IT’S LIKE I got sunshine in my bones. Good ideas coming to me quick as Cheerios falling out the box and onto the floor. JuJu say this is the happiest she seen me since I been home. I took a shower. Washed myself from head to toe. She so proud of me she asked her friend to let me visit with Cricket. She’ll drop her off this morning. Said she could spend the afternoon with me while she take her grandmother to the doctor. It’s a lot to manage old people and babies at the same time, she said.

Lying on my bed, I call Maleeka and she does to me what I’d do to her—ignore the call, hang up. Yesterday I got JuJu to mail her a letter, plus a picture of her and me together. It was taken at McClenton Middle. I cut the twins out. Glued it on white paper, right in the middle. Then I drew a star around us, big enough to fill the rest of the page. All of my favorite crayon colors filled up that space. Made it look like rockets or fireworks was going off. Before I put it in the envelope, I wrote on the back for her to hang in there. Her mother too. She woulda done it for me.