Across the train tracks from BWI station, a portal shimmered in the shade of a patch of tall trees. From her seat on a northbound train taking on passengers, Dottie watched a woman slip a note out of her pocket, place it under a rock, strip off her work uniform, then walk naked, smiling, into the portal. She looked delighted as she let out a sigh and stepped through. Dottie felt simultaneous guilt and thrill for watching such an intimate Crossing.

“Sis, you haven’t Crossed yet? Hope this good service will convince you to stay on our side.” The brother serving the First Class car from Washington to Boston had a tight fade, long legs, and a bright smile.

He smelled like clove and sandalwood. Dottie gave him attention while he poured a second cup of awful Amtrak coffee into her mug and expertly set down sugar in a tube and insufficient creamer packets. Dottie was always the only Black woman in a car full of suits on their way to New York. That was normal even before the portals opened.

“Love those earrings. Naidoo Williams’ collection, yeah? You’re lucky you got those! Your man got ‘em to convince you to stay, right? Tried to get some for my lady, but they were sold out. Thought for a minute she’d leave with my baby girl, but now she’s pregnant with my son.”

Dottie nodded, following along without trying to encourage or engage. Black men were either ignoring Black women or lavishing them with attention since the portals opened. Annoyance and danger came with both. She smiled, nodded, and mouthed “thank you” when he finished, then confirmed he was walking away before setting her attention back on the window. The East Coast slid past without particularly deliberate speed, decorated with a conversation in the form of signs and posters taped to fences:

“Don’t leave us, Queens! – Your Kings.”

“God bless America. You’ll miss it, but it won’t miss you.”

“You can’t get into heaven if you’re not on Earth.”

“Women’s Unity! Don’t break the Sisterhood.” Under the words was a drawing of a white woman embracing a Black woman, her arms wrapped tightly around bare brown shoulders.

“I don’t have more to give. I’m done trying.”

“Have you ever really seen us? We deserve better.”

“I will stand in my peace.”

“This ain’t even my shift.” The attendant returned. Dottie hadn’t noticed. “Five of our folk up and Crossed this weekend. No warning. No call-in. That’s why everything is runnin’ late. Folk leave and we can’t hire new folk to take over fast enough. This work needs training and shit, you know? It’s rough out here.”

Dottie nodded, her eyes still on the world sliding by. He was telling half of the story. He failed to mention the overtime earned, the extra tips he got for his service. He probably even got a raise. An expert on NPR said a few mornings before, “People are just waking up to how undervalued Black women are in the American workforce.” Dottie rolled her eyes as hard as she could. Just, huh?

The attendant floated away. Dottie let out a grateful breath and relaxed, opening her laptop to spend her ride working so she could have fun with her friends as soon as she pulled into Boston. Emails waited in her inbox: “Attention all employees: due to recent departures, we are notifying you all about new access expectations and password storage…”

Dottie had hard feelings that knotted in her stomach every time a new email like this showed up. It didn’t feel right to leave a job without notice. It left a big burden for the folk who hadn’t or couldn’t Cross.

There were reasons to stay. That seemed to be missing from the “national conversation” happening about Black women without their voices involved. Most of those reasons had names, bodies, intermingled lives and finances, histories made, remembered, and reckoned with. Dottie thought about her friends Trisha and Beverly. They had plenty of reason to go and so many more reasons to stay. She almost felt guilty about going to a Crossing party knowing two people she loved couldn’t ever do so. And even though she didn’t have a heart and body tangled up with her own, Dottie still had people who she loved, who she would miss no matter which side of the portal she or they were on. Some were blood, others were bonds. Wasn’t that the whole world?

Celeste and Kayla, her beautiful neighbors, were two such people. Dottie was there for Kayla’s birth eight years ago. Celeste and Phil had been together some 20 years. “First and only man I could ever love,” Celeste always said of her husband. The portals opened and women started talking and leaving … but Celeste hadn’t. Who can tell a woman to leave her husband and separate her family by gender? The portals presented an impossibility for a whole bunch of women. Generations of Black women. It bothered Dottie. Her life’s work was built on equity and inclusion. All she could think about were the women who wouldn’t and couldn’t leave.

Dottie lifted her eyes from the keyboard to see the attendant making his way up the aisle, his attention squarely on her. He was a man on his hustle. Dottie had to admit that she enjoyed watching him work. There were a lot of men to leave behind. Weren’t they just as vulnerable to the cruelties of this country? A famous actress who had Crossed in the early days came back to give a big television interview about it and she was asked this very question. Her answer lingered in Dottie’s mind: “They’ve been known to ignore us, hurt us, leave us, and take advantage of us, too. I don’t know why they aren’t invited. I’m only half sorry about it, though.”

Dottie respected the answer, but there was no denying the growing feeling they were leaving their brothers to the wolves.

She knew the wolves.

History told the story again and again: battles won, the hard clawback soon thereafter, and the fight to regain again. The cycle repeated perennially on a country-wide scale and on an individual one. She’d gone through it plenty of times in her 15 years of work at the liberal private high school she worked for. The school charged a yearly tuition more than nation’s average yearly salary and families paid it in a lump sum each year like an electrical bill. Nothing about that screamed inclusion to Dottie, yet Black girls went there. And more had joined since she got there.

“Did you know the economy has lost a trillion dollars since y’all started Crossing?” The attendant said to her as he offered a hot towel with a tong.

She took it with a thanks, but nothing else to encourage him, focusing on moving the hot towel between her fingers.

He spoke on anyway. “Between the products y’all buy, the jobs you do, the different interconnecting industries, the government, the daycares, the hospitals! Good Lord, y’all were doin’ the most. For real! I mean, I got a mama, a sister, and a wife, but I didn’t know how much y’all be doin’! I don’t think anyone did.”

Dottie looked up from her hands and into the man’s face. He was fine, but that shit made her angry. “Mama, sister, and a wife, huh? They all still here?”

He flashed a smile. “Far as I know!”

Dottie made a face.

He leaned in, his voice low, his expression sad. “Y’all really think you’re the only miserable ones? Y’all think … we don’t want to go, too? Ain’t we two halves of a whole?” Then he stood up full, walked down the aisle, offered hot towels, and accepted tips from happy patrons.

Dottie looked back out the window. She thought about that man’s mama, sister, and wife, going about their lives being only half seen, half known, half heard.

A billboard came and went: “Help wanted: all positions. Must be ineligible to leave.”

Dottie huffed. The words repeated in her head. “I didn’t know how much y’all be doin’!”

“Yeah, we know,” she said to the world.

The signature drink at Kelsey’s Crossing Party was called “White Tears.” Dottie’s first went down so smooth and fast that she felt a touch of embarrassment as she walked up to the bartender to ask for a second while planning a third.

More awkward than slamming down the drink like she was an inexperienced freshman was enjoying it so very much in front of all the white people Kelsey invited to the party. That’s Cambridge for you, though, even before the portals. And that was DEI, too. A DEI Director at an independent school was forever surrounded by white people. Well-meaning and otherwise.

Kelsey quit yesterday. She told her colleagues on the way out the door at 3:30 pm, her box of belongings in her arms. She gave Dottie a week’s notice so she could catch a train up to say goodbye. Well, Kelsey had actually invited Dottie to Cross with her. She invited the whole crew of Yale girls to cross with her. “The sorority line we never were. Leaving together. It’s going to be epic!” She said in the group chat. Most of the group gave answers ranging from “hell yes” to “yes, but I’ve got to do some things.” Dottie saw their suitcases and bags in the living room when she walked in. Only Trish and Bev said no with reasons the group accepted. Dottie didn’t have an excuse. When she arrived, Kelsey pulled her in for a hug and said entirely too loudly, “I know you’re regretting not Crossing with us. You’re lucky I don’t see a bag with you. Otherwise, I’d make you come with us!”

Two good drinks in, Dottie looked around at the tight little yard, its one ancient tree, its dark grass, and its high fences. She thought about how quiet her phone had become since so many cousins and colleagues and folk had Crossed. It would be so much worse after the night was over, the core of her girls leaving her behind.

Kelsey floated around all the groups of embarrassed and confused partygoers and met every one of them with relaxed shoulders, glowing skin, poppin’ red lips, and sparkling eyes. “I’m about to be free. Isn’t it wonderful? Thanks for coming! Take a pillow!”

Eventually, Kelsey eyed her from across the yard. She crossed the grass quickly and grabbed her hand. “Those Naidoo earrings are lookin’ good on you, girl. I’m so sad I’m missing her next collection. Bring a couple pieces with you when you Cross, yeah?”

Dottie gave her a look. “Don’t put that pressure on me.”

Kelsey mirrored her look and then exaggerated it with a stuck-out tongue. “You Crossin’. All of us will eventually. You’ll see. They’ll make it impossible for us to stay.”

Dottie was about to start up, but Kelsey grabbed her hand and dragged her off the porch toward a small group of white former colleagues who came to the party. A cluster of five confused people nursed their first and perhaps only drinks. Dottie did her best to pull away, but Kelsey was already making introductions.

“Dottie and I shared the same program at Yale,” Kelsey said by way of introduction to her newly former colleagues. “She’s down at the Cathedral School as the DEI Director. Same work, much better demographics!” Kelsey let out a long, forced laugh, her cup of Tears somehow steady even as she doubled over.

The little cluster stared at her for a second, then a woman with an “ally” pin over her heart faked a smile and said, “It’s nice to meet you, Dottie. Are you passing with Kelsey tonight?”

“Crossing!” Kelsey corrected. “I know you know by now.”

The woman flushed red.

“We call it Crossing,” Dottie explained. The group looked at her, expressionless, but attentive. Dottie took a sip of her drink. “It’s a Black thing, from our—”

Kelsey hooked her arm into Dottie’s. “You don’t have to explain. We’ve gotta go. Enjoy the party! Take a lamp or something on your way out, ok? Thanks!”

She spun Dottie around and pulled her in the direction of the huddle of Black women, many from their cohort. They had their heads together, faces animated.

“Passing. Christ!”

“Why’d you even invite them, Kelsey? What the hell are you even doing, girl?”

Kelsey didn’t respond beyond pulling her toward the group, who opened to let them in. Dottie waved at her girls: Vernie, DEI director at a Connecticut school, Porcha out in Western Mass. Victoria had the big job at an elite school in New York City, plus the posh penthouse, the rich husband, and the hot driver. Dottie was surprised to see her. Victoria hadn’t noticed her because she was clearly all the way drunk. Trisha stood next to Victoria, also enjoying the Tears in the fullest. Beverly had one hand clutching the cross around her neck, a cup of water in the other. Natacha, a friend Dottie hadn’t seen in person since graduation, wrapped an arm around Dottie’s waist and pulled her in for a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Good to see you, Sis.”

Natacha said it in a way a lot of Black women said it these days: with nostalgia, wistfulness, and fondness. The “one last time” was always unspoken. Dottie squeezed her friend back. She said, “You, too. Always a good thing, Natacha.”

“You’re really not Crossing tonight, Sis?”

Dottie nodded. “I can’t. I can’t leave my girls yet. As long as there is a girl of color at Cathedral, I’ve gotta stay.”

That felt like the right answer. She wished she’d thought of it before. It fixed itself in her heart. She had a good reason to stay. Natacha made a face that read somewhere between pity and empathy.

Kelsey made a place for herself in the circle and raised her voice above the din. “You know why I invited those folk here, Dot? I invited them because I want them to see that I’m not tired, I’m not mad, I’m definitely not sad. I’m just gone. An alternative has been presented to me and I’m choosing it.”

The women around them nodded and mmhmm’d their approval.

“They real mad out there. You’ll see. Especially around here. New Englanders think this is the only good place that exists.” Kelsey gave the finger to the tree above them, the grass below them, the fence around it all. “My ass.”

The women cackled; Dottie included. They’d leaned on each other to survive the New England years.

Kelsey wasn’t done and she wasn’t laughing. “I did my best. I put myself in boxes and knots. Oiled my scalp. Lost my sleep. Politely listened. ‘Accepted’ my ‘feedback.’ Now, there is an alternative. I’m choosing it. I don’t have to be here and I’m not going to be here. If they want this world so badly, they can have it.”

Natacha let go of Dottie and stepped into the circle, red cup raised. “To letting them have it.”

“Cheers! Let them have it!”

They danced and sang and drank together. Kelsey’s white friends eventually saw themselves out. A few took things with them. The bartender made a last batch of Tears before leaving. The sun went down.

In search of water, Dottie found Trisha and Beverly in the kitchen while the departing friends’ celebration grew in volume and joy. The two women had their heads together, looking out the window at their friends, talking about sneaking out while the going was good.

“Glad I get to see you before y’all head out,” Dottie said to them with a warm smile, which they returned.

“You want to come with us?” Trisha offered.

Dottie shook her head. “I want to see it. All of it.”

Her friends nodded, unsmiling. They were separate and apart. She couldn’t do anything about that.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry this is hard,” Dottie said. She wasn’t in charge and Lord knows she didn’t make the damn portals, but she said how she felt.

Trish shrugged. “Maybe when all my boys are grown and good… and after Daddy rests in peace… maybe I’ll join y’all. I want to. Believe me, I really do. But no one is around to take care of my boys but me.”

Beverly’s eyes, already wet from crying before, filled with fresh tears. “My family has so many races mixed in… I knew what I was doing when I married a white man. My girls have equal rights to both sides of the portal. I’m not asking them to choose.”

Dottie listened and shared and heard. She reminded them her phone was on, and that she’d still be here on this side of the portal for them. “We’re not the only ones hesitating,” she reminded them. She saw them to the front door and watched them leave for home, family, and more life as Black women in America. Then she waited for her departing friends in the living room.

Rolling suitcases were there. Tote bags, too. Everything was packed to be carried. All else, supposedly, would be provided on the other side. Women had come back and confirmed that.

Tired from their fun, excited to go, the women piled in and prepped to leave.

“Where’s your suitcase, Dottie?” Vernie asked, gathering her things.

“She’ll catch up. We’ll make a space for her,” Kelsey said.

“You have goodbyes to say or something? Not at the job, I hope!” Natacha said with laughter in her tone.

“Shit. I didn’t leave a note, didn’t post a goodbye nowhere, didn’t do a damn thing. They’ll figure it out. I told the folk I love, of course, but that’s it. That’s all who deserves it,” Vernie said.

“What did your mama say when you said you decided to Cross?” Dottie asked.

All the women in the room stood up fully, bags and the air of go-go-going somehow suspended in place.

“She said she hopes I’ll come back and visit. Said she wouldn’t leave her mama here. I told her gran’mama dead and gone 20 years now. Worms long ate her. Mama said she’d be here for me to visit, worms or no.” Vernie looked at Dottie overlong. “I stand in my peace.”

“Our peace is our own,” the room replied, Dottie included.

Dottie muttered “I’m sorry,” and stepped to the side to get out of the way as movement resumed and folk started heading for the door.

Kelsey said to the room, “We’re all making tough decisions. We don’t have to explain. We stand in our peace.”

“Our peace is our own.”

Massachusetts State Police put a barrier around the Esplanade Portal after a white woman from New Hampshire claiming five percent “African” ancestry and screaming “reverse discrimination is wrong” lost her hands, forearms, and a foot trying to enter in a ridiculous internet stunt. She stood on one foot screaming, her arms and the other foot simply gone. Her elbows were perfectly skinned over with nubs. Not a trace of blood or viscera to be seen. There was no sound, no red light, no guardian monster and earth-shattering roar. There was simple, silent refusal. Everyone gasped. The internet lost its collective mind. The men who marched up to the portal with her, each bearing muskets or AK-47s or American flags, started attacking the Black women around them who were laughing and cursing at her.

To be clear, the Massachusetts State Police made a barrier around the portal to protect white people from the portal, not Black women trying to Cross. Furthermore, if a sister wanted to Cross peacefully, she could. Portals were everywhere: quiet parks, forest glens, mountain passes, random backyards, on the beach … anywhere Black women could be found. A few opened in penitentiaries—individual portals opening cell by cell. Entire jails emptied. That happened after the governments of Missouri, Mississippi, and Texas tried to jail Black women to prevent them from leaving.

For some women, the leaving was a happy excuse to show out. The Esplanade Portal was the perfect place to egress. Videos of elaborate dance numbers skipped and skittered across the internet. Women went viral while blissfully unaware, living their best life on the other side.

The armed troopers at the perimeter gate stepped aside for Kelsey and crew without a word. The women wouldn’t be able to hear them above the screaming protests of a hundred or so people around them anyway. The many rolling suitcases of Black women Crossing before them compacted, even rutted, the path to the portal, making the way straight and smooth for them. The portal cut a streak of light into space, the bright energy of it swirling in ceaseless color-changing motion. From it wafted the smell of damp soil and sunshine, like a late spring day in a just-blooming kitchen garden. Standing in front of it, all the women took in the view. The jeers from the crowd fell from Dottie’s consciousness. There was just the portal and her friends.

“Y’all ready? Y’all ready?” Kelsey called to the others.

They nodded and got into line, a pre-planned formation.

Kelsey walked over to Dottie, wrapped her arms around her, and kissed her on the cheek. “Watch it all, Dottie. Us and them. When you’re ready, we’ll be waiting for you.”

Then she stepped back, grabbed her suitcase, and took her place at the front of the line. Their Crossing stroll involved stomps, claps, swaying hips, middle fingers to the world around them, and fancy one-wheel spins of their suitcases. They went forwards and backwards, chanting their goodbyes and fuck-yous. Dottie watched as she was told. The crowd rocked against the barriers, flashing signs and fingers of their own. She waved when the space in front of the portal was empty and ready for the next women. She stood there, her tears falling into the ruts where suitcases rolled just moments before.

Then a bag of shit plopped at her feet and the slurs from the crowd filled the entire world.

She had to walk out of there alone. She was a fool.

She locked her gaze on the gate and the troopers in front of her.  The troopers just stood there. She couldn’t see their eyes behind their sunglasses, utterly inappropriate for nighttime, fully appropriate for apathy. Their faces were firm and grim behind plastic shields. Perhaps to prevent the shit from splashing on them. When she got back to the barrier gate, they moved to the side without a word as she passed through.

She kept looking over her shoulders as she made her way to the T and the hotel. In the darkness, there were shadows, footsteps, and pebbles skittering on the sidewalk, but she made it.

When Dottie went over to get her mail once she returned to Maryland, Celeste answered the door and pulled her in for a hug. “How was it, how was it?”

Dottie accepted, hugging her back. “Boston sucks. The portal was amazing. I guess it’s one of the bigger ones? It smelled like soil and joy. I near about walked into it then and there, but I didn’t bring my stuff with me on purpose to avoid that.”

Celeste sighed. “That’s wonderful news. Makes me feel a little better. I’m glad you didn’t Cross yet. I wanted the chance to say goodbye.”

Dottie pulled back but kept a grip on Celeste’s elbows. She leaned away to take in a full view of her neighbor and dear friend, making sure they locked eyes. “You’re going? What about Caleb?”

Celeste looked away, shrinking a little. “Neighbor, I’ve been talking with Kayla and it’s so chaotic here. It was already scary trying to raise this precious Black girl in America. Now? Girl, you should hear the things kids are saying to my child at school. Teachers, too. Even at church they’ve lost their minds, talkin’ about loyal wives and damnation to hell and Sodom and Gomorrah and temptations of witches and the devil. I can’t have Kayla hear all that for the rest of her life. She’s eight, Dottie! Eight! I’d take Caleb out of here too if I could! That means leaving the country. Can you imagine? Only safe places are not here and not here!”

They stood together breathing for a moment, holding each other, watching each other. Celeste’s shoulders came down from her ears. Dottie let go. Birds sang around them. Caleb’s laughter floated down from an open window upstairs.

“Won’t she miss her father? Her friends? Her brother?” Dottie knew she was rude for asking.

“We both agree this isn’t a safe place. Phil doesn’t like it. At all. But he’s not a stupid man. He’s hearing and seeing. We all are … and folk keep saying the portals are two-way. Even though a lot of women aren’t coming back doesn’t mean they can’t come visit. We can come visit.”

Celeste crossed her arms, hugging herself. She nodded, as if repeating the words to herself in her head. “I love my son. I love my daughter. We have a choice. We have no choices.”

“Celeste, you’re such a wonderful neighbor—”

“—Dottie, I know you’ve got your misgivings—”

“—You get to stand in your peace, Celeste. I support you! I’m going to miss you, though. And Kayla, of course.”

Celeste searched her face, leaning in. “My peace is my own, sure, and yours can be, too! Let’s stroll together. You, me, and Kayla!”

Even as the invitation came out, Dottie shook her head.

“Dottie … Fine. We’ll be there and I hope you find us.”

Dottie nodded. “Thank you for telling me. Is Phil okay?”

Celeste nodded, but her face told the truth of things. Dottie let it be. She thought about offering to keep an eye on Phil and Caleb but that felt inappropriate. And too much responsibility. And utterly useless. Instead, she said, “I don’t know how it’s gonna be around here without you both.”

Celeste pulled her in for one more hug. “Don’t stick around too long to find out, okay? Ain’t nothin’ gonna get better for us around here. That’s always been a fact, but it’s truer than ever before.”

In the year after Celeste and Kayla walked down the street and into the neighborhood portal, more Black women, one by one, chose to step through portals to another world. Industries responded with mass “recalibrations.” Companies laid off all the remaining Black women in their workforces for fear they’d walk out at any moment and leave them in a lurch. All the Black Congress women and every Black woman on congressional staff or support of the Capitol left via the portal next to Rosa Parks’ statue in the Capitol Rotunda. Each left OpEds printed in newspapers across the country lamenting the state of America, joining so many other departure notes left behind by Crossing women. That was the most interesting part of the Departure: the letters, posts, novels, short films, and graffiti left behind.

During New York Fashion Week, Naidoo Williams, the last Black female couture designer, created a collection featuring lines from the messages left behind. Black women’s words were painted, beaded, embroidered, printed, and otherwise emblazoned on the clothing. Naidoo gathered all the Black models still left and made a show to end all shows. She called the collection and the show Exit Interview, and she had the show in a fancy New York hotel where a portal happened to open in the middle of the lobby. The models walked through the winding runway in a labyrinthine pattern surrounded by fashion’s richest, most influential folk and then Crossed in their finest at the end. Some carried or walked with their daughters, each wearing matching kid versions of the haute wear. Naidoo left with the last model. She blew kisses, waved, and stuck up her middle finger as she Crossed. The last image of her was the embroidered train of her extravagant black gown. It read for all the world, glittering in embroidered diamonds, “You can have it.”

Demand for clothing from the collection was so high among the remaining Black women in the country that a couple Black male designers and producers honored the energy (and went after that money) by manufacturing the line for women on this side of the portals. Dottie bought a hoodie, a skirt, a pair of jeans, and a graphic tee. She splurged on the purse and the sneakers, too, which left her flat broke for a hot minute.

She wore her sneakers into the December meeting she had each year with the Head of Schools and Admissions team to talk about recruitment and fair admissions practices. All three of the white women in her meeting could barely make eye contact with her as she entered the room and distributed demographic data for the last school year. The data was wrong now. There were six Black girls at the school when the year began. They were all gone by Indigenous People’s Day.

“We’re grateful for your work in this regard,” Yyvie, the Head of School, said after Dottie went through her entire presentation. “We will keep this in mind as we go through the process.”

The other two women nodded.

“I’m looking forward to helping with the effort,” Dottie said.

“We’ll be happy to have you. As you’re working with the team, I’m going to ask that you are extra diligent with your records so that, moving forward, we can replicate your efforts.”

Dottie opened her mouth to say something, but then stopped, realizing what had been said. She stopped, doing a double-take. “Ma’am?

Her boss sighed. “I’m doing the budget for next year, Dottie. The Board is asking me to reallocate our DEI funding for other priorities. I’m sorry.”

Dottie looked her over, incredulous. “Last time I checked, there are still plenty of students of color here at Cathedral and plenty more who would like to be part of the community. Have I missed something?”

All three women looked through her. Dottie noticed the Exit Interview tote bag Yyvie had slung behind her chair. Her eyes settled on it. She stared. She waited.

“I’ve assured funding for your position until the end of the year. That’s the best I can do,” Yyvie said after a slow, silent minute.

“I’ve been here for 15 years, Yyvie. You’ve been with me for four of them. If I wanted to Cross, I could have done it any time by now.”

She refused tears. She rebuked the humidity and water her body tried to produce. The tears dried up as hot anger took over.

Black women had moved on. In response, America had, too. A framing (and conversation) of the American hierarchy and societal function was no longer needed. There was certainly nothing worth reflecting on or working through. She was the last soldier on an abandoned battlefield.

Dottie chortled as she thought about it. “So, we’re both the good guys and the bad guys, huh?” She laughed. It was funny. She felt like she lost a bet with Kelsey.

The three white women in the room looked at her with faces so unreadable, she laughed more. They weren’t malevolent. They were simply waiting for meaning. Dottie’s words were negative space. Despite all her work, all the work, those girls were still without a justice framework.

It was all negative space. Space that would be filled by others. Others who benefited from the work she and so many Black women had done with love and passion despite it all.

And the funny part, the part that made her laugh bitterly as she left the meeting, down to her office, where she closed the door and got her things, was that she’d been negative space for a year and would continue to be if she stayed. If she stayed, she’d be a person passed over for potential jobs. A person less likely to be considered for a mortgage, loan, credit card. A person less likely to get married. Less likely to have health insurance and proper medical care, more likely to die from the care if she received it. A person amongst the most unseen, most unheard, most ignored, most easily dismissed.

“Damn.”

She left a note in her top drawer that she knew no one would ever let see the light of day, but she wrote it anyway: “To the future Black girls of this place and all others: you are loved. I did my best. I hope they listen to you. I hope you fix this place.”

At home, Dottie cleaned out the fridge. Got her important documents, signed everything over to Phil. “For Caleb’s benefit,” she said in a note. She wasn’t sure if any lawyer would honor it, though. She put the keys and the documents in an envelope and left them on Phil’s back porch. She packed just one suitcase, one weekender bag to fit on top of it. Took out all her cash, just in case. She wondered if the birds on the other side sang with the same sweetness as they did on this one. She wondered if someone had figured out how to grow good collards and smoke neck bones. She wondered this while not changing her passwords, not following up on emails, not writing a resignation letter, not giving anyone any official notice. There was no one to burden. She was the last Black woman at Cathedral.

She packed up the car. She visited her mother and grandmother at the graveyard and said goodbye. She said she’d visit, and she was sincere, even though she didn’t know how any of that would work when the barriers around portals eventually morphed into prevention mechanisms, blocking her entrance. Driving south to Hampton, Virginia, she listened to a nicely produced news story about the proposed Constitutional amendment revoking her, her mother’s, her grandmother’s, and her nonexistent daughters’ American citizenship. She wondered what it meant to be brought without consent and then summarily expelled in perpetuity.

She wondered if Trisha and Bev would stay, even as non-citizens or if they would go be non-citizens somewhere else.

The little parking lot next to Old Point Comfort had a handful of cars and a couple of signs taped to the perimeter fence. The portal that opened there was among the first and smallest, reportedly opening just as a woman prepared to throw herself into the sea there. Her suicide note read, “You always demand my energy, but you do not love me. You don’t want to, and you don’t know how. I don’t have more to give. I’m done trying.”

But on the back of that same note, left under a rock just in front of the portal, she wrote, “The ancestors made a place for us after all. It’s beautiful. Tell my Mama I’m fine. Y’all should come, too.”

Dottie left the keys in the glove compartment, the transfer papers signed. Her exit interview was surprisingly short:

“I probably would have stayed if y’all had just let me be. Stupidly, I still want this place to be better. I would have worked to make it better.”

She left the car unlocked, strolled with her suitcase and bag down the pier and toward the portal. Salt air. Seagulls. A setting sun. No crowds or jeers or outside intrusions.

The shimmering portal was a translucent quiver of twirling air beckoning with beauty and the same perfume of soil and flowers as before. Dottie didn’t look back. She Crossed with a delighted, contented sigh.

Editor: Aigner Loren Wilson

First Reader: Sarah Davidson

Copy Editors: Copy Editing Department

Accessibility: Accessibility Editors