Tremé was the oldest African American neighborhood in the country. The tourism bureau could offer a history lesson about the hat maker, Claude Tremé, who came to the city from France when America was a baby nation, and all the property he owned in the area, how Free Peoples of Color or those who bought or bargained for their freedom settled the neighborhood. There was always a Second Line—that happy, loud crowd following the bright brass instruments of a band, our own Jazz funeral without a body—in Tremé, always music and spice and the welcoming vibe of community in the area.

But the tourism folks couldn’t tell you about that small Creole cottage with the powder blue siding and yellow shutters right off of North Rampart. They wouldn’t tell you that my father’s people had lived in that place for four generations. They didn’t know that the original hardwood carried a stain near the stove where I dropped a pan of hot grease at nine because the cast iron pot was too heavy for me to lift. They didn’t know that my father made me scrub the floor for five hours a night for a week, until my knuckles bled. They wouldn’t know that there were two porches and a veranda, gas fireplaces and that any time I wanted to avoid my father, I’d run to the back bedroom on the second floor because the ceiling was sloped and he didn’t like bending over when he called me a worthless, stupid whore. They wouldn’t tell you that when I left that cottage almost two years ago, I did it without looking over my shoulder once.

Today I did.

Even with Ransom on my left and Kona on the far right next to a slow-walking Keira, I kept glancing over my shoulder as we passed that house. It was Creole Gumbo Festival day in Tremé and Keira had begged Kona to take her despite her pregnancy, then demanded that Ransom and I come along because a weird bout of energy had struck her and she was sick of looking at the slow moving waves outside her patio or the perfectly painted walls inside her home.

This neighborhood had been my home until I was seventeen and walking through it, with the people who had whispered some small promise of family, felt more comfortable to me than that small cottage behind me ever had.

“It’s a beautiful day,” Keira said, smiling so wide, looking so beautiful that for a second I forgot where I was or that the likelihood of running into my father was high.

“It is,” I told her, grinning back at her when she slipped her arm around my shoulder.

“You think I should chance some spicy gumbo? I got my TUMs.”

There was a twinkle in her eyes that I loved, something I’d only ever seen from Keira when she was laughing hard or when Kona said something that warmed her heart. Keira was fearless about everything. I wanted to be just like her. “You’re almost nine months pregnant, Keira, I’d have to say you can do whatever the hell you want.”

“Aly Cat, don’t encourage her,” Kona said, but I caught the tease in his eyes when Keira glared at him.

“Aly Rillieux!” The voice was old, but I recognized it immediately. I turned around, with the Hale-Rileys pausing behind me. “Bonjou! Sak pase?”

Millie Dade didn’t give me a chance to respond before she wrapped her arms around me and kissed both of my cheeks.

“M ap viv. Et ou? She waved off my inquiry about her health and patted my face. It was the first time I’d seen the old woman since I left Tremé. She was small, with curly white hair that looked blue in the sunlight and she had faint age spots along her forehead and dotted over her thin fingers. Likely pushing eighty, Millie had been grann’s oldest friend. She was also just as messy and nosy as my grandmother had been, a fact that came back to me when she looked over my shoulder straight at Ransom, and that familiar smile of hers beamed.

There was no avoiding it. The old woman would grin and gawk until I was forced into an introduction. “Millie, this is my…um, this is Ransom,” I told her, nodding for him to greet her.

She actually blushed when he kissed her hand and that blush got deeper when Kona stepped to her side and laid on his best Hale charm.

“And this is Ransom’s folks Keira and Kona.”

“Sekonsa! I heard about them,” she said, pulling Kona down to kiss his cheek even before he offered it. “Oh! Li ansent! Bien!” she said, waving a hand over Keira’s large stomach, her eyes sparkling.

“Millie, pinga ou fè sa!” I told her, narrowing my eyes at her when she looked a little too eager to touch Keira’s belly. Keira had complained often enough about hating how even total strangers felt entitled to patting her stomach, often without even asking first.

The old woman stopped smiling, but brushed off the small reprimand by shrugging and pulling on my wrist. “You see your papa today?”

“Non,” I told her, warning her with a glare. “And I’m not going to.”

“Aly…”

“Mind your own business, old woman.” My tone was teasing, but firm.

Millie was good natured, but a little too aggressive when it came to what she thought was giving out good advice to broken up families. And my family was as broken as one could ever be.

“Well, then, cheri, you be well.” She finally caught my hint and nodded to us with a brief “se te on plezi” to Ransom and his parents—I doubted she’d really enjoyed meeting them, especially when she couldn’t get any dirt on me or them or what I was doing with Ransom—before Ransom ushered me down the side walk. Still, there was that Hale charm…

Ransom’s smile was ridiculous and when he kept throwing it my way, I jabbed him in the rib. “What?”

I shook my head when he pulled me to his side with his arm around my shoulder. “You’re full of surprises.”

I shrugged. “You know I speak the language.” I squinted, mocking a frown. “Did you think I was cursing in Spanish or something all those times Koa tried my patience, or… um, whenever?”

“I guessed Creole,” Kona interrupted, smiling at Keira like he’d won a bet.

“He did,” she started, pulling me free of Ransom’s large arm. “And now he’s going to be all superior.” Keira looped her arm in my elbow and ignored her smug-looking husband. “Kona spent time in Tremé before I came around because he had a crush on the barmaid at the Candlelight,” she whispered to me conspiratorially.

“Oh?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at the man in question. He couldn’t hear us, I knew. “You think he’s gonna go check if she’s still there?”

“Nah,” Keira said through a laugh. “Luka told me once that the girl’s brother chased Kona out with a shotgun in his hand.”

“What’s so funny?” Kona asked when our laughter pulled his attention away from whatever animated story Ransom was telling his father.

Keira was cool, and merely gave out a sing-songy whistle and glance towards the sky in an “I’ll never tell” tease.

The woman was legendary.

“This your place?” Keira asked after leveling a saucy wink at her husband.

I knew she meant the neighborhood. Ransom and Kona often asked me about my people, my childhood, but Keira wasn’t one to pry. Her curiosity about my neighborhood surprised me, and I liked her wanting to know more about me.

“Yeah. I grew up here before Leann let me take the loft.”

Keira stopped, glancing back to where Millie had disappeared as though something had just occurred to her. “We can leave if you’re worried about running into your father.”

“No, Keira.” It was a sweet suggestion, but the day was too beautiful and I felt comfortable with Ransom and his family. “I’m not gonna let anyone spoil the day, especially not that mean old man,” I told Keira, patting Ransom’s hand when he came up to me and wrapped his arms around my waist.

The smell of gumbo was thick in the air, with its aroma of Cayenne pepper, garlic and bell peppers so heavy that my mouth watered. I quietly pulled Ransom behind me as Keira walked toward a long line queuing for bowls of that delicious concoction.