I would wake up most mornings, the covers on the floor and the sheets twisted tight around my legs like I had wound them myself. Sometimes, whatever I had slept in would be moist with sweat, my overnight shirt sticking to my chest until I pulled it loose. So I know I had to be wrestling with something when I slept, even if it was a nightmare that would not loosen its grip. But after that last night with Leroy, I started remembering what had trickled into my head while I slept. I started to dream about the everyday—my street, my city, people I knew: Ma when she was young, Daddy when he was there.

My daddy was a cabdriver. We never had a car, probably couldn’t have kept up the payments if we had. What most men lacked in loyalty they made up for with creativity; along with the required photocopy of his driver’s license, Daddy had clipped his only daughter’s kindergarten school picture to the one-page application for the job. Once Stately Cab forgave his lack of references (Daddy had cussed out every single boss who let him go), he was able to kill two birds with one stone: he got us some income and a car. Ma quit nagging him for a little while about money and riding the bus. Couldn’t stop giggling then, in between staring out the window whenever Daddy drove us around the South Side. This was back when both Stately Cab and their love was brand-new. Ma liked me to lie in her lap back then, used to pat my head with one hand while she tickled the back of my daddy’s with the other, until he screamed at her about making him run us off the road. I was too little to resist against her. It got to the point that every time we eased in back of Daddy’s cab, playing like we were fares, I automatically assumed the position Ma enjoyed. But I craved the smell of new leather, a rich and foreign scent against the harsh odor of a chain-smoker’s only jeans. I would lie on my mother’s legs and sniff with all my might, holding my breath to seal in the smell until my chest grew so heavy I had no other choice but to huff it out. I looked for my face in the shiny new door handles, and imagined my reflection was rich. Then I woke up.