“How you going to find him?” Willie asked.

“I’ll find him. And don’t be calling any attention to your black asses. Okay?”

Neither brother said anything. Starrell put his face in front of Anjean.

“I said, okay?” Starrell said.

“Yeah, right. Why you asking me?”

“Okay, Twayne,” Willie said. “But maybe we’ll go check out the flowers downstairs’cause An is going to be in the market.”

“Unh-unh,” Anjean protested.

“’Cause he was in a hospital. He sure was. He was born in a hospital.” Willie laughed.

Starrell picked up the backpack and smiled. As he opened the door, he heard Anjean mutter, “Oh fuck that shit.”

Starrell stood in a hallway on the sixth floor and placed his hands over his face. He thought about the book of drawings done by Willie and Anjean’s brother, Marco. He thought about the way Marco had been found: at least a dozen bullet wounds, half of them in the face. And his mother kept wailing about having an open casket at the funeral. At the church, she tried to open the lid, crying, “Just wanna see my baby boy.” Willie had to pull her away.

He pictured his cousin Barry all laid out. And how his uncle said nothing that long day. And Tamika’s brother Wendell. Buried with his basketball card collection. Tamika and her mother never knew that Wendell had been collecting for the Stillman Crew. They had a rule: No collectors over thirteen years old. Wendell was twelve-years, ten-and-a-half months old when a bullet exploded his heart. Shit, everyone knew the Stillman Crew was pushing too far into the wrong hoods. If Wendell had asked, Starrell would have told him to quit. But what’s a kid supposed to know? At least the face was left, so Tamika and her mother could kiss, kiss, kiss it before the reverend placed his hands on their shoulders and said, “It’s time.”

He imagined the baby—maybe a boy—growing inside Tamika. Those little hands. What he would do if any fucker tried to cause that baby harm. But how could he make sure that this baby would not end up in a Sunday suit in a box in the ground? Shit, why wouldn’t Tamika let him be the father of this baby he would protect forever?

He removed his hands from his face. He felt the wetness sliding away from his eyes.

Shit, he thought, it’s not that hard to cry.

A nurse was standing nearby. She was pretty: big eyes and caramel skin. “Can I help?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Starrell said. He tried a sob. “I was looking for my uncle. They told me downstairs where he is. But”—he wiped a tear—“I wasn’t really listening … . He’s Clarence Dunne. You know, the—”

“Oh, yes,” she interrupted. “Of course. Come with me.”

She gently put her hand against his back and guided him to an elevator.