This my new life. All the Buchanans I see, the new Indiana Crew, they all I’m gonna get. I went to they school for a minute, which was lame as hell. I missed Farren, though, and Ms. Pierce. I get in a fight first week of school.

You know what Ed do? He sit me down, ask me how I’m doing. Why I feel like boxing. Ask me if it’s cause of Sweat or cause I miss my other brothers and sisters? The buildings? My friends? I just look at his ass. We both know it’s all of that shit. He start telling me about Sweat. How when Gail had him in her stomach, she let him feel the kicking. How the day he came out, he got to name him Michael, cause some talented people, even a angel, got that name. I want to throw Ed all kinds of attitude, but it’s hard. He hurting too, and I like when he talk to me. He look me in the face, like Ms. Pierce. Come to find me after school so he can ask me what happened that day. I try to be nice to his daughters after a while cause I like Ed and wanna stay. Ain’t nothing to go back to on State Street anyway. Just a bloody apartment where my brother died.

Thirty-Two
What Mamas Do

October 7, 1999

Doctor say I got a baby growing inside me. My choices follow me across the state to Indiana. I feel stupid. None of my sisters got babies cause Gail had them on birth control. “I’m the only one having babies in this bitch,” Gail say. I get scared and shame, and when me and Tracy sit down and tell Ed, he brush his waves again, but then he look at me and ask, “What you want to do?” I almost fall out my chair, cause don’t nobody ask me shit. I don’t understand what he wanna know, cause when you get pregnant, you have a damned baby.

“You could have it and we all raise it. You could have it, and give it up for adoption. You could not have it.” The last thing he say make me suck in a big breath. It surprise me that I care about somebody I just found out about. That’s why giving it away ain’t happening. I say, “I wanna have it.” He nod, grab Tracy hand.