Everyone looked at the protective stars.

“That’s who’s up there. Martin Luther King, not no Big Mickey still fighting over who’s gonna sell drugs to what ’burb.” Sissy nodded.

“There’s Tupac and Biggie up there inspiring us with their words,” Red Dog said. “The twinklin’ stars are the backgrounds.”

Aaron lay on his back, hands behind his head, gazing at the sky. “Yep, and over there, right there”—Aaron pointed to a cluster of stars edging toward the zenith—“is Pops. See him? See his two eyes? That milky area above them is his afro and the star right there is his mustache. He up there sayin’, ‘You doin’ all right, boy. Just love, just love.’ ’Member how he usta say that, Momma? ‘Just love, just love each other and it be all, all right?’”

“Yep. That’s what Garvey say all right. Instead of I love you, he say, ‘Just love. Just love.’ That and ‘Be sweet to each other’ on his way out.” Sissy leaned back in her chair, face tilted to the stars, a can of Budweiser in one hand.

“’Member that guitar he bought me? Traded his ol’ watch for the guitar, didn’t have no strings, at Diamonds 2?”

“Man was generous in his own way,” Sissy said. “That’s the good part, his easy love. I’d forgotten that. Just remembering he always be leaving for somewhere, didn’t ever know quite where. Till he finally left for good and forever.”

“Girlfriend, he didn’t leave. Garvey died.” Darling picked up a Nutter Butter cookie.

“Easier to be angry than boo hoo ’bout it.” Sissy drank from her can. “Forgotten the lovingness in all that leaving. More consistent with the rest of my life.”

“We make up stories all the time,” Tara said. “We don’t even see continuously, but in Polaroids and then our mind strings them together to make a movie. Even when we dream, it’s really one-shot pictures and we make a narrative out of it so it makes sense.”

“Maybe we revise our own histories in light of what we know now to make sense of what’s going on,” I added. “Maybe our lives finally exist in the stories we tell ourselves about them. When we’re in the drama, we don’t know anything except what we experience. The people in our lives change as our understanding changes.” I sipped on my beer.

Sissy leaned back and looked at me. “You got that right. We always perchin’ on jerky steps of our own knowing. Tryin’ to make sense. And tryin’ to figure out what to do next.”

Tara and Aaron cuddled on the blanket.

I leaned back and examined the stars. “Well, I better start going home. Tomorrow is a workday.”

As I walked up the stairs to Aaron and Tara’s apartment to gather my things, I heard Sissy laugh and Sonny asked for another song.

When I remember what I lack