Sometimes, though, when school got stressful, I’d get a migraine. Though as I grew older, I began to have fewer of them, learning to deal with my stress so it wouldn’t overwhelm me.

After graduation, Precious and I both took a leap geographically and theologically and moved out to Southern California together for graduate work. We started out at La Sierra University in Riverside, but Precious planned to be a nurse, so she went over to Loma Linda, a few miles away, to finish up.

While she didn’t like to talk much about the negative parts of our childhood, by the time we moved to California, our bond was tighter than ever, and unlike when we were kids, when our parents arranged our friendship, as adults, we’d chosen to be friends, and we knew that we’d be together for life.

Twenty-Nine
The Whole Story

Even though we’d escaped the projects and resided in the land of sun and ocean, I couldn’t help reading articles about Chicago’s grim tales of violence. Sometimes, I even recognized the names of those who’d been attacked. Reading these stories always reminded me of things I’d witnessed as a kid. It wasn’t until I approached my thirties that I stopped thinking about Stacia, wondering why she’d had that weird reaction when I told her about Tonya. I hoped that she’d found a better way of life and prayed that she could eventually find love, but if I’m honest, I never wanted to see her again. I was still, even into adulthood, thinking about Tonya, though, wondering what happened to her.

On trips home to the South Side to visit family—Mama eventually moved near the Browns and their church in Hyde Park—I’d pop over to Englewood to chill at some Black-owned coffee shops and restaurants. I’d read that a Whole Foods Market had popped up by Kennedy-King College and, of course, that’s typically code for gentrification.

Englewood had the same kind of reputation as the Robert Taylor Homes; when you heard about it on the news, it was rarely about the local garden planted to combat the food desert or the service projects that brought people together, but there was an article about a Whole Foods that deliberately set up shop in Englewood in order to be a source of fresh food and employment for its residents. Curious about this new location on my last trip back to Chicago, I decided to stop in and grab some specialty items for Thanksgiving dinner. Like so many things in my life, this decision seemed destined.