Leaving Atlanta by Tayari Jones

like their eyes had been reversed and they were all staring inside their own heads.

    Tasha’s father joined a search party. They all wore white T-shirts trimmed in blue and headed out in the morning dark.
    “Where are they going?” Tasha wanted to know.
    “They are looking out in the woods,” Mama said.
    “Why would those kids be in the woods?” DeShaun asked.
    Mama didn’t say anything and Tasha already knew that they were not looking for anyone alive. She opened her mouth to say this
     when her mother gave her a look and said, “Button it.”
    The three of them lay in Mama’s big bed waiting for Daddy to come back. DeShaun complained of a sore throat and fell asleep
     soon after swallowing a big spoonful of purple medicine. When DeShaun started breathing in quiet snores, Mama spoke.
    “How are you feeling, Tasha?”
    “I’m okay. My throat’s not sore.”
    Mama smoothed Tasha’s hair with her soft palm. “I mean how are you feeling on the inside? That boy from your class, Jashante?”
    Mama said his name with uncertainty, like she wasn’t sure how to pronounce it.
    “He was my friend,” Tasha said.
    “Baby, sometimes things happen and we don’t know why—”
    But Tasha knew why. Her need to confess was as fundamental as her need for air. “I know why.”
    “You can’t know.”
    “Yes, I do,” Tasha said. “It’s not a
growing pain
.”
    “Tell me, then,” Mama said.
    “It’s me,” she said. “He pushed me down and I got mad and said that I hoped the man gets him, and now he’s gone.”
    It felt good to tell someone, especially Mama, who had the power to punish and the authority to absolve. “I promise to be
     more careful with my words,” Tasha said solemnly, looking up at her mother expecting to see anger or even revulsion.
    “Oh, sweetie,” Mama said. “You don’t think that you— You don’t think that it’s your fault, do you?”
    “It
is
,” Tasha insisted. Her contrition was turning to anger.
    “Tasha, I understand that you feel bad about what you said to your friend, but you didn’t kill—” She paused. “You didn’t make
     this happen. A very sick person is responsible for this. It has nothing to do with you. Do you understand me?”
    Tasha pulled fuzz from the blanket, but didn’t speak.
    “Listen,” Mama said. “How many times have you wished for something to happen and it didn’t?”
    Just last week, she had wished for a pretty pink envelope with a magenta heart.
    Mama waited a few seconds before she spoke again. “See, baby, things just happen in spite of our wishes.”
    “Well, what about prayers?” Tasha asked.
    “Prayers are different.”
    But Tasha didn’t think so. After all, what were prayers but wishes addressed directly to God?
    Mama suggested that they say a prayer for Jashante. Tasha bowed her head and said “Amen” when Mama stopped talking; but she
     knew it wasn’t going to work.
    Daddy returned that evening different. Dinner was cooling in bowls on the table as the girls and their mother sat waiting
     for him to come downstairs. They could hear the shower running long after the bowls stopped steaming. He came and sat at his
     place.
    “Let us pray,” he said.
    Tasha looked at her mother. They prayed over Sunday and holiday dinners, but ordinary meals like this one usually went unblessed.
     Instead of the usual grace thanking God for the food we receive for the nourishment of our bodies, Daddy slowly recited The
     Lord’s Prayer. Tasha listened carefully.
Forgive us our trespasses
. She moved her lips silently around the words. After they soberly said “Amen,” he said, “Don’t turn that TV on tonight.”
    “Where did you go?” Tasha asked quietly. This was as close as she could get to her real question:
Did you see my friend? Was he dead?
    Daddy spoke to his hands, which were situated in the center of his empty plate. “The group I was with went way north, all
     the way where white people stay. All of us were packed in a