violent thoughts. "I have a confession to make." I raised an eyebrow at her. "I want to take you to church with me."

I choked on the soda that I had been sipping while giving her the side-eye, and almost spit it out.

"What?"

"If you don't mind, I would like to take you to church with me. There's a group of women that I'd really like for you to meet."

I looked at Shayna and rolled my eyes at her. Here we go. Shayna's ass. This had to be her idea. I could just see them plotting this foolery. Suddenly I was angry. They had me all the way up here, separated from my baby, thinking that at any minute things might come really undone, and all they were trying to do was trick me into going to some prayer meeting? To pray over me no doubt. The prodigal child. Hot mess.

I rolled my eyes again and shook my head, then looked at the phone for an unnecessarily long time, trying to decide what to do. Finally I looked up and said "Screw it, let's go."

I looked Jasmine dead in her eye when I said it, and almost said "fuck it," just to let her know that I did not appreciate that shit, but Jasmine wasn't really the type that you would look in the eye and say "fuck" to. So I just left it at screw it and followed them out the door.

When we got to the meeting it was in a building in the back, adjacent to the church, which was super weird, but by then I had already been through so much...weirdness...that it was just one more strange thing to me. When we got there, the ladies were all sitting in a circle and stopped talking to look up and smile when we walked in.

"Hi ladies," Jasmine said cheerfully. "These are my guests Natasha and Shayna. Thank you for having them."

"Thank you for having us," Shayna and I repeated and, following Jasmine's lead, grabbed two empty chairs and joined the circle. I looked around at them thinking that if they thought they were about to have me in the middle of that circle, like a séance, they had a way other thing coming.

"Jasmine," the lady who I assumed was the head of the lynch mob, looked over at Jasmine, who was on the opposite side of the circle from us, and got straight to the point. "I know you haven't joined us in a while. Would you like to share?"

I covered my face in humiliation and slumped down in my seat.

She better not get up there telling my business, I thought to myself. Shayna, catching my reaction out of the corner of her eye, elbowed me in the side. She was just like Kenney when it came to respecting her elders.

Jasmine stood up and cleared her throat, looking at Shayna and then me, and then looked away. Then she cleared her throat again and started to take her seat, like she had changed her mind about "sharing." Then she looked over at the head lady, who nodded supportively, and looked around at several other ladies who were also nodding, some saying "that's alright sistah," and she decided to take a deep breath and speak.

"Greater love hath no man than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends." She looked around sheepishly. "John 15:13." She looked kind of like she had changed her mind about speaking again, but pushed herself forward. "I know I haven't really been here in a while, and I missed you guys." She smiled around the room at them. "Sometimes life gets in the way, but...that's no excuse. Anyway...I'm here." She smiled again and shrugged.

I had never seen Jasmine display so many emotions before. And this was all within two minutes.

"My brother-in-law used to say that Bible verse. All the time. He lived by those words. He was a Vietnam vet. He and my sister were high school sweethearts." Her words were kind of choppy like she wasn't sure if this was her story to tell. "They loved each other so much. He would have died for her. He was that kind of guy. To die for the people he loved." Jasmine looked over at me. "I was a little different. My sister was a sweetheart, the type you want to protect. I was the rebel, the wild child. I should have been the responsible one, since I was the oldest, but I wasn't. I was the...trap queen, I guess you could say."

Shayna and I held in giggles. At that time, only old people said things like "trap queen."

"I was that chick. Jazzy Jazz they used to call me."

My mind briefly flashed back to how pissed she had gotten when Kenney called her "Aunt Jazz" in front of Mike, her then new boyfriend.

"I was something else, a real mess. But I was fun and everyone wanted to be around me. Which is how I met my ex. I've already told you about him a little bit, but...I've just had some things so heavy on my mind lately...thanks for letting me talk..." She looked appreciatively around the room, and even I nodded, my heart being drawn into hers like every other woman in that circle. "I know it was someone else's turn tonight..."

She looked over at one of the ladies, who was rocking nervously and hugging herself like she was cold, and then she waved at Jasmine like don't mention it. I looked over at the nervous lady and wondered, so...if this isn't a prayer meeting, what is this?

"So...he got me." Jasmine shrugged unapologetically. "He had the money, the clothes, the car...the power. He ran our block. He was kind of like a local kingpin back then. We were at this party, and all the girls wanted him, but he wanted me."

I could see her eyes flash back in time and come back to the present. Then she shrugged both the past and present off.

"Anyway...we were explosive. Explosive and passionate. Around the time that we got serious, my brother-in-law died. We got married at the justice of the peace, but we kept it under wraps so no one knew. We threw a big party a few weeks after we got married, our private joke. It was our wedding reception, but no one knew that's what it was, because no one knew that we were married. My brother-in-law was a good man. A really, really great guy. But like I said, he did two tours in Vietnam, and he had a little bit of a heroin problem by the time he got back the second time." The way she said it sounded like she was making excuses for him, which I never would have thought Jasmine would do for anyone, being such a no-nonsense kind of woman. I especially would have never pictured her making excuses for a drug addict in church. "But he had a slightly bigger drinking problem," she continued.

The women all nodded, and again I wondered what kind of church meeting this was.

"And we supplied all that. All that. And forget about when rock came out. I could cook that stuff up better than my husband. That night...I guess my nephew was around eight or nine..."

I suddenly got uncomfortable, like maybe she was about to say something that we probably shouldn't hear. But when I looked over at Shayna, she was nodding and listening, like she had already heard this story before. Maybe from Drama. He seemed to know a whole lot more about Kenney than everyone else in VA. Other than Jasmine, of course. Maybe Jasmine had told them what she was going to talk about the night before. Who knows?

"Anyway, my oldest niece got sick. They had three kids at the time..." She thought about it while mentally counting the kids. "My sister and their youngest daughter were late coming to the party, but of course my nephew was at my house already. That was my ace. He never went home. He saw...all kinds of stuff." She dropped her eyes and continued to look at the ground as she spoke. "This party was the first where we cooked cocaine. Of course there was always powder all over the place, but we cooked it up that night. I cooked it up, actually, and my nephew, as always, was in the kitchen with me...mostly washing dishes." She took a deep breath with her eyes still down.

"My brother-in-law...he didn't do any of that most of the time, but he always knocked back a few drinks before he left the house. He always did it, so...we thought he was ok to take my niece home. She was always hurting for some reason, and that night she really didn't feel well, so he was going to try to get her home before my sister and their other daughter walked over. We really did think he was ok to drive her home, since it was so close. But he wasn't..." She looked around at a few people, but not at Shayna or me. "He somehow spun out and crashed the driver's side of his car into a telephone pole. It killed him instantly, but my niece made it to the hospital. While she was there, we found out she had cancer."

Some of the ladies shook their heads and said "Mmm-mm-mm," more at the child having cancer than at the drunk driver who almost killed her.

"My sister...I think maybe she saw the accident on the way to our house because she was already by the car when I got there. They only lived a few blocks away and the accident was about halfway between us. She never talked about what she saw, though. To this day she won't talk about either of them. Her husband or her oldest child. But I know she misses them. We all do." Jasmine remained silent for a moment, reflective. "My sister lost it a little after that, and my nephew started spending more and more time at our house...learning how to do what we did. His oldest sister was his favorite and when she died, he just never was the same after that. He also never went home after that..."

She shook her head like hindsight was a real bitch.

"While his sister was in the hospital, it was just easier on his mom for the kids to stay with us. His middle sister never liked it over at our place, with good reason, and naturally wanted to stay with her mother most of the time. But my nephew loved to be in the action. Even at nine years old, he always wanted to be with the big homies, running around stealing cars, going with his uncle, my husband, on runs...being a lookout. All that...stuff..."

Her southern hospitality mask went back on real quick.

"My husband had the little ones look out and the big ones stand on the corner, but my nephew was so smart and so quick, by the time he was eleven or so my husband had already put him in charge of a lot. During the school year, my husband didn't really want the kids out in the open too much during the day, but they could run it all night long. Like I said, my man ran our block, put food on everyone's table, so most of the parents around there just let the kids do whatever he said. For the most part, my sister was just like the rest of them after her husband died. So my nephew was always either at the children's hospital with his sister, at home trying to take care of his mom, or out in the streets making money. He never slept. He rarely went to school. But when his sister died, that's when my husband started grooming him to be next. I'm not sure what he saw in my nephew, because they were nothing alike, but he definitely saw something..."

Jasmine's regal stature seemed to shrink down to two feet tall when she said, "I taught...I taught him how to cook cocaine. Just to keep him busy while he was with me, but he was really good at it. And I guess his uncle took notice..." She looked around the circle guiltily. "But I guess I got mine, because eventually I started using, too." She shook her head. "My nephew never did any of that stuff. He hated the way drugs made people act. Made me act. And he never really was a drinker, you know, because of his sister. I think he always somehow blamed his sister's cancer on the accident. But..." she looked down and started playing with her wedding ring. I briefly wondered how much of this her current husband knew. "But he was no nonsense. I mean even as a little kid he just never had any tolerance for foolishness, so when he got a little older, that's what made him perfect for pickups... according to my husband, which is why my husband pegged him as next, I guess." Her eyes scanned over us, but I could tell she wasn't really seeing us. "My nephew was always in charge of the money when he got older. Always. He watched everybody. Hawkeyes I used to call him." She shook her head again. "My sister's only son..."

I felt extremely uncomfortable by then. How much of this did Kenney want us to know? And did he even know where Jasmine had us right now? He didn't really seem like the type that wanted his family story "shared".

Jasmine looked directly at me, like she knew what I was thinking and I lowered my eyes.