liked to pretend my momma had died when I was young,” Caleb says, his voice wavering. “It was easier than thinking of her alive, all the way across the ocean.” “Why’d you think that?” “Well, there’s something final about death, like there ain’t nothing you can do to turn it around or fix it. Thinking about her being alive just made me feel like I wasn’t good enough to go back to her. Like I wasn’t strong enough to fight off the white folks and swim back to her. Like I was a coward.”
