I ain’t mad either, not no more, I thought, thinking of my own daddy. Maybe he was in New York. I remembered from the letter my mother had written me, which was packed among my clothes, that my grandmother had said he was in California. If he could get to California, then he could certainly get to the other coast.

“I got my own kids and family to think about,” Rasul suddenly said. I didn’t dare ask if he was talking about me. He still hadn’t told me he loved me. I didn’t know how long this was going to last. I had been warned by too many that love faded. In my head, I cautioned myself the way Ma had with the man who came after Daddy, the way her few female visitors had whenever they talked about a new man: I’m just gonna enjoy this until it’s over.

“So do I,” was all I said, not giving away that I hoped that he was going to be in my family, forever. “I gotta think about my education. And my big house. ’Cause I’m having a big house, with a dog and white fence and clothesline in the back and everything. No, fuck the clothesline. I’m having a washer and dryer in my house. Fuck washing shit out in the tub and hanging it up like everybody else. Or spending all day at the Laundromat. I might just pay somebody to wash my clothes! I’m gonna be rich.”

Rasul didn’t respond to my dreams the way I had wanted him to.

“Man, this is stupid,” he said, turning off his own song.

“What’s stupid?”

“Us. This. Going to New York and shit. I bet we gonna have to come back. Tail between our legs and shit.”

“No we ain’t!” I was rejuvenated by his doubt. It gave me a way to talk myself out of my own. “We ain’t coming back, Rasul.”

He didn’t look so sure. For once, our roles had reversed.

“We gonna make it there,” I said. “And we gonna stay. And I’m gonna have my baby.”

He took his eyes off the road for the second it took to stare at me with his mouth open. I just nodded my head to let him know he had heard right.

“You sure?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said softly. “I’m sure. I think it deserves to be here, just like I did. I mean, who am I to stop it just because shit ain’t perfect?”

“It’s never perfect,” Rasul said.

“I know you mean what you said,” I continued. “Last night, about us. I know you weren’t just saying some shit to fill my head.”