Remembering the sounds of last night and feeling guilty I had overheard, I could barely look Aunt Jewel in the eye as she tried to be cheery about her parting.

“Shivana, when are you coming to visit us?” she asked. “I think Easter would be perfect.” She knew better than to ask Ma, who always used the excuse of work to never fly anywhere and see her.

“Brooklyn is beautiful in de spring,” Hakim chimed in. “So much to do and see. You would have fun.”

I looked at Ma for my answer. Her silence gave me the go-ahead to reply.

“I could come,” I finally said, wondering how far along I would be by April if, for some reason, I changed my mind about the abortion. “How I’m gone get there?”

“A plane!” Jewel shouted. “It’s about time you got on one.”

“By myself?”

“You’re old enough,” Jewel said. “We’ll send you the ticket.”

“When I come from Bermuda I come alone,” Hakim said. “I was just ten years old de first time.”

“We could get somebody on your daddy side to drop you off at O’Hare,” Ma surprisingly said. I smiled, hopeful, knowing I really had to get rid of this baby now otherwise Jewel wouldn’t think I was worthy to come. The promise lightened the mood, as at least now there was a definitive time I would see her again. Jewel started telling Hakim about me when I was a baby, about how cute I was and how they shouldn’t have been surprised I was missing for two days because I had loved to go hide when I was little. A “chubby little prankster,” she called me, which made even Ma laugh and remember. Everyone had second helpings, no doubt to delay their departure. But around ten, Hakim began to look at his watch. He mentioned traffic and suggested it was time for them to get going. I stayed in my seat after everyone else got up to collect the bags and take them downstairs. Ma returned to the kitchen to get me.

“Shivana, you ain’t gonna come say bye?”

My back was to her, and I was afraid to turn around. I must have thought I could make Jewel stay by not saying good-bye. People who didn’t want to leave would often linger, in everything from relationships to hospital wards, waiting for the other person to say good-bye because they couldn’t find the strength to do it. A little immature stubbornness could lengthen Jewel’s stay. I was no longer mad at her. She had morphed into something more than my daring, colorful, and bewitching Aunt Jewel. She had never been mine or anyone else’s, otherwise she would have stayed right here on the South Side of Chicago with the rest of the Goldings.