APRIL WALK ON the bus carrying a shoe in her hand. Wiping lipstick off with tissue, she keep her head down. A woman up front means for everyone to hear her say, “God seen ya nasty.”

A fat man who was nice to me ain’t the same way with April. He calls her a name that gets the driver mad enough to tell him to apologize. Not that he does. He stares at April even after she pass by—so does everyone else.

It ain’t till she close that I notice the shoe she holding is missing a heel. And her right cheek is red. Did somebody hit you? I wanna ask. But who can’t tell she ain’t up for questions?

“I’ll take her.” She sits down and pinches the fat on the back of Cricket’s neck. “Hey, Mommy. Did you miss me?”

Cricket is a baby. She don’t know better. She do her best to get to her mom. She throwing a fit, crying. Only she can’t go nowhere. I won’t let her. I got my arms around her belly tight as rope. “She tired. You can have her after her nap.”

“What?”

“Let her sleep! She almost was before you got here!”

April made us late by ten minutes. The driver wouldn’t leave without her. He got daughters, he told us for the hundredth time. He paced outside. “It’s my last day,” we heard him say. “What can they do to me?” He pulled out a cigarette and lit up. I ain’t know he smoked.

He was backing up the bus when somebody said, “There she is!”

I try to flip Cricket onto her belly, but she fighting me. Making her legs stiff as sticks, refusing to lie down.

April’s hands go under Cricket’s arms. Before I know it, she in her momma’s lap. “I’m her mother, not you.” Her eyes close. Her cheek leans on Cricket’s forehead.

“You left her on the floor.”

“What did you want me to do? Hire a babysitter?”

I keep my fist where she can’t see it balled tight, ready to go off like a gun. Inside I’m counting, trying to do like JuJu said right before I left and not fight the whole daggone blasted world ’cause I’m having a bad day.

“All I’m saying is … you ain’t have to leave her like that. I like her. Don’t mind watching her either. You raised her good, April.” It’s a sort of apology. Normally, I ain’t the type, but sometimes you have to so you get what you want in the end. I want Cricket to be all right. ’Cause I know what it’s like to want a mother who ain’t there. “You got the right to do with your baby what you want.”

How people expect her to eat, she says, or buy diapers or milk? “If I don’t— Never mind.”

I look out the window. Notice cows beside the road. April lay Cricket across her lap and turn her legs like wheels. “I sold … a few pills … that’s all.”

The man behind us laughs.

April raises her voice to make sure people hear her. “I’m starting a new job. With benefits and everything.” She looks at me. “I want to be a good mother. But I can’t right now.” She cuddles Cricket. Puts her nose in her bushy brown hair. “If she stays with me— Never mind.”

I ask about her job.

“It’s on a ship.”

“A boat?”

“A cruise ship.”

“You mean the kind people get pushed off sometimes?”

She laughing. “The kind with cabins you live in rent-free. With all the food you can eat. And people from around the world speaking different languages. I’ll get the chance to take college courses.”

April filled out the application online and sent in money. “Three hundred and fifty dollars,” she says.

“For what?”

“The job.”

“You gotta pay for a job? I thought they paid you.”

“The good ones cost.” She still owes ’em money, she says. “I’m supposed to pay the rest when they pick me up.”

Truckers drive all night, she say. Sometimes twenty hours straight—not that they supposed to. She reach into her pocketbook, takes out a bottle of pills. There’s maybe six left. “I still need to make seventy-five more dollars. Otherwise—”

“They won’t give you the job?”

She shakes her head.

The purple-hair girl stands up. “Turn your lights off. Don’t you see people sleeping? Driver!”

I never seen so many snitches in my life. I reach for the button. Now the whole bus is dark, except for the moon and car lights shining in.

“April.”

“Yeah.”

“When you start your job?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

Her aunt will come and get the baby. Someone from the company is gonna pick her up and drive her to Florida. “I have to be on that ship.” April reaches down and pulls out a yellow blanket from her baby bag. She covers Cricket from head to toe. “I’ll wear a uniform and everything.”

“What kind of job is it again?”

“I’m not sure. They say they got lots of positions. I get to pick, I think.”

“Oh.”

She closes her eyes. “See. I had to sell those pills. To do whatever I needed to. Otherwise, things for me and Cricket won’t ever change.”

I think on that some, then go back to my seat. I’m asleep in no time, at home, in my bed dreaming.