On the drive to Hershey, Dasani watches as Route 78 gives way to a country road, cutting through vast fields of corn. I’d be so happy - I’d be so happy to go to school. Then he watched her step away, his eyes wet. He hugged Dasani hard, saying, “I love you,” which he never said. Out on the stoop, standing in the snow, was Dasani’s stepfather, Supreme, a 37-year-old barber. She carried no suitcase, only a stack of family photographs, a bottle of perfume and a small black purse filled with dozens of coins.
To avoid saying goodbye, she distracted Lee-Lee with the cartoon show “Peg + Cat,” slipping away before the toddler noticed. She was her mother’s firstborn but acted more like a parent with her tight-knit flock of siblings, who spanned the ages of 2 to 12 - her “full blood” sister, Avianna, their four half siblings, Maya, Hada, Papa and Lee-Lee, and two stepsiblings, Khaliq and Nana. She had spent her rocky childhood guarding the survival of her siblings, learning to change diapers before she was in kindergarten. “Yet.”Įven Dasani had yet to grasp what her departure would mean. “She don’t understand,” Dasani whispered.
The toddler pushed her tiny nose into Dasani’s face, mumbling “No, no, no, no.” Then she poked Dasani in the eye with a piece of Bazooka bubble gum. “You know Sani leaving, right?” her mother told Baby Lee-Lee that morning.
