Who Am I Without Him? by Sharon Flake Read Free Book Online Page B

to college next year.”
    â€œIt don’t matter what you two want. Walker women want baby boys. Plenty of ’em. They been planning for ’em since Mookie’s been born,” I said. “And they think they got the right to pick the momma, too.”
    Shanna said the aunts were right. Her side don’t give birth to nothing but girls.
    Mookie sucked on her pretty pink lips. “I like girls.”
    I told him we needed a plan if him and Shanna wanted to stay together.
    Mookie said he would keep doing for the aunts like he always did. Help carry their groceries. Shovel their snow and hold their umbrellas when it rained. Come to dinner and listen to ’em talk about the good old days. “I won’t mention Shanna’s name, ever.”
    Shanna didn’t like that.
    â€œWon’t bring her around my mother, or yours.”
    â€œNaw,” I said. “They know you like girls. If they don’t see one around you, they gonna figure you creeping back here to Shanna.”
    Mookie walked over to the window. “Forget it. I’m moving out, then. Gonna live with my dad across town.”
    I told him that wouldn’t work. They would just call him all the time. Beg him to come over to do this and that.
    We spent the whole next hour trying to come up with something. Then just when we was gonna give up, Shanna came up with the perfect plan. “Seems to me they just want some boys in the family. Baby boys they can raise up any way they like.”
    â€œDuh!” me and Mookie said.
    â€œThen they should adopt one. Or get one from foster care. Or open a day-care center,” Shanna said.
    I shook my head. “No. The baby’s gotta have Walker blood.”
    Shanna kept talking. Saying that maybe for now the aunts wouldn’t be so picky. “They’d be so busy with the baby, they wouldn’t have time to fuss over Mookie.”
    I told Shanna her idea wouldn’t work. My mother and aunts wouldn’t adopt nobody.
    â€œWould they babysit, then? I mean, take care of a little newborn baby boy?” She headed upstairs and came back down with a tiny, little baby wrapped in a yellow blanket.
    Mookie’s eyes got big. “That ain’t mine,” he said, looking at me.
    Shanna said it was her cousin’s boyfriend’s sister’s kid. He was here ’cause they didn’t have a steady babysitter to care for it. “Every week it’s someplace else. He’s three months old and keeps a cold.”
    â€œAll them strangers and germs,” I said, sniffing his sweetness.
    Mookie got on the phone. Called my mother and asked how come she ain’t invite him to dinner lately. She asked him what he wanted to eat. Before he hung up, he told her she should invite the aunts over too. “Been a while since we all been together.”
    All the aunts came. They brought chips and cakes and pies, stewed chicken, barbecued chicken, chicken salad, and chicken on a stick. They made potato salad, pretzel salad, spinach dips, sauces, seasonings, and more salads. There was too much food and too many aunts. By the time we finished eating, couldn’t nobody hardly walk or talk.
    That’s when Mookie said he had to make a run.
    When he came back, he had the baby in his arms.
    â€œOh, my goodness!” his mother said.
    â€œIt’s not mine, Mom,” he said, heading her way, laying the baby in her lap.
    All the aunts came to look, to touch and count toes and fingers. Mookie told ’em he was babysitting. Helping out a friend of a friend. He said it was terrible, the way the baby ain’t have a permanent babysitter. His mother said the baby had on too much clothing. My mother asked about the rash over his left eye. Aunt Grace wondered who was taking care of the child. “’Cause they doing a poor job, I’ll tell you that.”
    By the time the party was over, all the aunts had agreed that they could do a better job