Seven years. That’s the amount of time Inez had played mother to me. From the time I was born until third grade, Inez was just Nene’s daughter. The pretty lady who smelled like honeysuckle and wore slingback heels, who came around on the weekends to drink beer with my cousin Fatty. Then Nene’s glaucoma worsened and she fell and fractured her hip. Two days later she was declared legally blind. A week after her prognosis, I could tell that something was wrong by the way Nene’s bottom lip quivered as she crushed me to her breasts. “If I could keep you, sweetness, you know I would. But Nene’s
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