“Please don’t speak on my daughter,” Amina said, her voice carrying that particular tone she used when she wanted to sound offended without technically starting anything.
Nique’s eyes slid over to Paris. “Paris, get your friend.”
“I’m not in it,” Paris said flatly, stepping back toward Kyson. “I’m tired of being in the middle of y’all every time we’re in the same space.”
Nique didn’t miss a beat. She looked directly at me. “Then Dex, get your baby mama.”
Amina’s whole face changed. “Baby mama?” she repeated, her voice dropping into a deadly register. “Say that again.”
“Baby mama,” Nique said, calm as ever. “That’s what you are, right?”
“I am the mother of his child,” Amina said, stepping forward. “There’s a difference between that and what you are, which is nothing. A hobby. Something he picks up and puts down whenever it’s convenient.”
“A hobby he keeps coming back to,” Nique said, her voice still even. “Must be frustrating watching him choose his hobby over his baby mama every single time.”
Amina’s jaw tightened. “You think you’re so special. You’re just a woman he feels sorry for. That’s all this is. Pity.”
“Then why are you so threatened by his pity?” Nique asked.
Amina started moving toward her, her face past smug and into something colder, but the wet limestone didn’t care about her momentum. Her designer sandal caught the slick transition wrong and her ankle rolled hard. She went down fast, grabbing at nothing, hitting the rock with a sharp cry that cut right through the noise of the whole group.
“Amina!” I was already moving.
She was sitting up, one hand braced on the ground, the other reaching for her ankle. Her face was tight with pain, eyes watering.
“¡Médico!” one of the guides called out, and two of the staff came hustling over with a first aid kit.
Stella was already there, her nurse instincts cutting through the vacation energy like a switch had flipped. She crouched down, her hands moving with a calm efficiency that commanded the space around her. Wendell was right behind her.
“Give them room,” my mom said, gathering my aunts back a step.
Stella worked quickly, pressing carefully around the ankle, watching Amina’s face for the response. “It’s a bad sprain,” she said after a moment. “Maybe a slight grade two. She needs to stay off it, get it wrapped and iced. If the swelling doesn’t respond she may need an X-ray to rule out a hairline fracture but I don’t think we’re looking at a break.”
Amina let out a shaky breath, some of the tension leaving her face now that she had a read on it.
“He said there’s a clinic about ten minutes from here,” Deuce spoke up, translating a rapid exchange between one of the guides and another staff member.
Everyone looked at him.
“You speak Spanish?” Nel asked.
“Spanish, Mandarin, and a little Portuguese,” Deuce said with a shrug that was trying very hard not to be smug and failing slightly.
“Show off,” Whitley muttered.
“Wendell, why don’t you and Deuce take her to the clinic,” Stella said to her husband. “They could use the translation help and I want to make sure she gets looked at properly.”
“Mom, I came here to swim, not sit in a clinic,” Deuce said.
“Family first,” Wendell said simply, in a tone that closed the discussion.
Stella was softer about it. “I know baby. But this is what we do.”
“But Amina is not his family,” Nique said. Her voice was quiet but it carried. “And what do you know about putting family first anyway? You abandoned your first two kids.”
The words landed like a stone dropped into still water. Everyone felt the ripple.
“Nique,” I said.