While her client sucked a thumb, Willa wove a criss-cross pattern of cornrows onto her young cousin’s head. She was improving. The braids looked like the roads leading up to her grandma’s house. Her family dropped by to see the matriarch during school breaks, among other excuses to fire up the grill. All they retained from visits to the backwater town was the straight shot of Highway 288, and the cow pastures flicking past their windows on the way down.

As Willa braided on the edge of the porch, a rusted radio with an 8-track slot filled the air with static-laced music. Inside the house, the adults swigged beers, slammed down dominoes, and talked shit about old neighbors. Though the sun was setting, it was still too hot for them to spew their vitriol outside. Her siblings tossed a hacky-sack back and forth in the front yard. They threw too hard and tried to hit one another in the face. Their youngest cousin sat on the grass between Willa’s fat legs. The little girl bobbed her head and tested Willa’s patience with her antsy body.

The trees swayed, but the evening breeze simply stirred the humidity. Somewhere above the children’s heads, the last bluebird of the day sang a solitary song.

Willa straightened her back from a perpetual hunch; a trickle of sweat slid from her neck and down her spine. Her back ached.

The child would not sit still. She was more interested in the discovery the older kids had made: decorative rocks from the walkway pelt harder than a hacky sack.

Willa took advantage of the distraction and paused to flex her hands rather than continue to fight the child’s big head for control. The braids looked clean and tight, but the session had gone on for almost two hours, so she couldn’t blame the restlessness. She stood to stretch her entire body before she got around to the last few tufts of hair.

The radio sang, “If you love me, say it, if you trust me, do it, if you want me, show it, if you need me, prove it.”

Willa curled her arms above her head and twisted at the waist. Her eye caught a shadowy, dark-skinned figure shuffling along the sidewalk a few houses away.

At the same time, a shrill scream pierced the air. Her younger brother Jerrod had hit their little sister in the eye with a small rock.

Aunt Bea—not even their mother—rushed out onto the porch, her nostrils flaring. The boy attempted to defend himself. They were “both just playin’.” Still, she stormed down the steps and slapped him on the back of his head with an audible pop.

Willa winced, then squatted back down to resume braiding her cousin’s hair. The little girl just laughed at Jerrod’s comeuppance.

Their aunt scooped up the crying child and walked back into the house without a word. She let the slam of the screen door speak for her.

The man Willa had seen was much closer now. Throughout the commotion, she hadn’t noticed he stood there, grinning. He was watching the boy.

“Good evenin’,” Willa said. She went back to braiding but cut her eyes at him when he didn’t respond.

Jerrod tried to hide his tears. “She ain’t even my momma,” he mumbled. He ignored the old man, and flung around the flat basketball he brought with him on every visit.

“Come sit down next to me, Jerrod,” Willa’s voice was thick with apprehension and responsibility. The boy obliged and slumped down next to her. He stared and rubbed the back of his head.

The old man opened an abnormally broad mouth, and strings of spit formed webs between his lips. “Now what you gon’ listen to her fo’?”

His voice was penetrating. Willa couldn’t tell if he was scolding Jerrod or joking with him. She stopped. He spoke like a creaking train blowing its whistle through a quiet residence.

She got a good look at him.

His face glowed in the dusk. Low light emitted from two inordinately large eyes. An almost fluorescent glow shone from a wide maw stretching from one ear to the other, past cheekbones that pushed his eyes into a squint.

He wore an unseasonable sweater vest for the summertime. A pair of worn-down loafers with a gaping hole in the right foot protruded from beneath baggy slacks. The clothes looked pre-owned many generations over.

A row of jagged, yellowing teeth cut into dry, crusted brown lips. The only normal feature was a broad, flat nose. Wrinkled skin stretched across a thin face speckled with freckles. It was like the face of a family friend who hovered at reunions, eyeing her teenage body for too long—one from another plane

As Willa regarded him, she noticed she was unable to keep her eyes steady. His form wavered like a mirage.

It’s not a man, her heartbeat skipped. It continued to smile.

It shouted but yet struggled to talk. “You a man, a-ain’tcha, boy?” as if it read her thoughts. Willa tapped her little client on the shoulder.

“Go get Uncle James,” she whispered. The child hopped up and ran inside, happy to oblige.

“Can I help you?” Willa rose, unsure if she and Jerrod should run. He remained frozen on the porch, his eyes wide.

It snubbed her once more and waved Jerrod over. It grinned still. “Come ‘ere, son.”

Willa huffed and tensed. “Jerrod, go back inside.”

Jerrod hesitated. He seemed to be scared, but Willa noticed his delay.

She snapped at him, “Go in!” Only then did he follow his cousin through the door. Willa backed up towards the house’s entrance. She meant to wait for her uncle, but she didn’t want to be left alone with the thing.

“Come ‘ere, son!” with a strained voice, it hollered after Jerrod.

She faced it and gripped the door handle. The mesh of the screen door cut into her back. Now it regarded her; irritation painted across its face.

“He ain’t ready yet,” a steady voice breathed behind her.

Willa jumped and glanced back. She didn’t want to take her eyes off the creature for too long.

Her grandmother supported herself on a gnarled, wooden cane.

The house was quiet now. Everyone inside watched from the windows and through the screen door. Willa held her breath. The radio played dead air.

“You know when he gon’ be, Mae?” no longer shouting, it spoke evenly. Willa twitched at the direct address of her grandmother.

“Not right now,” Mae sighed. “Get on outta here, Sam.”

The thing was quiet, its smile gone and thick lips pursed. Willa heard a sniffle from Jerrod.

“The earlier, the better,” it said. Willa felt her heart pump in her ears. One beat for every second the creature continued to stare at the household.

“See y’all soon.”

Willa squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them, the trees swayed in the wind once again. She saw nothing else. The same bluebird returned to its song, determined to be heard over the now blaring radio.

“Come on in and wash up,” Mae told Willa. She turned and hobbled back toward the center of the house.

Willa obeyed, washed her hands, and sat down in the living room to wait for dinner. No one comforted her. The adults went back to their high-spirited game and conversation, unbothered. She watched television with the rest of the children, who had already decided to forget.

Nearly twenty years had passed, and Willa had ended up four states away from her family. At her best friend’s 35th birthday party, her manicured hands gripped shot glasses and tossed their contents into her open mouth throughout the evening.

An hour later, on the ride back from the party, she slurred her words at the patient driver. With much effort, she dragged out stories about her old sorority. She arrived home, then stepped outside the car and tipped him with two bills she couldn’t read. The man shook his head and gave one back to her. He offered a look of pity as he drove off.

Once inside, she peed then waddled her way into her bedroom, careful not to disturb her roommates. A pile of folded night clothes sat upon the bed next to a scribbled note wrapped around a sweating bottle of water.

The ink bled, but she could still see the note read: TO DRUNK ME—DRINK UP. Willa giggled. She took the bottle and a towel with her back into the communal bathroom. In front of the mirror, she wiped off running makeup and silently inspected her crow’s feet. With her weave askew and her eyes swollen from cry-laughing throughout the evening, she was beginning to look like her mother.

She got ready for bed with a little more ease than usual, thanks to her sober self anticipating drunken clumsiness. Wrapped in her duvet with her bonnet on tight, she pulled her phone close to her face and prepared to cycle through four different apps before she would convince herself to shut it off. Halfway through the feed of the second app, Willa shot up straight and turned on her bedside lamp.

In a high-quality photo, posed in front of their grandmother’s house, stood her young brother Jerrod and four other figures. The caption read: Renovated, and all moved in!

Jerrod’s arm wrapped around the waist of the same photogenic woman he had been married to for the last ten years. At his wedding, Willa joked that she fell behind in the family planning game. He was only three years younger, but he was already miles ahead. Sure enough, underneath their smiling faces stood the twins. Willa wasn’t sure, because it had been so long since she’d seen anyone from her family—extended or otherwise, but she believed they weren’t older than seven or eight years old. The boy stood under his mother. He grinned wide like his parents. The little girl stood under Jerrod and forced a smile half the size. Willa could tell why.

A shadowy hand with lengthy pointed fingers fused into the nail bed gripped her shoulder. It was attached to a dark arm which was attached to a torso clad in modern attire. It had new clothes and a sharper appearance, but with the same oversized smile, it was unmistakable. It was the same creature she had seen all those years ago, and that no one had talked about since.

She gasped and dropped her phone onto the bed. The image didn’t waver. The other figure didn’t disappear. It gripped the shoulder of her niece and posed like a family member. Willa hesitantly picked up the phone and scrolled down to the comments underneath the photo. Everyone said, “congratulations!” or “what a beautiful family”! No one questioned its presence.

Willa no longer felt drunk. Adrenaline pumped through her veins and made her feel more awake now than ever. She knew it was late, but she hoped to make sense of what she saw.

After the fifth ring, a groggy voice answered.

“Willie?” her mom breathed. “What’s wrong? It’s midnight here.”

“Hey, Momma,” Willa whispered. She felt like a little girl again, scared to speak out loud into the night lest she summon her fears. She coughed, then at a reasonable volume, she spoke again. “Are you sleeping? How’s Oscar?”

The line was silent. They both knew Willa didn’t call to make small talk about her mom’s boyfriend on a Saturday evening. She decided to get to the point.

“Did you see his post? That thing is in it with Jerrod and Monica, and their kids. They’re in front of grandma’s house. What the hell is going on down there?”

“Oh, girl, you scared me. I thought something was wrong with you. What ‘thing’?”

“You know what I’m talkin’ ’bout, right?” Willa heard herself slip back into her southern accent in her haste to explain. “The summer we visited grandma before she started chemo. I was braiding Jada’s hair, and that goddamn thing popped up and almost snatched Jerrod. Everybody watched! I-I know you remember that.”

“You been drinkin’ again?”

“Momma!” Willa clutched her face with both hands. “Please tell me you remember.”

She thought back to the many rants and raves she’d given her mother about men on the El train or shitty bosses. Maybe a handful of times, she would be under the influence of something but, surely, she could hear the urgency in her voice this time.

She heard a door close on the other end of the line.

“I remember,” her mother spoke again after a pause. “When y’all was really young, your grandmomma sat me down one night at her house. We sat in the living room with the door open to let the breeze in. It was hot, like always, and we were pretending like keeping the door open would help.

Momma told me she was so glad I had ‘two feisty baby girls,’ but she was worried about Jerrod because he was getting older.”

Willa heard the pop of a cork and a hollow glug out of a bottle.

“And I said, ‘Why? That’s what they s’posed to do.’ She fixed me with a look then, told me to stop makin’ every damn thing into a joke like I do. That was one of the few times I saw her look scared. She was so steely all the time. A wasp stung her in the ass once, and she said: ‘Well, that’s a damn shame.

Irene, get me some tweezers and iodine.’

“But now, she was looking at me with those watery eyes, and it made me so sad because she never looked at me that way. I asked her to tell me what’s wrong with Jerrod. All slow-like, she told me in such a small voice: ‘Your Uncle Bernard passed. Only your Uncle Victor is left. When he goes, Sam Tippy is gon’ be on his way.’

“When she said that name, my stomach just wrenched. I knew exactly what she was talkin’ about. I knew because he had come for James when we were all kids. I was away at Daddy’s house the day James turned him down—he showed up every day that week—but I heard Sam was very unforgiving.”

Her mom paused, and Willa assumed she was downing a glass of wine.

“I don’t know why you forget about him like that. I don’t understand why everything clicked for me when Momma said his name. It’s how he likes it, I guess. I don’t know where he came from. I just know that when I was a little girl, he looked the same as he did when you saw him at 14, and as he probably looks in that photo right now.”

She could almost feel her mother’s breath through the phone. It sounded like she had carried this weight with her all these years.

“He came after your Uncle James real young. James didn’t want him around because Momma was persuasive, so Sam Tippy stopped comin’. But she told me two of her brothers took him in—happily. He stayed with them until the last one died: my Uncle Victor. Had to have been only a day or two before the night y’all saw ’im. He walked all the way from Beaumont to her house in that time. He couldn’t have stopped.”—She let out a grim chuckle—“I just. . . I can’t stop thinkin’ about how the hell he knew Jerrod would be there that night.”

Willa looked out the window over her desk and listened for a moment. The sounds of the city pulsed through the night. Sirens wailed in the distance. She thought about the deafening silence of her grandmother’s house after she passed away. Willa romanticized the home when she was with her friends, but, truthfully, the emptiness inevitably drove her away from it.

When she visited the house, Willa felt she stood in the middle of a proverbial hayfield—exposed. An open target for anything and everything. The borough often made her feel claustrophobic but, at times like these, she was grateful for the proximity of her neighbors.

“The truth is I don’t know what the boys see. I tried to ask James what Sam looks like to him, and all he said was: ‘he look like you can trust him.’ All of the women can see him like he is, and Jerrod was raised like James, so I thought he’d turn him away.

“But when your grandma died, I don’t know if you felt it, but I—well, I felt like a big barrier came down. Like she was the final guardian between that spirit comin’ to us and snatchin’ that boy. Shee-it. I don’t know what the hell he is. I’m not sure why he’s in the picture, and, frankly, I can’t bring myself to look at it if he’s really in there. He’s a scary-lookin’ son-of-a-bitch. But, honey, if he’s in that house—Jerrod let him in. And you best let him handle that by himself. You hear me?”

Willa took a deep breath and lay back down onto her mattress.

“Why does Jerrod have the house? If he didn’t, it wouldn’t be there.” Willa didn’t consider the creature to be a “he,” and she was uncomfortable hearing it referred to as such.

“‘Member I told you we couldn’t afford to keep up with repairs, girl?” her mom’s voice returned to her joyful tone. “When Monica got pregnant, your aunts and I told them that if they could fix that damn house, they could have it. I stayed in there while they fixed it up and, this spring, I”—she whispered into the receiver, even though no one was awake to judge her—“I moved in with Oscar when they finished. I told you they were doing repairs, but I guess I didn’t tell you they planned to take it when it was over. He’s holding onto all of your old stuff in there if you want to get it when you come back for the holidays.”

“Yeah, Momma, we’ll see.”

“We’ll see if you go to the house? Or we’ll see if you come back at all?” Willa wasn’t sure which question she’d answered either.

A few months after they had moved into the house, Monica had stormed out. Jerrod gazed into his cellphone, worried that she wouldn’t be back in time for tomorrow morning’s Thanksgiving dinner prep. He was dreading the idea of serving up a broken marriage for the holiday meal.

He propped his legs up on the ottoman and turned up the volume of the pre-game commentary.

They argued a lot lately. Monica nitpicked everything he did just to keep control. He stayed out too late with his work crew and missed dinner. He didn’t vacuum long enough. He had forgotten to pick up Ora from her softball game.

Maybe the last point was a legit argument, he sighed. But to him, these were things Monica could sail through while he was getting off work. She waited for a reason to fuss these days, and Jerrod wasn’t having any of it. In turn, he was tired of her stepping on his neck, acting like she was in charge of the house, and he was simply a guest. They had spent years hopping from one sketchy apartment to the next. He had scraped up money, repaired his grandmother’s house, and moved them out of Houston into a real neighborhood. He earned this place, and he’d be damned if he acted like he was doing something wrong.

His phone buzzed alive. Monica’s text read: Spending the night at Jada’s. Be back at 8 am. Jerrod rolled his eyes and tossed the phone down onto the couch. He wondered what his wife and sister could talk about for an entire night before yet another full day of talking.

Ora walked into the living room. She was already in her pajamas and clutched her tablet. Jerrod grinned at her and sat up. He stretched out his arms.

“Come here, Orrrangutan,” he chuckled. Ora wasn’t one to hold a grudge. A quick toss in the air was all it took to get her laughing again.

She frowned and walked over to him. “It won’t turn on.”

He gave her a quick squeeze, then pulled back and held her shoulders. She looked like her mother and, somehow, at the same time, like his mother.

“You wanna watch TV with me? We can watch cartoons.”

“No, I want to watch Princess Pals, and you told me it ‘rots your brain.’” Jerrod laughed. “You right, you right. Okay, let’s go turn it on.”

They walked hand-in-hand to her bedroom. Jerrod swung her hand between them, but Ora was huffy. He wondered if she knew her mother wouldn’t be home for the evening. Once inside the purple and yellow bedroom he and Ora had painted together, Jerrod went to her dresser and pulled out the tablet’s charger. He plugged it in then held out his hand for the tablet.

She blinked at him, and then she laughed, exposing the gap in her front teeth. “I forgot.”

“Don’t stay on it past nine,” he warned. “Tomorrow is a holiday, but you’ll burn your eyes out.” Jerrod closed his daughter’s door. Is Amar ready for bed?

Amar’s bedroom door was ajar. Jerrod paused next to it. He could hear his son in the midst of a conversation.

“Is that where you came from? Africa?” Amar questioned. A raspy voice responded, “Naw.”

Jerrod’s hair stood on end. Sam Tippy didn’t tell him he’d be over tonight. “I came from here. Right under yo’ feet.”

“You were born in great-grandma Mae’s house?” “No, boy, I was created here,” Sam croaked.

Jerrod leaned against the wall outside the door to listen. He had heard this tale before, but he was unsure if he was ready for Amar to take it in. When can a boy be ready to hear this? He hesitated to walk in, but Monica would be pissed to know Sam was alone with Amar. She claimed something about him ‘didn’t seem right,’ and hated having him over at the best of times. Jerrod couldn’t bear the thought of yet another night of apologizing and proving her right.

“Not in this house but on this land. Mae’s great granddaddy, Solomon, was born right ‘chere, and his grandson—Mae’s daddy—bought it from white folks. That was right before they went broke anyway and had nothing but a little sharecroppin’. Before all-a-that tho’, Solomon had gotten back from the Civil War, after being forced to serve the Confederates, and he made me.”

“How?” Jerrod could hear the eagerness in his son’s voice.

“Amar,” he pushed the door open to interrupt. Amar sat cross-legged on his play rug with winding roads and weaved houses, looking up at Sam Tippy with wide eyes. “Go get ready for bed. Your sister is already in her room.”

Amar popped up then. He looked disappointed, but he didn’t talk back. “Okay. I mean—yes, sir.”

He sped past Jerrod and closed the bathroom door behind him. Jerrod looked on at the back of Sam Tippy’s head.

“Hey, man,” he said. “When you come over, you need to tell me first.”

Jerrod managed to keep his voice firm, even though he felt disrespectful when he talked to Sam this way.

For the last few years, Jerrod had allowed Sam to stay with his family from time to time. He felt he owed him. Yet something hazy clouded a memory he had of him—a sticky evening tangled up in intrigue and heart palpitations.

Sam’s voice snapped him back to the present. He stood in front of him now though Jerrod swore he never saw him move. “No sweat, man. I’m just about to skedaddle on out of here. Where’s Monica so I can say ‘goodnight’?”

“She staying with Jada for tonight. She’ll be back tomorrow. You can come back then, too.” “Aye, son,” Sam clapped his shoulder. “Y’all doin’ all right?”

Jerrod paused for a moment and said, “Goodnight, Sam.”

Sam Tippy’s broad smile twitched into a frown, and at that moment, Jerrod felt a rush of knowledge return to him. He was able to remember the days before he had allowed Sam into the house. Days he and Monica had fewer fights. Days he used to hang out with his sisters more often.

He stared at the specter before him and noticed his edges blur for the first time. “Goodnight, young blood,” Sam said.

Jerrod blinked, and Sam Tippy was gone.

A decade after he had first seen Sam as a child, Jerrod was twenty-one, and he and Monica were just starting to date. On one of the coolest nights of the summer, he had left her house to walk home from her ward to his. He was riding high from the pride of making her knees tremble. He was in his prime. Yet during the walk, dread managed to nestle itself in the pit of his stomach, and paranoia egged it on from the recesses of his mind. He had all but convinced himself it was the electricity in the air from an approaching storm when another young man pulled up in a car next to him.

“Like them shoes, boy,” he said. Jerrod ran.

Twenty minutes later, he limped home shoeless, licking a split lip. He debated what to tell his mom and sisters. There were three boys in the car, and one looked to be only 15. He kicked like a grown man, though. He could feel anger surging through him, as his socked feet crunched over questionable materials strewn about the city’s sidewalks. With one more block to go, he turned the corner, freezing when he saw a glowing face that hovered in the distance. His stomach clenched.

“Yo’ great-great-granddaddy got forced into the Confederacy,” it wheezed. “He was a slave at the time, and was only allowed to follow his owner as help. Solomon watched the white man get his brains blown out on the battlefield. Then he brought the body back home. The Union won three weeks later. After that, he was free.”

Jerrod wanted to throw up. The figure seemed to be gliding closer to him. Its mouth was shaping words, but the rest of his body remained lifeless. Unreasonably long fingers twitched at his hip like he was itching to reach out.

“When he got back, Solomon’s wife started naggin’ him about takin’ her and the kids up North. She was scared of how the white folks would retaliate when the Union soldiers left. Like he didn’t spend six months dragging white soldiers through trenches and cooking for ‘em on the other side.”—There was a raspy laugh—“He had earned that goddamned land. He wasn’t gon’ leave it just because she was a little nervous.”

Jerrod began to take slow steps backward, hoping to put some distance between them.

“But one night, his wife just kept pushing him. She said, ‘these white men seethin’, waitin’ to get they hands on us when it’s safe.’ He didn’t want to do it, so she wanted to leave without him, wanted to get out of there and take his kids.

“So they argued. Then they fought. She was a big, strong woman—kinda like yo’ grandmomma—but not strong enough. He took one big swing at her head and cracked her skull,” Sam cackled. “He had to tell the kids she left ‘em.”

There was a crackling sound, and Jerrod gasped. He looked down at his foot and saw blood pooling underneath his socks. Shards of a broken wine bottle lay nearby. Jerrod let out an audible breath, trying not to scream when he looked up. The creature was right in his face.

“He regretted it.” Rancid breath billowed out from behind his teeth. “He could hear her cryin’ at night, after all them lights had been blown out. He thought the guilt was gonna make him crack. He prayed. He cried with her. She only got louder. And one night, under a big, bright ass moon, he lit a candle and started beggin’ her to stop. Her cries turned into a shreikin’. Then he met me.”

“What do you want, man?” Jerrod whispered.

“I want to teach you how to be a man, boy,” Sam whispered back, his eyes flashing with glee. “So something like this won’t happen to you again. I seent ya future. You got a beautiful family. But they don’t want no pussy for a father.”

“I just got jumped,” he stuttered. “I-it’s what happens on the Southside.”

“Not when I’m with you,” Sam grinned deeply. “You want to protect yo’ family?” “What are you?”

“I’m in your mind and your heart.” Sam pressed a sharp finger into Jerrod’s chest, and he couldn’t help but cry out this time. “I’m mmụọ, if you got to know. That’s Igbo. But, just like y’all, I ain’t African. Not no more.”

“You gotta keep me going, boy,” Sam paused then, his smile fading and nostrils flaring. “You need to.” Jerrod looked down at his foot. After Sam prodded him, it didn’t hurt anymore. The blood continued to flow between the cracks in the sidewalk but the pain was gone.

“Now, come on,” Sam dug sharp nails into Jerrod’s shoulder. “Let’s go get yo’ shoes back.”

Three hours into Thanksgiving Day, and Jerrod already wanted to escape to smoke a blunt in the backyard. He used to do it when they were teenagers, but as the host, he now had to tend to his duties and his family. Instead, he stuck close to the kitchen and made obligatory host’s rounds now and then.

The kids played Connect 4. The TV roared alive every fifteen minutes with a touchdown or highly disputed penalties. His wife and Jada sat on the porch. They drank wine and glared past the screen door into the house now and again. Jerrod held his beer and straddled the threshold between the living room and kitchen so that he could referee both the game of football and the one of dominoes. The aunts, uncles, and their spouses left an honorary seat open for the late matriarch, but they continued their never-ending slamming match. Willa sat behind them and observed, nursing her drink.

She was there for the first time in years, and it was awkward to have her around. They didn’t have the same rapport they used to, and their superficial conversation showed it. Jerrod didn’t know how to speak to her anymore, really. She seemed happy she had left but somehow angry for being pulled back. He wanted to ask why she came back this year in particular but he also wanted to keep the peace.

After their talk last night, Sam Tippy was nowhere to be found. Jerrod had a feeling he wasn’t too far from the house.

After a while, the turkey finished, and he made everyone clear the kitchen table so that he could carve it. The family gathered around, and the game carried on quietly in the foreground.

“Speech, speech!” his mother was a little tipsy, but she smiled at him as he set the bird down in the center of the table. Some family chuckled at her, and others lifted their glasses in anticipation.

“God is good; let’s eat,” Jerrod laughed. Everyone joined in, even Willa. Jerrod felt a pang of nostalgia for the simple days of his childhood. He glanced over at his kids and the many hands around the table that would help raise them. His wife gave him a nod of forgiveness, and his tense shoulders dropped.

After a bit of catch up and compliments to the chef, Jerrod began to feel uneasy. The beer didn’t seem to mix well with the copious amounts of turkey that churned in his stomach after every laugh and burp, so he wiggled out from his seat and made a beeline for the bathroom. When he finished, he re-entered the room and was greeted with complete silence.

Sam Tippy stood where Jerrod had leaned earlier.

“Well, don’t let me stop the festivities,” Sam barked into the stillness. He slapped his hands on his chest and dragged them down an oily polyester shirt. “I just came to see how y’all was doin’.”

Since the confrontation the night before, there was no longer a haze around his face and body. Needle-pin teeth poked out of his smiling mouth and cast an eerie glow into the dusk that settled onto the household.

“It ain’t a party without you, Sam,” Jerrod cleared his throat. He hoped to ease the tension, but it was too late.

Willa plopped down her hard cider, “A funeral party.”

She got up and walked towards Sam, who blocked her exit. Instantaneously, he whipped his attention from the crowded table towards her as she approached.

“Excuse me,” she hissed.

Sam glared at her. His eyes flashed with annoyance.

“Last I heard, you ain’t stepped foot in this house since yo’ grandmomma died,” Sam spat. “You don’t get to tell me when to fuckin’ move.”

“Hey, now,” Jerrod’s mother stood to defend her daughter. “You watch your mouth, you goddamn

spook. Talking about my Momma and my baby like that? You’re not even welcome here.”

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong, Irene,” he glanced back over to Jerrod. “Accordin’ to the man of the house, I am.”

This time, everyone looked to Jerrod.

He panned the room. His wife looked angry. His aunts and uncles looked concerned. Willa was the only one who didn’t look at him. She seemed to be debating if she should push past Sam Tippy and leave the house. Ora kept glancing down at the floor, and Amar stared intensely at his father.

“I had to learn to act like a man for a change,” he said. Sam Tippy let out a gritty laugh that dripped with gratification.

“When Monica got pregnant, I didn’t have any money. I didn’t know how to be a father. Willa had just up and left for Chicago. Jada and Mom were looking to me to run the house.”

Jerrod straightened up and looked into his Uncle James’ eyes. “I don’t know why you didn’t want him with you, and maybe it’s because you never got married or had kids, but you gotta know what I’m talkin’ ’bout.”

“Of course, I know, Jerrod,” his uncle sighed. “I had three little sisters, and my daddy left us when I was ten. Momma didn’t want Sam to fill my head with that shit. I ain’t superior to nobody, and nobody is superior to me. I don’t need to put the fear of God into my family to show that.”

Jerrod looked over to his mother, who had sat and bowed her head. She looked up deliberately. “Your daddy died real young,” his mother said. “Before he even got to hold Jada. That’s why you don’t remember him. But he wouldn’t have expected you to ‘run the house.’ Boy, he wanted you to live your life.”

“He wanted me to run the house,” Willa said. She and Sam were still in a face-off while she spoke. “He told me to stay in charge of y’all, and I missed out on a lot to do it.

“But this motherfucker right here? It’s just a damn vulture. He’s not going to help you. You probably forgot most of that day you first saw him, but he had every intention to swallow yo’ little ass up.”

Jerrod did remember. All these years, he had thought Sam was there to raise him, but thinking back, he simply egged on trouble. Jerrod was more aggressive than he had ever been. He antagonized. He controlled. All in the name of manhood. Willa had acted as a true leader for the house, and Jerrod began to realize Willa had left because she was worn out from it.

He crossed the room to face Sam and stood next to Willa. There was no more haze. “She said ‘excuse me,’” Jerrod said. “Get out of her way.”

Sam’s voice buzzed. “You still got a lot to learn, boy.”

Sam’s eyes darkened. Jerrod was unable to see and feel his family’s presence. He and Sam stood in a void.

“You wanna say that one more ‘gain?” Sam asked. His voice was no longer smooth like the one used to lure Jerrod in. It gargled as if bile was caught in his throat. His eyes glowed brightly and, though his mouth remained open, he didn’t smile. He salivated.

Jerrod kept his resolve. “Get out of my house.”

At that moment, Sam’s form rose. Jerrod, once again, wondered if the rest of the family could see him. Most of all, he hoped that his children could not. It turned inside out, shedding its clothes and pitch-black skin. It managed to retain the shape of its eyes and open maw, but before Jerrod, a mass of red light floated and writhed above his head.

The mass dripped into the ground. Light to liquid. It started with a slight trickle and then came down in a torrent. There was no puddle where it landed. The void soaked up every drop. Jerrod watched as Sam Tippy’s mouth opened wide. A chorus of men screamed in agony all around him, but they didn’t sound like Sam. They sounded human.

Jerrod felt a tug pull his chest forward. He looked down in time to see a handful of red luminescence leave his stomach and join the rest in the ground. Jerrod gasped for breath, feeling that he might pass out at any moment.

When the spirit had left completely, he felt himself crash to the floor with a heavy thud. Jerrod’s mind was aware of what had taken place, but his body was unable to respond to the panic. I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m alive. His mind raced.

He heard voices ask, “What happened?”

He heard his Uncle’s voice respond, “He made his choice.”

Later that evening, after everyone was convinced Jerrod didn’t need to go to the hospital, he sat outside on the porch with a cold compress on his eyes. His head was pounding. He wasn’t sure who, but some of the family had already left. The TV was off, and he could hear the voices of his mother, wife, and kids inside with a few stragglers.

Someone exited the house and plunked down next to Jerrod. “He’ll be back, you know?” Willa sighed.

Jerrod turned his head toward her and removed his compress. He watched her take a swig of her beer. “For Amar,” he bit the inside of his cheek. “I know.”

They looked out into the night and watched fireflies play tag in the distance.

Jerrod leaned back once more. He placed the compress across his face, unable to distinguish between the darkness of the evening and the darkness behind his eyelids.