“I’m just saying,” Chalene replies, holding up her hands as if in surrender, though her tone carries no hint of it. “She needs to eat. We’ll get her right. No daughter of mine will be running around looking uncared for. You’ll see. We gotta get that hair done too.” She was referring to the wild freeform locs that have been growing since I was a little girl. Baba preferred my hair like this. Said that combs were a tool of white supremacy or something. I stopped trying to make sense of his rules long ago. I sink further into the booth, the heat of her words brushing against my already frayed
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