by Sharon Flake
He digs in his pocket and pulls out a seed. He bought another peach the other day and he’s gonna plant the seed soon. “I been clean for two whole weeks now,” he says, breathing in real deep. “And for the last four days I been getting up early, doing a day’s work.”
He reaches in his pocket and pulls out some dollar bills. Ten of ’em. “Yesterday, I almost threw all my money down a manhole, just so I wouldn’t go buy none of that stuff.”
He can tell from my eyes what I’m thinking. So he asks the question I wanna ask. “Did I go buy it? Smoke it up? No,” he says, cracking his knuckles. “I walked all night long. Downtown. Chewed my fingernails down so low, a few of ’em still bleeding,” he laughs.
Sato rocks the swing and looks my way. I look at the dark rings under my father’s pretty eyes. I listen to him tell me he can’t stay in the park. If he do, he gonna be on that stuff again. “I’ma stay clean this time.”
Mrs. Kelly across the street is staring at Daddy. I almost tell her to mind her own business. But I get up and pull up some flowers. Hand them to Daddy and ask him if he wants something to drink. “But you can’t come inside. Sorry.”
He says he ain’t hungry. That he ain’t staying long neither. He just came by to say hi—to tell me he don’t know if he gonna beat this thing, but he’s gonna try.
“Why?”
Daddy takes an orange dahlia and sticks it behind my ear. “You know Miracle? She lived up the street from you and your mom.”
“Yeah.”
“I knew her father. We went to school together. He lives in the park, too. He introduced me to her once. When I saw her sleeping in the park a few weeks back, right next to him, it ’bout broke my heart in two.”
Sato’s listening. His face looks as sad as Daddy’s while he’s telling the story.
“I kept thinking. Is that how Raspberry’s gonna end up one day, sleeping next to me in that park?”
Chill bumps come on my arms.
Daddy stands up. “Miracle’s father shoulda done better by her. I shoulda done better by you, too.”
I wipe tears from my eyes. “Daddy.”
Daddy’s finger goes up to his lip. “Shhhh.”
“I’m sorry, Daddy.”
He tells me I ain’t got no reason to be sorry. That I oughta be glad I got a mother who ain’t never let me down. “Everybody ain’t got that.”
Daddy stares up at the sky. He straightens his pants and shirt and says he better be goin ’fore it gets dark.
“Wait a minute,” I say, running into the house, opening the fridge and getting a peach.
“Here. You can grow two peach trees if you want.”
Daddy rubs the peach on his leg and puts it in his pocket. “That’s my Raspberry Girl,” he says, turning around and walking off.
Sato goes in my house and comes out with a tissue. “Here.”
I wipe my eyes and sit down on the steps. I smile at the woman next door waving to me.
“Odd Job might let him live in his place,” Sato says.
I look at him. “You think?”
He stands up. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
He walks down the steps. I stand up, and we both head up the street. “Junkies quit for real, sometimes, don’t they?”
Sato puts his arm around my shoulder. “Yeah. If they really want to, they do.”
I wipe my face again. “Momma might talk Odd Job into it, if she thinks Daddy’s really serious.”
Sato says he bets my father’s gonna clean his act up. “Get a job and stay off that stuff.”
I stop walking. “I gotta see this lady when we get back to my old street. I got something of hers.” I dig in my pocket and pull out a twenty-dollar bill. I am not like my father, it says, on all four edges.
We walk awhile not talking or touching. Then Sato points up the street at a fireplug spitting water everywhere. “The water’s on.”
I take off my sneakers. He does too. I plait my hair in one, long braid. “Ready?” I ask, holding on to his hand real tight.
“Ready,” he says, smiling.
We walk barefooted in the water running along the side of the curb. I look at my feet. They are just like my father’s—long and flat.
“Here we go,” Sato says.
My heart beats faster and faster. Then the two of us run into the waterfall laughing. Still holding hands when the water rushes at us and takes our breath away.
