Excerpt from The Seven Daughters of Dupree by Nikesha Elise Williams, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Tati, where is Desirée anyway?" Nadia asked.

"Upstairs sleeping."

"She spent the night?" Mimi asked.

"First time since we were five," Tati answered excitedly.

"And she still sleep while you workin' wit' ya mama?"

Tati shrugged. Desirée had been her best friend for years, and she'd never known her to be a morning person. She was always late and they were bussed to school. The mornings Desirée didn't miss the bus completely, the driver waited on the corner at Sixty-Fifth and Green for her to come out. Sometimes the driver would even go around the block and pull up to Desirée's front door—after Tati had pointed it out—and beep the horn to encourage her to hurry up. Sometimes she made it, sometimes she didn't. When Nadia had yelled up the stairs for Tati to come help, Desirée didn't move and Tati didn't make her. She secretly hoped she could get through Mimi's appointment with Desirée being none the wiser.

Mimi asked, "Tati, how old you is now?"

"Fourteen," she answered.

"Your mama told me you got your first monthly yesterday."

"Dang, Ma!"

"Ain't no secrets in this house," Nadia said.

"Oh yeah, there are, but that's what you get for ruttin' 'round with a married man."

"It wasn't just me ruttin',"Nadia responded through clenched teeth. Tati was so focused on her mother's pursed mouth, Nadia's tell that she wanted to smoke, she didn't realize she'd lost her grip on the broom until it clanged on the lacquered copper of the concrete floor, unnerving them both.

"What the hell you doin'?" Nadia yelled.

"It dropped on accident."

"You wouldn't have no accidents if you wasn't listening so damn hard."

"She wouldn't have to sneak and listen if you would just tell the girl what she wanna know," Mimi said.

"He ain't here and ain't ever been here," Nadia said. "Ain't I enough?"

It was a refrain Tati heard often: Ain't I enough? One Nadia usually said when she was pressed about the identity of Tati's father. The subject came up once a week when Mimi got her hair done before church.

"Why you always do this?" Nadia asked, clicking and turning the curlers against Mimi's hair.

"Do what?"

"Mention that girl daddy. He ain't been around since I told him I was pregnant."

"Because you didn't try hard enough to make him take care of his responsibilities."

"What was I supposed to do, huh? Go around asking random strangers if they knew where he went?"

"Oh, so that's what you call friends now? Strangers?" Mimi hmphed and crossed her arms.

"Don't start," Nadia warned. "Toya and I are in a good place."

"What y'all talkin' about?" Desirée asked, entering the basement.

"Nothin'," Nadia said quickly.

"Just about how fast y'all growing up," Mimi answered. "Becoming young women. Able to have babies."

"Mama, ain't neither one of them thinkin' 'bout havin' no babies. They don't even have boyfriends."

"You don't know what they got. They could be invitin' trouble with lil' snot-faced boys, and you and your friend would be none the wiser."

"That's the same thing you said when I got my period. Carried on for days to anybody who rang the phone, unless it was a bill collector, about how I was sure to bring babies out of wedlock—"

"And you did, didn't you?" Mimi turned around and glared at Nadia. "I rest my case."

"Keep it up and you'll have to find somebody else to do your hair before church on Sundays."

Nadia's threat, empty and devoid of emotion, was all she had. The only leverage over her own mother she could hoist with a wave of her hand and a gesture toward the door. But Mimi didn't move. Tati shook her head and sighed, exasperated, as she walked across the room toward the burgundy futon to take a seat beside Desirée. Never one to let an insolent child go unchecked, Mimi glared at her, demanded to know what she had the nerve to be huffing for.

Excerpted from The Seven Daughters of Dupree by Nikesha Elise Williams. Copyright © 2026 by Nikesha Elise Williams. Excerpted by permission of Gallery/Scout Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.