DEAR MOMMA

Every two weeks, a letter arrives for Odessa Calloway.

Her daughter Naomi writes from Houston's Third Ward, where she is trying to keep the family salon open, make sure her teenage brother has what he needs, and convince her incarcerated mother that everything is under control.

It isn't.

The salon is struggling. The bills are piling up. Marcus is old enough to start asking questions about why his mother is in prison. And Naomi is beginning to realize that the story she was told about her mother's past may not be the whole story.

Then she finds an old business ledger. Inside are names connected to the Broussard family, a respected Houston family whose beauty businesses have grown into one of the city's most successful Black-owned fortunes. Naomi knows her mother once had a business relationship with the Broussards. What she doesn't know is why it ended.

As she begins asking questions, Naomi discovers that her mother's history with the Broussards goes back decades. There was a business. There was money. There was a betrayal. And there are two very different versions of what happened.

The deeper Naomi digs, the more complicated her mother's story becomes. Odessa was wronged, but she also made choices of her own. The Broussards built something remarkable but their family's success may rest on a history they have never told publicly.

Now Naomi has to decide what to do with the truth. Because this isn't just about clearing her mother's name. It's about understanding the woman behind the name and deciding what kind of inheritance she wants to carry forward.