Easter Lily

Every Sunday at four o’clock, the kitchen phone on Calumet Avenue rings seven times. Denise Russell never picks it up.

It is January in Chicago, and for the first time in two years the Russells have something to look forward to. Rayvon and Nia have a wedding date in June. Ron’s shoulder is finally healing. Public defender Ronelle Russell has almost let himself believe the worst is behind them.

Then, one Sunday, Ronelle answers the phone.

The voice on the line is one the whole family knows: the voice that once asked, every week for forty years, Is the boy well, Denise? It leaves a message for the old deacon who drove her across the South Side for a lifetime. And under the seat of his car the family finds a white Easter lily, still fresh, and a Mason jar lid labeled in a hand they know too well.

Easter, 1976.

Easter Lily is Book Four in the Brother’s Keeper saga: a Black family crime thriller about five brothers who fight, joke, keep score and never leave one of their own behind. Read the series in order.

Five brothers. One phone. A voice that won’t stay quiet.