When Daddy died, I was the one taking care of Octavia and making her peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and pouring her milk after school. And during the first year of Abe’s life, I had to secure a part-time job just so Mama could have enough money for formula and diapers. Whenever I wasn’t working, I’d be watching after him and Octavia while our mother slept or worked part time at a retail store. I was forced to mature, and to this day I don’t feel like I had much of a childhood.
