Who Asked You? by Terry McMillan Page A

Hasn’t she been off her feet for some time now?”
    “Yes, she has. I know you’re not blind, Nurse Kim. I’m just trying to do right by my grandsons because I can’t save my daughter.”
    “No, you cannot.”
    “Anyway, I’m going to have my hands full around here and I know you’re applying for that traveling nurse position and it sounds like a wonderful opportunity, but I was wondering if you do get accepted, would you be willing to stay on a little longer, just until I get things figured out around here? Is that too iffy for you?”
    “Not at all, Miss Betty. Anything I can do to help you and Mr. Lee,” I say.

Luther
    H ere come Grandma, Ricky!” I point at all them cars in a line that look just like a funeral but we just happy we getting picked up from school. I’m holding Ricky’s hand. I hold his hand everywhere we at and everywhere we go. He a runt. Big kids like to pick on him.
    Ricky in first grade. He in special ed. But he way smarter than the other special ed kids. He told me. And Ricky don’t lie to me. I’m in second grade. I wait for him outside his room. I like being his big brother. I’m tall for my age: seven and a half. Everybody always saying it: “Luther, you tall for your age, son.”
    We standing with a whole lotta other kids but we can’t move till Grandma’s car is right in front of us. I hope she take us to McDonald’s drive-up window so we can get some McNuggets and I hope we get to spend more nights at her house, ’cause me and Ricky don’t wanna go home today or tomorrow, ’cause we don’t like where we live and we don’t gotta sleep together on the let-out couch and Grandma is nice to us and she don’t call us names or say get out of my face can’t you see I’m busy and don’t no strange men knock on the front door and walk past us without saying hi and just go in our mama’s room and close the door. And don’t nobody bam on the door and wake us up and say: “Yo mama at home? She owe me some goddamn money.” And I ain’t gotta lie through the door and say, “She ain’t home and I don’t know where she at,” even though she be down the hall hiding in Twinkle’s apartment.
    I wave to Grandma since she getting closer. Ricky start waving too. He a copycat. Try to do everything I do but he can’t do everything I do. He can’t spell and he can’t add or subtract and he can’t make a basket. He a runt. He have to take medicine ’cause our mama had drugs inside her body when he was born. I don’t.
    One thang I do know, when I grow up, I ain’t doing no kinda drugs. None. I don’t care if they free. And I will kick Ricky’s ass if he ever try any. We don’t wanna be drug addicts. We don’t wanna live in the projects, either. I’m going to college so I can be somebody when I grow up, even though I know I’m somebody now. That’s what our grandma always be telling us, which is why she always be trying to stop us from talking like we do. She be making us repeat stuff over and over even though she know what we saying. “It’ll all pay off, boys,” is what she always be saying whenever she take us places. I don’t know what she mean by that, but I just know it’s good.
    Anyway, don’t nobody hardly believe me and Ricky is brothers, ’cause we don’t look nothing like each other. I think it’s cool. We don’t know who our daddy is and I really don’t care. Plus half the kids in this school and in the building where we live don’t know who they daddy is either. Whoever he is, I think he got a lotta nerve not showing up for our birthday and Christmas. If I ever meet him, I’m gonna tell him he can kiss our ass.
    We used to have a little sister but her daddy came and got her to live with him when she only had six teeth. She should have a mouthful now. I wonder where she at. I wonder who her new mama is. I wonder if she remember me and Ricky. I wonder if she got her own bed. I don’t know if I really care or if I’m just wondering. I think she