She had a yearning to lose herself in this noisy throng of people going about the business of staying alive. — Nalo Hopkinson

“I can’t keep giving my will into other people hands no more, ain’t? I have to decide what I want to do for myself.” No answer. It wasn’t going to tell her.

“Mami,” Ti-Jeanne said, “I should go and get Baby. He ain’t take to Tony.”

“Hmph. Child got some sense, then. More than some I could name. But leave he there. He have to learn that he can’t always have what he want.”

Since Baby’s birth, she had learned that the first few months of motherhood were about fatigue and leakiness.