“Okay, Mom. Okay,” I say as I turn the key. I take a deep breath and open the box to reveal my mom’s strength once and for all: it’s a sonogram with a grainy outline of a baby. And at the bottom of the picture it says, Ayo—twelve weeks.

Me?

Me? I’m the reason my mom is so strong?

And suddenly a flood of memories washes over me. They are moments I took for granted and never bothered to take note:

My mom coming home at night exhausted from working and sneaking into my room, saying she just had to see my face . . .

All the times we’d be watching something awful on the news and she’d reach out and take my hand. She wasn’t just reaching out to comfort me; she was recharging . . .

There were times she’d spend all day going head to head with politicians. She’d come home weary and empty. She’d come into my room and place her hand on the side of my face. And then I watched her light up. I didn’t know it was her way of replenishing her soul . . .

And all the times she came into my room, I always thought she was avoiding work or that she was feeling bad because she’d been gone a lot, but that was it. She came into my room because she needed me. She needed my strength.

Can it be true? The firm, powerful voice I longed to have has always been in me?

For real, is that even possible?

Rosalie Bosia thinks I’m a force in this world. She’s never wrong about these things.

Then that must mean . . .

“Oh my God, I’m dope!” I laugh.

I am strong.

Me! Ayomide Bosia.

Suddenly, I am no longer alone in the room. I’m surrounded by dark figures draped with stark white clothing and textured head wraps. They are all around me. They share my eyes; they have the same jaw line, the same full lips that my mom and I do. They stand before me, proud. They look at me with fire and determination in their eyes.

Yo, the ancestors are in formation!

“Y’all showed up for me?” I ask.

My mom’s voice comes back to me from the night we went looking for monsters in the closet. “Child, there are hundreds of people waiting in the wings to help you. Every one of your ancestors. All you have to do is use your voice and call to them . . .”