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back and tried to focus on the ceiling fan to keep awake, but the absence of all the night sounds he was used to and the comforting silence that remained instead were slowly claiming him. His eyelids were starting to meet when he stifled a yawn and asked, “What’s it feel like, having a stroke?”
    The silence was thick with his grandfather’s breathing. Jason thought that he would not answer, that maybe he had asked too much.
    His grandfather finally said, “You don’t need to know. Settle down and go to sleep.”
    His grandfather’s caustic response made Jason desire the answermore. “Tell me,” he said. “Please. I can’t sleep unless I know.” As soon as he said it, he knew that it was true. He believed that he would never have a night free of wakefulness unless his grandfather told him what he wanted to know.
    His grandfather said, “It feels like one half of you is gone. Like half a body is all you got left. But you still know the other half is there, you know? You can see it, this other side of your body that you’re just dragging along with you, hoping that one day it’s going to wake up and get started again, knowing that it won’t. So you have to pretend that something can be done with it since you can’t just cut it all off. It feels like having somebody you don’t like coming to eat supper with you every night, and then that person has to make a big deal of the fact that he’s there, so a man can’t enjoy some peace and quiet with his meal. No, this person has just got to keep reminding everybody he’s there.”
    â€œYou talking about me?”
    â€œNo, son. That’s what it feels like when you can’t use a part of your body. Anybody that tells you it don’t feel like nothing or they don’t notice it anymore is lying. It never goes away.”
    â€œSo then what?” Jason asked. He thought that there must be some secret and that the old man must have it, something that told him how to do it, how to live, how to survive, how to make it through another day when half of him was dead and dragging by his side. “I mean, what do you
do
?”
    â€œNothing to do. Nothing but live with it.”
    â€œI guess that’s not so bad,” he said. “I mean, it doesn’t sound so hard.”
    â€œWho told you that?” The boy felt his grandfather shift in the bed, felt him looking at him through the darkness. “Living ain’t easy. It’s about the hardest thing a body can do.”

Afternoon Tea
    A women’s organization decided to adopt the girls in our school for the year, but we weren’t supposed to feel lucky. We were selected not for our scholasticism or high test marks but because our school had the highest percentage of eighth grade girls dropping out to have babies. The organization selected us out of all the other junior highs in Brooklyn as the most need-worthy, designated us as the most at-risk. Ten women from the group would serve as volunteer mentors. Time spent with the women was supposed to raise our self-esteem. It would keep us from making negative decisions that could permanently alter and impact our lives. Translation: the program would keep us from having babies at an early age and living off of welfare.
    Today was the registration and the welcome for the program and my mother feared we would lose face by showing up late. She rapped on the bathroom door to get me out of the shower. “What, do you think you’re a fish? Make haste!”
    Once I came out, I said, “I bet this is going to be really boring.”
    â€œIt will be good for you,” she said. “Just give it a try. You have nothing better to do on Saturday mornings.”
    This was true. Most Saturdays I stayed at home alone while my mother went out. She visited our extended family, making sure they were getting acclimated to life in the States, shopping for them, and helping