I had seen her walking through the hallways of our high school pulling a wheeled briefcase behind her. She looked like the kind of person you’d want to hug. Not skin and bones where you feel like you might break the person if you squeezed too hard, but round and fleshy with broad shoulders. She wasn’t very tall, but she held her head high, and her hair added a couple of inches. She had it pulled back from her face in a bun that sat at the top of her head, near the back. The bun fluffed out into an Afro puff.
You could tell she worked hard, because she had small bags under her eyes from being under-slept. Sometimes, her rich, caramel skin looked a little too pale in pallor. Other days, she must have gotten a few hours of extra shut eye, because her eyes would shine more brightly, and her skin would glow. I didn’t know why she came to the school once a week and sat in the commons area where we had lunch, study hall, and even where the show choir put on their performances. She was always talking to students during my study hall at a table she claimed as her own.
[For more of this story, written by Deborah Foster, go to https://medium.com/@dmegivern/when-your-real-mother-is-broken-you-re-damn-lucky-to-get-a-second-chance-4de3d04ecd23#.4upza44nh]
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