We went to a festival in Grant Park; we hadn’t been back there since the day that she’d taken me and my friends for the Independence Day fireworks, so of course, I thought about my friends that entire time. It felt like a dream, the memory I had of all four of us standing shoulder to shoulder, looking up together at the colors in the sky. I wanted to do it again, but we were no longer a crew. I sat there with Mama instead, my shoulders slumped, looking around Grant Park at all these white families who seemed so happy.

Quan’s words were running around my head, but I couldn’t figure out why white people wanted to put us out of the projects. I don’t know how long I had been eyeing this one family, but Mama caught me and through her teeth said, “Stop staring. What’s the matter with you?”

“They the reason we all gotta move?”

“Who?”

“White people.”

She frowned at me, but my face still looked the same, mad. “Baby, it’s so much more complicated than that.” I just looked at her.

“Well, ain’t, I mean aren’t white people moving into our neighborhood after we leave? That’s what everybody’s saying.”

“So you’re listening to everybody?”

“Can’t listen to you,” I said, under my breath.

She heard me and yanked her head back, then just looked at me. She knew I was right.

“You can’t go around being mad at an entire group of people. They could be tourists, visiting from the suburbs or out of town.”

I thought about her words as I watched the seagulls fly toward Navy Pier and boats sail out of sight.

Then Mama said, “That day that you asked if we were Lease Compliant, I couldn’t tell you, because I didn’t have the answer. I was worried that we wouldn’t be, so I didn’t want to talk about it.” She paused a few seconds, then a wide smile spread across her face. “I received a letter last week that said we will be leaving public housing! I’m going to find us a nice neighborhood, baby.”

I covered a huge, goofy grin with my hands.

Yes, we would move out of the projects away from everything and everyone that I knew and live somewhere strange. But maybe we would go to a block where people didn’t shoot at each other and trees sprouted up nice and green every spring. I tried to imagine a new life like that, but it didn’t seem real.

I was so happy to hear that we wouldn’t be trapped in relocation purgatory that awaited the families with kids who’d been in and out of jail. Something was bothering me, though.