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watch?”
    He takes it off and hands it to me. I put it on. It is heavy and big on my wrist and twists around like a bracelet. I feel nicely weighted down wearing Mack’s watch and want more than anything hold on to it forever. But somehow I know he will never leave the aparthouse without it.
    I take the watch off, flip it over. There is an inscription on the back:
April 11, 1966. MHM & MTM.
    “I got this as a gift,” Mack says, seeing me mull over the words.
    “For your birthday?” I ask, knowing that Mack’s birthday is in August. The day after Babs’s.
    “When I got married.”
    “From your mom?” I pretend to be eleven now, even though I really am.
    “From my wife.” He almost winces when he says this.
    For just a tiny moment, I think he might actually take his shoes off. Lie down on the bed and go to sleep with me. Let me hold his hand. Maybe he will even hold my hand back. His chest is so broad, his pressed white-collared shirt so fresh, I just know it smells like fall. I want to bury my head in it and nod off, if only for an hour.
    But he stands up. Buttons his coat and picks up his briefcase. Bends down and kisses the top of my head.
    “Good night, babe. If Babs calls, tell her I miss her.”
    I whisper, “Good night, Mack,” and he walks out the door.
    After he leaves, I find a quarter on the bed. The coin is shiny, like it was just minted. It isn’t the watch, but it’s something. Mack hasn’t given it to me, but I haven’t stolen it. It’s an exchange born of the moment.
    I have that quarter for almost six months before I lose it.

3. The Daddies’ Breakfast
December 1979
    E VERY YEAR AT THE beginning of December, the sixth grade at Chicago Day hosts the Daddies’ Breakfast. The fathers are invited to come to the cafeteria before school starts and feast on pancakes, waffles, bacon, and cinnamon rolls. Students decorate the dining hall with red and green paper neckties, hand-drawn portraits of their dads. The day we’re supposed to begin working on these, I wonder how I’m going to get out of it.
    My homeroom teacher, Wendolyn Henderson, goes around the room handing out white doilies for the daddy heads to go on. She gives me one, not knowing what my deal is. All the other girls and boys around me pick up markers, start working. Wendolyn comes back my way.
    “Bettina, you better get going,” she says to me. Authoritative.
    Where am I supposed to go?
I want to say. Instead, I reply, “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
    “What do you mean?” she asks. “It doesn’t matter if your family has an unconventional situation.”
    “Huh?” I say, then realize she probably thinks my parents are divorced. I decide to just smack her with the true situation.
    “I don’t have a dad.”
    Wendolyn is now frustrated because she believes I’m holding out on her.
    “Is he dead?” she asks without emotion. Just trying to get the facts.
    “I’m not sure,” I say truthfully. Wendolyn looks down at me, annoyed. She thinks I’m just looking for attention. Have roped her into a game of twenty questions.
    “Are you adopted?” she ventures.
    “No,” I reply.
    “Well, then you must have a dad,” Wendolyn says, as if this is the only solution.
    “I do, I guess,” I admit, “but I don’t know who he is. My mother has never told me anything about him.”
    School is the only place where I refer to Babs as “my mother.” My calling her Babs would not go over well with Wendolyn. Like my dad situation.
    “Hmm,” Wendolyn says, still not quite believing what I have told her. But she has twenty other kids to manage and can’t waste any more time on me. She takes a moment and then comes up with a solution I can tell she is proud of.
    “You can always invite your mother,” she says.
    I don’t want to tell her that Babs doesn’t get up before noon. Certainly not for breakfast in a school cafeteria. I pretend inviting Babs is a good idea. I pick up my marker and get to work on my invite.
    Wendolyn