Yvonne said, “Okay.” And she hung up.

Jaylen doesn’t know he has a grandmother on my side. He’s never asked. He knows Aunt Yvonne. He knows Sheila, who I found on Facebook three years ago and who now comes to Jaylen’s birthday parties and who I send a Christmas card to every year.

He has a family. It’s small and it’s stitched together from strangers and coworkers and a nurse who heard me through a wall, but it’s his.

My mother never met him. She never called. She never sent a card. She never sent a dollar. She threw me out at eight months pregnant and she closed the screen door and she went to church that Sunday and she told the women’s group I had “left voluntarily.”

I know this because Aunt Yvonne told me. Voluntarily. Like I chose the Walmart parking lot over her guest room.

People have told me I should go see her. “She’s your mother.” “She’s dying.” “You’ll regret it.” Maybe. Maybe I will. But right now I’m in my kitchen and Jaylen is in his room drawing a T-Rex and the apartment is warm and the lights are on and nobody is calling me a disgrace.

That’s enough. For right now, that’s enough.

It’s Tuesday. I’m making his lunch. PB&J. Goldfish crackers. Apple juice box. Same as last week. Same as next week.

We show up every day. Both of us. That’s more than she ever did.

Would you let her meet your child? Some of you will say yes. Some of you will say never. I need to hear it either way.