Ship of Souls

other possibility, which is that my father’s some kind of psycho stalker. Or maybe he just couldn’t bother to stick around. Whenever I asked about him, Mom would say, “Don’t I love you enough?” And I wouldn’t ask any more questions after that because she did. My mother was all I needed.
    One time when I was eight, I had a really bad cold and couldn’t sleep. The light was on in the hallway, so I just left my bedroom door open a crack and got down on the floor with my pillow and my book. I must have fallen asleep after a while because I didn’t hear the intercom or the doorbell. But I woke up when I heard someone at the front door—someone my mom knew but didn’t want to let in.
    “He’s mine.”
    “He’s not yours—he’s ours .”
    “You promised, Neil. You promised you’d stay away.”
    “And I’ve kept my end of the deal. You know I have. I just want to see him.”
    “He’s sleeping.”
    “So let me watch my boy sleep. Five minutes, Irene. Five minutes with my boy.”
    For a moment Mom said nothing. I stared at her hand gripping the doorknob and willed her other hand to slide the chain off and let my dad inside. It was him—I just knew it was him.
    “I can’t. I’m sorry, Neil. I just can’t.”
    “But why—”
    “You know why!” she hissed at him. “You know damn well why we have to live this way. You made your choice.”
    “And you made yours, Irene. Why can’t the boy make up his own mind? He’s old enough now.”
    “No. He’s my child and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep him safe.”
    “And what if something happens to you, Irene? Then what?”
    “Nothing’s going to happen to me.”
    “How do you know? You can’t predict the future.”
    “Predict? No. But I can plan.” Mom shook her head. “You’re not part of the plan, Neil.”
    The man pulled back from the door. “Time will tell,” I heard him say, and then Mom closed and locked the door.
    When I asked her about it the next day, Mom gave me a real funny look. Then she pressed her palm against my forehead and said the fever must have given me a crazy dream. Later, when cancer made a liar of my mom ( nothing’s going to happen to me ), I thought maybe the man at the door would come back for me—give me that chance to make up my own mind. But he didn’t. Maybe it was just a dream after all.
    She was tight-lipped about my father, but when it came to other stuff, I could talk to my mom about pretty much anything. Sometimes I worried that I wasn’t “black enough.” I’m not a total geek or anything, but I’d been homeschooled for most of my life, and that meant I didn’t spend a lot of time with other kids. When Mom got sick, I had to enroll in a public school, and I didn’t exactly fit in. Kids on my block called me “reject.” Grown folks at church called me “an old soul.” One girl at school told me I talked like a white boy. But when I ask Mom about it, she just said, “You are black. And nothing you say or do or pretend to be will ever change that fact. So just be yourself, Dmitri. Be who you are .”
    I still hear her voice every day, and sometimes I even talk back. Mostly I just try to do the things I know she’d want me to do. Like keep my grades up, respect my elders, speak proper English—stuff like that.
    One of the nurses at the hospital gave me a pink ribbon pin to put on my jacket, but I put it in my pocket instead. I didn’t want to be a walking advertisement for cancer. Plus, you get a ribbon when you win some kind of contest, and this time, I didn’t win. I lost. Cancer won.
    Sometimes I push the pin into my finger just to make sure I don’t forget what losing feels like. I prick my skin and squeeze out a little blood. Feeling pain means I’m still alive, and I know Mom would want me to keep on living. Problem is, most days I just feel numb. When I’m not numb, I’m miserable. And even when I’m not miserable, I’m still alone.

2.
    R ight after Christmas a blizzard hit the city. This lady on our block went into labor, but the streets weren’t plowed, so she couldn’t get to the hospital. She tried walking through all that snow but only made it as far as our building. She had the baby right there in the lobby with the help of some of our neighbors. They called an ambulance, but it never came and the baby died. All because of a blizzard. I never told my mom. She was upstairs “dying with dignity.” At least that’s what Marva and the hospice lady said. To me,