Chapter 23: Suicide Club

If change can be gauged by sound, then I would describe it as a small click. That morning I heard the click. The relationship that I had with my mother changed. It was subtle. It was in the way that her face took on a peaceful cast when she looked at my sister and me. She was seeing me and not another child that she had to provide for. She was seeing Kenya and Nubia and maybe even herself as the person she wanted to be instead of the person whose fate had been determined when my father took his last breath.

Mama braided Nubia's hair while I decided to tackle the rest of my homework before school tomorrow. Ugh. Really? Two more years of school…I looked at my history assignment and contemplated dropping out of school and living a bohemian life like Bill's.

But intuition or perhaps faith was leading me in another direction, and that was the direction that I intended to follow.