Page 73 of The Family Cross

Nana Mama gazed over at Sampson’s daughter, amused. “You want know?”

Willow, wide-eyed, nodded enthusiastically.

“Okay?” my grandmother asked Sampson.

“She’s gonna know sooner or later,” Sampson said. “She might as well hear it from you, Nana.”

63

THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE who are natural-born storytellers no matter what they’re going through. My grandmother was one of them.

Even after her stroke and head injury and despite the aphasia that left her speaking in sentence fragments in a soft, airy voice, Nana Mama was able to conjure up a different time—back when Sampson and I were boys.

John Sampson and I met when we were both nine years old, after I moved to DC with my brothers to live with Nana Mama.

He and I were both tall and liked to play basketball, and we soon became fast friends.

“We also took up shoplifting,” I put in.

“What?” said the people in the room, including Nana Mama, who was staring at me.

“A couple of packs of cigarettes from Park’s Corner Variety store,” Sampson said. He looked at Ali and Willow and said emphatically, “I am not proud of it.”

“You smoked?” Ali said.

“We sold them.”

“From Park’s too,” my grandmother said. “Not know that. Other.”

Bree looked from me to John and back again. “You shoplifted other things?”

“Not me,” I said.

Nana went on. “Wobbly. Big baby horse. Arms, legs.” I explained that Sampson had really shot up in height when we were in eighth grade.

“C’mon, Nana,” Sampson said. “I still had game.”

“Trip,” my grandmother said. “Remember?”

My best friend grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, yeah.”

Willow and everyone else in the room looked confused.

Nana said to me, “Tell.”

I said, “By the time your dad was fifteen, Willow, he was six foot four. A year later, he was six seven and still growing, but like everyone under the age of twenty-five, his prefrontal lobe was not yet fully formed. That’s why he simply could not understand how stupid it was for someone his height to try to shoplift an NBA jersey.”

Willow stared at her dad. “You stole a basketball jersey?”

“I tried,” John said. “It was really dumb. Probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.”

“I’ve seen you do a few things that are dumber.” I chuckled. “Just kidding, Willow.”

“No, he’s not, baby doll,” Sampson said.

When he was caught after the shoplifting incident, Sampson called our house from juvenile hall, since his mom was nowhere to be found, as usual. Basically, my friend had no one except us. He’d all but lived with us.

Willow looked at Sampson, who nodded. “That’s sad.”