Afircan Women by Varnette Honeywood, Print / Ink on paper. This print is from the private collection of Nivea Castro.

Long before I know to make those little pillow sachets to summon back dreams, to harvest the burdock to keep sugar down, to mix the clay for Miss Arnolda’s arthritic knee, to make a balm of devil’s nettle for wounds. Long before all that—but around the time that I learn to send for rain—I watch my mama stay in bed nearly all day for three days.

He wraps his legs around hers under the table and squeezes her thick, hairy calves. He’d never admit he noticed them first before her fish-shaped eyes, her thick braid, her nose ring. She has slender shoulders which shiver as she speaks; her curly hair falls to her elbows, in thick, stubborn ringlets. Recently, one of her younger sisters introduced her to lipstick; it now distracts from the pimple sprouting on her chin.

Up until that year, Ellie’s summer visits in the campo had always felt easy. The tios and tias never looked at the girl long enough to notice when she raced down the hill to the river basin to kiss Isa under the canopy of ceiba trees. Of this Tio Virgilio was certain.

He couldn’t shake the sense of impending doom that came with being seen by his White classmates, and potentially becoming a target. He opened and closed his mouth around the beginning of a question, but he was unsure how to ask it, or what to ask, or if his parents would even have the answer he was looking for. How do I survive this?