THAT BABY AND her momma sitting beside me when I wake up. April say she don’t got the hang of being a real mother yet.

“I couldn’t get Cricket to stop crying. I walked her up and down the aisle a long time. I sat down beside you and she shut up.” She hands her to me. “I think she likes you.” She cut her eyes at a woman walking up the aisle.

“Hey, girl,” I say. “You been bad while I was asleep? Don’t be bad.” Cricket drools a lot. I wipe her lips with my jacket collar. “No!” I say when she try to eat it. “This ain’t food.” She kicking her legs, wiggling her whole body. April closes her eyes, asks if I got anything to eat.

“Take what you want out my backpack. I got more than enough.”

She goes in my bag, holds up a bag of corn chips. “This?”

“Sure.”

“And these.” She got two Mounds bars in her hand now.

There’s honey-coated peanuts in there too, I tell her. Peanut butter crackers. Guess she don’t need to hear that twice. Out everything comes. Dumped in her lap. She pick out what she want, pulls back the wrapper on a Lunchable, and makes a double-decker ham-and-cheese cracker sandwich. Crumbs fly when she telling me Cricket drink a lot and she didn’t know how much babies ate, so she ain’t have enough Similac or money when she started the trip. She kisses Cricket on the forehead. Slides a piece of ham into her own mouth, chews, and leans Cricket’s way, then sticks her tongue out like a spoon. There’s a tiny bit of smashed-up food on it—a dot. Cricket used to eating this way, I guess. She open her mouth wide, and before I know it, the spoon goes in and she chewing—or trying to.

Mrs. Rodriguez says Cricket too young for that kind of food. April grab her bag off the floor and puts all them snacks in it. She talk about running out of baby food, being down to the last scoop of Similac in the can. “I borrowed some from a woman on the last bus.”

It’s the farmer who says, “Jesus—young people.”

I got my fist balled when his wife stands up. “Does anyone have Similac on this bus?”

It ain’t her business, but I’m glad she asked. I didn’t even think about it. “Yeah,” I say, “we need milk. A baby got to have milk.”

The driver says the next stop is in a couple hours. Cricket’s already frowning and kicking—with her mouth wide like a baby bird’s. April looks at Mrs. Rodriguez, chomps down on a cracker this time, sticks the spoon in her baby’s mouth.

Cricket smacks her lips, moves her mouth, gags while she swallowing. Then we hear it. The biggest belch ever, plus a fart. Poop fills up her diaper. Warms my leg.

“You got more diapers, right?” I ask.

“One.”

“Bus driver!” I hand Cricket over to her mother. “Can’t we stop somewhere, please? It’s an emergency.”

The old man who wanted to get with me says that once the bus stops I ought to be left behind ’cause since I got on they haven’t had much peace. I’m not sure who claps, but a few people do.

“Screw y’all.” I raise my voice louder. “Y’all probably the ones sitting up in church talking about God, but okay with letting a baby go hungry.”

The driver got his eyes on me, not the road. “See what kind of life I been having as a driver, folks. Selfish people who make it hard on everyone else.”

I ain’t figure him to say that. But I keep standing. For once, I’m quiet though. ’Cause JuJu said you gotta know when to shut up sometimes and let what you already said marinate.

Twenty minutes later the bus pulls into a rest stop. “Jesus!” It’s the man behind me. “This kid gets whatever she wants.”

I hear his wife say, “The baby … needs milk. And Pampers.”

A woman standing up front is holding dollars in her hand. “I can spare three bucks.”

Mrs. Rodriguez opens her purse and dumps change into a hat. She speaking English and Spanish when she walk the aisles asking people to give what they can.

The bus door opens. Mrs. Rodriguez puts Miguel’s baseball cap in April’s lap. “For me?” She tears up.

“You and me,” Mrs. Rodriguez says, “we go inside and get what you need.”

Her children stay balled up asleep in their seat. I hold on to Cricket. The man behind me asks his wife if April will give them back what she don’t spend.

“Bus driver,” I say once April gets off. “Would you like to hold the baby?”

“I will retire in a few hours if y’all don’t get me fired first. So, no, I do not want to hold a baby. But someone can give me a Tylenol.”