Gerald never said “ain’t” around his parents. And his parents spoke as clearly and precisely as any white people. Rashid rolled over, wanting to groan. His face was pressed into the pillow, his hands between his legs. Was there nowhere he belonged? At least there was one way to get back to sleep. He did it quickly, without a sound, without much pleasure. The night was very quiet as he finished. It was nearly four-thirty A.M.

Gerald seemed to have forgotten the incident at dinner by the next day, so Rashid said nothing more about it, though he felt a little sick whenever it crossed his mind. Their trip back to school was uneventful, though Rashid found that he couldn’t stop thinking about the easy, confident manner of Gerald’s parents. As opposed to his, who walked around looking like they expected to be hit any second. He wished he didn’t feel that way, too.

Rashid found it harder and harder to be quiet about what was inside him once he got back to school. And stuff kept happening to push him. Like in that class before midterm break where Ms. Hansen read Hendrickson’s essay about his grandmother. Rashid felt as though he were going to burst into tears at any moment the whole rest of that day. He’d been in a bad mood even before class started because of that mess with Washington—and then he’d had to listen to these white-bread punks whine about losing this and that and how sad it was that their hundred-year-old grandmother died. What did they know? What did they know about really losing someone, way before they were supposed to be gone? That’s why he finally wrote that thing when Ms. Hansen asked him to. He couldn’t carry the weight by himself anymore. He left it in her box on a day when he didn’t have her class so he wouldn’t have to talk to her about it. He just had to get it out.

Before he’d come up to Chelsea, his parents had called him into the living room, where they were watching Diagnosis: Murder, and made him sit down with them. “So, Rashid, you’re off to school in just a few days,” said his father. His eyes left the screen only briefly to glance into his remaining son’s eyes. “Your mother and I, we don’t feel …” He trailed off.

“What Daddy is trying to say,” his mother chimed in, “is that we don’t want to tell everyone up at that school about Kofi. It’s not a secret exactly but we don’t see any reason to walk in there and announce that your brother was killed, either.”

Her eyes filled with tears. Rashid looked from one to the other of his parents, then he spoke. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’m going to tell if people ask.”