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Ossie stood in the shadows of his sister’s porch, his hand raised to ring the bell. Seconds passed into minutes, and only when the minutes had matured into an hour did Ossie finally stir. He tapped the faintly glowing button, and a melodious chord filled the house.
“Who could be here this time of night?”
His younger sister, Ruby, muttered the question on the second floor. Ossie still heard it outside, just as he heard his mother’s labored breathing in her bedroom. The effort of each desperate breath made Ossie’s heart constrict with grief. She had been healthy, vibrant in her early 60s when he left home to move into the city. He had stayed away too long, but he’d been given no choice by the Tribe that had adopted him one dark night in an even darker club in midtown Atlanta.
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