I looked back at her and hunched my shoulders. “Somebody need to help him, Mama Pearl,” I said, and then I came really close to crying.

“Come here, Chile,” she said, and opened her arms. I left the couch, the plastic making a sucking sound as it released my legs. She hugged me and said, “I’m gone pray for that boy, you hear? I’m gone give this to God, and I need you to let it go. Ain’t much you can do. You a kid. He is too, but, baby, chil’ren don’t get to be chil’ren no mo’.”

I moved my face from her arm and looked at her.

“Can I pray for him too?”

“You show can.” Even though she didn’t know the details, I felt like we were doing something.

In the middle of our sad moment, outside her window, I heard voices of kids calling to each other and playing, and I thought about what Mama Pearl just said, about how no one gets to be a child anymore. I started crying. Mama Pearl wouldn’t let this be. She came back with a lecture that I wasn’t in the mood to hear.

“You run around trying to take care of that boy like you done birthed him.”

“He my brother,” I told her.

“If you ain’t careful, you’ll be doing it your whole life. One day, you’ll have yo’self a little boyfriend, and you’ll try to mother him too. And don’t get married! You’ll think you got a right to run after him, wiping his nose.” She took a deep breath and said, “Your brother act a lot like his daddy. They gotta go out into the world and try everything. You can’t tell ’em nothing. Sometimes, the thangs they try ruin their lives forever. You gone have to let your brother make his own choices.”

I wanted to ask her more about our dad. It seemed like everybody knew him except for me. She kept talking, though, and mostly she wanted me to stay out of Meechie’s way, and I knew that I wouldn’t.

“I gotta go,” I said.

“Oh, now you gots to go?”

“My mama—”

“You hear what I say, now.”

I nodded, but I had to leave. The GDs had Meechie. They’d taken him from me. I wasn’t about to listen to her tell me that I couldn’t help. Back then, I believed if you wanted it enough, you could save anybody. My basic understanding of salvation would cause me to be at odds with God in those early days of our relationship.

I went to the door and looked back at her. She was up again, following me so that she could lock it and put the chain back on.