From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun by Jacqueline Woodson

Author:Jacqueline Woodson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US

SOUND

It’s raining again. Seems like it’s been raining every day since that day on the beach. That was two weeks ago. Seems like . . . like yesterday.

EC just left. These days she just says, “I’ll be back, later.” Then she is gone. And the sound of the door closing—it’s like the sound of somebody getting punched hard in the stomach—and then the house is empty and airless.

I’m scared the whole world’s going to know. Maybe it already does.

Yesterday, I was shooting hoops by myself, in the empty park, in the rain, not even counting. Listening to the sound of the wet ball hitting the backboard, bouncing down on the wet pavement. And the squishing of my sneakers. All that mattered yesterday was sound, all the different kinds I could make. Sound. Even silence has a sound. It makes me think of how it must be to be dead, in a closed-in, airless, satin-lined coffin with your hands folded across a Bible and a cross on your chest.

Everybody but me and Mama died before I was born. That’s what she tells me. Grandfathers and uncles and aunts, all gone. What if she dies a dyke?

What if a fire happens and all my notebooks burn? Then what will I have? Lots and lots and lots of silence. Nobody knowing that I ever was.

I feel like my heart is broken.

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