With new clothes and clean, braided hair, she looked even prettier than before. I asked Mama if she would braid Stacia’s hair too. I told her that no one was nice to her, and that I thought that Stacia was so mean because she was a kid dealing with a lot of pain, that she tried to act tough, but she really didn’t have a lot of people in her life who showed her love and affection. I thought that perhaps some kindness might warm Stacia’s heart a bit and change her behavior. Mama listened, and I saw her face sliding from a straight-up No to a Maybe.

Tonya frowned; she wasn’t convinced.

While Tonya took her new stuff home, I went to grab Precious. We detangled the ropes in preparation for Tonya’s return and Stacia’s arrival.

I told Precious what happened to Meechie. We stood about a foot away from each other, pulling at the dirty bundle of strings. “They just took him out of his bed?” she asked, looking so concerned that I thought she’d cry. I nodded.

“It was so many of them,” I said. “They pushed in the door and just came in, spreading out everywhere, looking through our stuff. Then they all went in Meechie’s room, and he started coughing like somebody had choked him.”

“I bet he was scared for his life,” she said.

“He was!”

Even though it had happened already, and Meechie was home safe, Precious still looked terrified. “He okay?” she asked.

I hunched my shoulders. The truth was that he wasn’t doing well, but I didn’t want to admit it. He hadn’t talked much in the house, and I’d never forget seeing him in his room singing that song about killing somebody. We continued pulling at the rope, undoing loops of knots in silence. I was still thinking about Meechie dressed like a gangster, and I’d later find out that Precious, who had no brothers, was thinking about how awful it would be if someone came into her house and treated her dad like that.

We got tired of waiting for Tonya and Stacia, so Precious turned the rope around us the way we used to do when we were five-year-olds and had no other friends in the building. We jumped like that for a while, then Stacia rushed into the square, a bundle of energy.

I told Stacia what happened to Meechie, and her reaction was totally different. She didn’t even stop chewing her Bubblicious when she told me, “Ain’t like they could keep him in jail,” as if the trauma of the experience weren’t damaging enough. It was true, Meechie was back home, but before I could tell her about all the things they’d done to him in our house, she launched into a story.