I tell Willie that the impact of the awful event might not hit him right away. “You know,” I say. “Sometimes reactions to traumatic events sneak up on us, like someone dying or a car accident.” I’m waiting for him to react to what I’ve said. He does.

“Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll keep an eye on you.” Only Willie.

The police car pulls up in front of our little building.

“Hey, look,” Willie says. “The lights are still on in the store. They’re open late.”

Sure enough, even though it’s close to nine o’clock, Sabryna’s crazy little Jamaican jumble of a store looks like it’s open for business.

Willie says, “Cool. I hope Devan is around.”

I, of course, am imagining some criminal nastiness in the store. Why are the lights on? Why is there no one behind the counter? What the hell’s happening here?

The store door is locked. Willie knocks on the glass.

No answer. The police car has already driven away.

“Keep knocking,” I say. “Sabryna could be in the back room, cooking.”

Suddenly Devan appears. He has a big grin on his face, and he actually runs to the door, unlocking it from the inside. As soon as we step through, Willie and Devan greet each other as if they had been apart for twenty years, not a few days. Hugs and arm punching and up-in-the-air hand slaps.

“How you been doing down there in East Virginia, man?” Devan asks.

“I did great. I am great. And it’s West Virginia,” Willie says.

“Damn, you’re still an asshole. ‘East Virginia’ was a joke, dude,” says Devan, and the arm punching begins again.

Then Sabryna yells from the rear of the store, “Well, lullaby and good night yourselves, Young William has returned.” She comes out carrying her new charge: Valerina’s baby. The baby wears nothing but Huggies on this hot night. Sabryna has tied the tiniest red-and-yellow striped scarf—a ribbon really—around the baby’s adorable head.

“Are you open or closed?” Willie asks.

“I’m not quite sure,” says Sabryna. “I figure if I’m up with little Tyonna anyways, I might as well sell something.”

“Tyonna? Where’d you get that name from, Sabryna? Valerina said she was naming the baby Anna for her great-grandmother.”

“Valerina can call her baby anything she wants. She’s the mama,” says Sabryna. “But as long as the baby’s with me, I’m calling her Tyonna. In Jamaican, Tyonna means princess. And that’s zactly what this little one is, a princess. The yellow-red headscarf ’round her head will be just a practice crown for the little princess later in life.”

There will be no arguing with Sabryna. And actually, I think both names—Tyonna and Anna—are beautiful in their own different ways. Perhaps the name Anna Tyonna Gomez will happen.