To me her name sounded first like flooding water, then ended with the strong huff of a sudden strong wind. Cool water that begged to be waded in and touched, hot wind that spanked cheeks so unexpectedly it was impossible to tell from which direction it had come. I shouted, but she couldn’t hear me. She couldn’t hear me calling her name.

Shivana. Fifteen. Black girl. Mine. And I have to make her keep me.

THE FIRST TIME I saw her, through her own dark brown eyes in the cracked glass of an elevator’s mirror walls, I knew she could make me a pretty baby if only it got that far. I knew it was 1992; family life had lost its lure. Broken homes, dreams, and promises spun awry, tragically centrifugal from a desirable past of quiet, stable domesticity; selfishness, arrogance, hopelessness, and irresponsibility was instead on the loose.

But those weren’t her reasons. She, I couldn’t judge. I fell in lovewith her because deep down inside, I knew exactly what she wanted. I just had to figure out a way to give it to her.