be there all the time. The loss of a mother I didn’t really remember and my time in the army had changed both mindsets pretty fast, but the reality of Nana Naz’s mortality hadn’t really hit me until that moment.
“The doctor said her oxygen is pretty low too,” Israel said quietly as we made our way to the chairs next to her bed. “He asked me if she was a smoker, and all I could think was that day she caught you and Leo smoking.”
I smiled at the memory, surprised at how little it hurt to think of it. Leo and I were in sixth grade when, for a reason I couldn’t remember, I decided the two of us should steal a pack of cigarettes from these racist high school kids who never missed a chance to get after Leo. Once we’d taken the cigarettes, I’d gotten the bright idea that we should smoke a couple, just to show the world how tough and grown-up we were.
Nana Naz had caught us and smacked us both upside the backs of our heads. Then she’d made us tell Israel and my parents. She hadn’t, however, made us apologize to the guys we’d stolen them from. About that, she’d merely said that we should’ve let the air out of their bike tires too.
“None of it had been Leo’s idea,” I admitted. “Not taking them and not smoking them. I know what he said, but it’d all been me.”
“We knew.” Israel chuckled. “Most of the time when you boys got in trouble, it was your idea, and he went along with it.”
I grimaced at the memory. “I still have no idea why you never told him not to hang around with me.”
“You’ve always had a good heart, Eoin,” Israel said. My face must’ve showed my thoughts on that particular statement because he smiled. “You know that Angel and I were high school sweethearts, but I bet you don’t know that we almost didn’t make it.” He looked at Nana Naz, a faraway expression on his face as he thought of her daughter, his late wife. “Six weeks before our high school graduation, a friend of mine, a boy I’d known since birth, was killed in a drive-by shooting. Cops dismissed it as gang-related violence and never really did much to find out what really happened. Thing was, Nate wasn’t in a gang. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time wearing the wrong thing with the wrong colored skin. We both were. I was just the lucky one who didn’t get hit.” He glanced at me. “As you can imagine, I didn’t handle it too well.”
He understood, I realized. He knew what it was like to have a friend killed right in front of him. And it was even worse for him. Yeah, Leo and I had been helping people in Iraq when we’d been ambushed, but we’d still been in the army, in an area where people weren’t too happy with what we were doing. Israel and his friend had just been teenagers, minding their own business.
“I was angry with the world. Started doing stupid stuff. Broke windows, graffitied walls, all the things angry people do when they don’t get justice.” A ghost of a smile appeared. “Angel dumped me because of it, said she wasn’t going to be with a man who acted like a boy.”
I’d always heard that Angel had been like her mom, and that definitely sounded like something Nana Naz would’ve said.
“She’s the one who straightened me out.” He gestured toward Nana Naz. “She told me that if I didn’t straighten up, then I’d end up being the sort of black man who made the justice system not care, and that would be a waste. She marched me over to each and every place I’d vandalized, made me apologize, and promise to pay for everything. Then she took me to the police station and had me confess there too. I paid everyone back, did fifty hours of community service, and I’ve been on the straight and narrow ever since.”
I didn’t know what to say, but he wasn’t done yet.
“That’s why we didn’t discourage Leo from hanging out with you. We told him he needed to be the kind of friend who made better choices and was a good influence, but we never thought you were a bad kid. You just needed some help to believe it yourself. Sometimes, we can have the best family in the