Godspeed

Daddy's had the Sugas since before I was born. He isn't supposed to eat cake on birthdays and he needs naps every day. But I always see him eating stuff he shouldn't. I catch him sneaking from a stash he's got behind the cereal boxes. He keeps it in a coffee can. It's mostly old candy—whatever gets left over from Easter or Halloween. Sometimes I take from it, something sweet before school, but I don't really want it, I think I just want to get some of it out of his hands. I know he must know I steal from it, but he won't say nothing to me 'cause he doesn't want Ma to know. Ma doesn't drink coffee so she don't know about the stash.

I'm thirteen today. My cousin Darius gave me his old bike yesterday for a surprise. Ma says stay out of the street so I rode it on the sidewalk outside our place, and Daddy was watching all afternoon after he woke up from his one o'clock nap. He likes to stand in the living room, leaning out the window, to watch the sidewalk. We live on the ground floor so it's just like he's outside. And I can keep him in the side of my eye while I'm riding, his head resting on his hand and his elbow in the corner of the windowsill. His eyes always look so shiny these days, and this summer he just keeps looking at me saying, "You're a woman, you're a woman now. Look at yourself—you're a woman." And when he says it there's something about the look on his face that makes me believe him, and then I think if I'm becoming a woman then that means I'm gonna get married and—every time without trying to—I get this sick feeling in my stomach and think Daddy better hang in till then.

I get scared about it because last month he almost passed out in the living room, and I had to run to get Ma from Aunt Cece's down the block. I ran down the block so quick I forgot to put my sandals on. I could've stepped on glass and the guys at the bodega on the corner yelled at me something I couldn't really hear, something about my body. And Daddy was back at our place lying on the carpet, curled onto his side. One of his arms was up against the wall like it was reaching for the window. He must have been standing at the window like he likes to do, watching the people pass by. I remember his belly looking big to me when I found him, but it was still moving up and down and his eyes were opening and closing. The Mets game was on his yellow plastic radio and it was also on the floor with him. I remember someone had just got a home run and the crowd was cheering.

Before I ran I shook Daddy to wake him up but that was stupid 'cause I already knew what was happening 'cause I'd seen it before. Like one time when we were at Coney Island he came out of the water and he was walking crooked and shaking and almost falling down and I had to stand with some nice strangers and watch while Ma called 911 and found a juice box for him from somebody's cooler. I thought about that when I was next to him in the living room and I thought maybe I could do the same thing but I was too scared to mess it up 'cause I didn't know if he was passing out from the Sugas being too high or too low so I left and I ran as fast as I could and didn't know my bare feet were on the pavement till I got to Aunt Cece's.

But Daddy was okay. Ma ran back faster than me and she put...