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window so they wouldn’t see me.
    What’s up with that? Sean had told me he would be around this weekend on punishment. Why were they leaving? Did they have a family emergency?
    â€œCome on, Sean,” Jackie said. She took him by the hand and led him off the court. They disappeared behind a building.
    I wanted to wake up Kyle and tell him what I had just seen, but all these thoughts were going through my head. Did Sean know he was bouncing this weekend? Yes or no? He never went somewhere without telling me first. Where were they going at so early the morning? With a suitcase?
    I let Kyle sleep and decided not to tell him what I had just seen. Maybe because I didn’t want to hear Kyle say something like, “We should mind our own business.” I wasn’t in the mood to hear that, because I was worried about Sean. He didn’t look like he knew where his mom was taking him. Was she taking him somewhere to leave him?

The Morning After
    THE NEXT MORNING, Kyle didn’t stay for breakfast. He pitched for a Little League team and they had a game that day. His parents were the coaches and picked him up early from my place.
    After brushing my teeth, I sat at our breakfast table while Ma cooked. I was there with no video game. No nothing. Just me hunched, confused about why Sean had snuck out last night and hadn’t said where he was going.
    â€œWhat’s bugging you?” Ma asked.
    â€œNothing,” I said, but she wasn’t stupid.
    The pancakes on the stove sizzled. Usually I couldn’t wait to eat them. But right now Ma’s food didn’t faze me.
    â€œJustin, if I looked like this”—Ma puffed her cheeks and folded her arms—“would you say nothing is wrong with me?”
    I smiled. I didn’t think I looked like that.
    â€œAt least I’m not wearing slippers five sizes too big for me,” I joked.
    â€œIf you want me making pancakes and eggs for you like I do every Saturday morning, I’m cooking them in my clown slippers.” Ma stuck her tongue out at me.
    I laughed.
    Ma’s black hair was curled in rollers. Pink ones. Matching her pink, fluffy bathrobe. Ma liked her pajamas loose-fitting. Her collar was turned up and the sash around her waist was tied in front.
    She scooped two pancakes from the pan, slid them onto a plate of steaming scrambled eggs, and set that in front of me.
    â€œSo what’s bothering you?” There. Ma was picking at me again.
    â€œI just feel like being quiet.”
    But Ma hated it when I didn’t speak for a long time and sat angry.
    â€œGuys out here get taught from little to act hard,” she would say. “They’re supposed to pretend nothing is wrong with them. They think they can’t ever be sensitive because that’s considered soft or gay. So these boys and men out here bottle in their real feelings. Wearing armor and fronting. But being hard only leads to trouble. Feelings explode out and lots of guys are in jail, hooked on drugs, and dead for being hard.”
    Ma used to have three brothers. It was her, Robby, Craig, and Josh. My uncles were hard. Now all of them are dead or locked up. Robby sold drugs and got shot in the head when he was in high school. Craig caught HIV sharing needles and died at twenty-two. Uncle Josh is alive and in jail for life because he was a gang leader out here and had somebody killed. He was my only uncle and once Ma took me upstate to see him, but on the bus ride home she told me, “I’m not taking you back to see him. I’m not getting you used to being inside a jail. Josh chose that life for him. I didn’t choose jail for you.” And just like that, we never visited Uncle Josh again.
    After Ma’s mother and father died, it was just her. Alone. Out here in Red Hook. Maybe I have uncles on my father’s side, but I’ve never met anyone from my father’s side because they live down south, and Ma said, “If