When I was young dreams and hopes for a 11 year old black girl like me was to get into college.
Funny how for the white folks college was something that was assured for them. A fate locked and sealed. Yet here I am, sitting next to my Mama, a number two pencil in one hand and a slipper in the other for when I get too many questions wrong.
"Layla," Mama snapped, slapping the pencil against my thigh "Pay attention girl. You want make your Mama proud, right?" She asked as I nodded my head, placing my attention back at the paper in front of me. It was a cold friday night and the heater stopped working a few days back. Mama made due with some old socks and heavy Asian blankets we got from our neighbors.
Halfway through the worksheet and Mama started to cough again. "You sure you ok Mama? Daddy said he was gonna. . ." I drifted off mid-sentence afraid to speak another word with that evil eye she was giving me.
Daddy was a sore subject around the house lately. Everything has been breaking around the house and we didn't have enough money to fix anything till Daddy got a new job.
Just the other night I heard daddy walking through the door, the cold wind blowing through the house alarming everyone. I ran towards the front door as fast as I could, jumping at the last possible second into his arms as he lifted me up. My father was gorgeous. That was something all the aunties would whisper when Momma dropped me off when she went to work.
He was from Eritrea and was brought to America at a young age with his Mother after the death of his Father. I remember calling him African American once only for him to click his tongue, "Nuh-uh. I'm African."
"What's the difference?" I wondered. Sitting between his legs as he braided my hair. "African Americans were stolen from their homes in Africa and they were treated badly." He mumbled slipping into his native tongue while splitting my hair into sections. "I came from our homeland Africa. I was born there and so was my family. I can't claim to be African American because that means I claim all the hard times they went through that I was absent for."
He stopped brushing my hair to check on me. "You understand?" He asked.
"No." I replied in English
I ran my hands through his loose curls identical to mine as I stared at the bag in his hand as he propped me over to the side of his hip. "What did you buy?" I thought aloud as he walked towards the living room. "I got medicine for Mama. Is she home?" He mumbled into my cheek as he placed a kiss on my nose and slid me on to the couch.
"Yeah I just came back from cousin Latifah's house. She has a baby boy now, remember?"
He frowned, thinking about it as he mumbled softly, "She's too young to have a kid."
Mama came down the stairs, smiling as she saw Daddy sitting on the couch.
"How did the job hunt go?" She asked, walking towards him and placing a kiss on his lips.
Daddy frowned, as he looked at her. "Not well. I can't blame them after what happened at 9/11. No one wants a male nurse named Aziz," he mumbled.
Mama grabbed the bag from his hand, pulling out medicine. Reading the label she looked at him. "What's this Aziz?" She questioned.
Daddy gave me one last kiss on the head before he asked me to upstairs. Running up the steps I sat on the last one, eavesdropping on the conversation.
"You can't get a job, we're living off of EBT and handouts from the government and you buy this expensive medicine? Where do you think we're getting all this money from? We are too damn busy raising our daughter to be buying reckless things-"
