Mama told me to run. Anytime I was afraid, I had to run. Just keep looking forward and run, right into the sun. I would be safe there. She had this notion that the sun was our protector, that it would nurture us until we wilted away, until it scorched us. She told us that we had to worship it and respect it. No matter what we did, we answered to the sun.

      Tommy and I didn’t mind. We loved it, the way it seemed to seep down into our blood and bones, the way it would burn our skin with kisses.

      Mama told me to run because that’s how we lived. That’s how we survived. We ran from the stores after we stole and from police when they tried to stop us. Mama said that we had to fight for what we wanted, that we weren’t going to be given anything. “The world is a black chasm,” she said. “Swallow ya’ up. Doesn’t forgive. Doesn’t spare.”

   We ran for survival, but Mama… she ran from herself.

     Mama left herself back in Chicago when she met Pa. When she knew him, he was called Roy, but that was years before she moved out here. Mama said he was a lone man, a wolf. He lied and ran and killed.

They met at a friend’s party, the name of that friend I’m forgetting now. She was eighteen, Pa was twenty. It was an instant kind of love, she told me as I cradled her head in my lap. The kind of love that grips onto your back, tears through your skin and strangles your chest.

Love ends.

Towards the end, Mama said they could feel themselves falling away from each other, destroying the precious bond they had made. After we came along, the magic vanished. That’s what happens with kids. It’s all about the money, the clothes, the food, the roof. No kisses, embraces, smiles, laughs.

I think Mama could have managed Pa, if it wasn’t for his temper. But she ran, fast and far. Mama never looked back. She never saw him again.

He didn’t come to the funeral.      

When we talked about Roy, we called him Pa because Mama told us to, not because we loved him. We called him Pa because all the other kids called their pas Pa. Even though they hated each other, broke each other, ripped each other apart, Mama still felt this need, this desire to uphold his image for us. That’s why she didn’t tell me the truth about him until I was grown, until I had left the monsters and games behind.

When Mama was dying, spitting up blood and sweating herself dry, I remember thinking how strange it was to be mothering her. I never wanted to see her that way, but Tommy wasn’t there. Mama called for me.

She loved Tommy, no doubt about that, but I was her little girl, her shining beacon, her darling August.

  Tommy came eventually, but Mama was already being pulled away by that point. Sometimes I’d just watch her, take her all in and it seemed as if each time I looked back, a piece was gone. Soon, black holes began to puncture her body.

I cried.

Tommy would hold me as I whimpered and wailed. He suffered, I know that. But he was more graceful. He would excuse himself from the room to be alone. I didn’t understand why he wanted to be by himself.

After Mama died, a hole was punched through my chest – a clean blow. Everyone believes her mother is the best, that no other mother can be compared to her own, that no other mother is worthy enough to walk besides her. My Mama, was better than them all. Strong, determined, beautiful. Everything I wanted to be.

On the night of Mama’s funeral, Tommy and I sat by each other on the bed we shared when we were kids. Mama couldn’t afford for us to have our own rooms, let alone our own beds. With my head on his shoulder and his arms around mine we could feel ourselves slipping, so we squeezed each other tighter, trying to hold on. I told Tommy about the gaping hole in my chest. He said he had the same one.

When I had finished school, Tommy and I both moved away. He became a mechanic in Detroit. I became a photographer in Boston. We decided on that night that I would move back to Detroit with him. I needed my brother, especially since my mother’s house was the only thing I had left of her. We had no other family members. We were afraid dying alone with a familiar face to see.

He grabbed my hand with his and squeezed, looking down at me with glassy eyes. “August,” he murmured. “I’m scared.”

For the first time, my brother, my rock, had broken. I cradled his head on my shoulder. “Me too,” I replied, wanting to take his pain away. I didn’t want to see him like this. I wanted that everlasting image of him, of his strength to stay in my mind. One of us had to be the strong one, and I didn’t want it to be me. I had already seen Mama dwindle, I couldn’t see my brother fall apart too.

On the night of Mama’s funeral as we sat there side by side, I realized that Mama wasn’t afraid of the world. She twisted our naive minds into believing the world was dangerous. That if we made the smallest mistake, that’d our punishment would be severe. But Mama was afraid. She was afraid of the world in its entirety. It isn’t a black chasm.

Mama ran from the chasm inside herself. Mama ran herself right into the sun. And then, the sun killed her.