Excerpt from Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Only later, after the officer had opened the trunk of his patrol car and come back with a copy of Byron's latest book (Could he have an autograph?), did it occur to Byron that a grown man of any color, sitting alone in a car watching pre-adolescents skateboard up and down the sidewalk, could elicit a reasonable degree of suspicion. All right, he could see that, it wasn't always about him being a black man. Though, mostly, it was.

"Let me just warn you," Mr. Mitch is saying now. "About your mother. You need to be prepared."

Prepared?

Prepared for what? Their mother is already gone.

His ma.

He doesn't see how anything after that is going to make much of a difference.

B and B

There's an entire file box labeled Estate of Eleanor Bennett. Mr. Mitch pulls out a brown paper envelope with their mother's handwriting on it and puts it on the desk in front of Byron. Benny shifts her seat closer to Byron's and leans in to look. Byron removes his hand but leaves the packet where Benny can see it. Their ma has addressed the envelope to B and B, the moniker she liked to use whenever she wrote or spoke to them together.

B-and-B notes were usually pinned to the fridge door with a magnet. B and B, there's some rice and peas on the stove. B and B, I hope you left your sandy shoes at the door. B and B, I love my new earrings, thank you!

Ma only called them Byron or Benny when she was speaking with one sibling or the other, and she only called Benny Benedetta when she was upset.

Benedetta, what about this report card? Benedetta, don't talk to your father that way. Benedetta, I need to talk to you.

Benedetta, please come home.

Their mother left a letter, Mr. Mitch says, but most of their mother's last message is contained in an audio file that took her more than eight hours, over four days, to record.

"Go ahead," Mr. Mitch says, nodding at the packet.

Byron cuts open the envelope and shakes out its contents, a USB drive and a handwritten note. He reads the note out loud. It's so typically Ma.

B and B, there's a small black cake in the freezer for you. Don't throw it out.

Black cake. Byron catches himself smiling. Ma and Dad used to share a slice of cake every year to mark their anniversary. It wasn't the original wedding cake, they said, not anymore. Ma would make a new one every five years or so, one layer only, and put it in the freezer. Still, she insisted that any black cake, steeped as it was in rum and port, could have lasted the full length of their marriage.

I want you to sit down together and share the cake when the time is right. You'll know when.

Benny covers her mouth with one hand.

Love, Ma.

Benny starts to cry.

Excerpted from Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson. Copyright © 2022 by Charmaine Wilkerson. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.