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"  Mama comes out of the doctor&amp;#039;s office and says, &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re having a baby!&amp;quot; in a whispery sort of scream, right in my eyeballs. We get back into the elevator-with-carpet-on-the-walls-but-not-the-floor then we&amp;#039;re back outside in the sunshine, waiting for the bus. I know there&amp;#039;s no stork and that a baby has to come from a mama and a daddy but mine died two years ago. At the funeral I wore a suit from the Dollar General store and Grandma Lil came and kept calling me Carl though we don&amp;#039;t know any Carls and Mama kept smoothing my head and looking at me with a smile that had a cry behind it. Everybody pinched my cheeks and patted my shoulder like I&amp;#039;d had a recital. At the wake a lady said, &amp;quot;Poor chile, you miss him, don&amp;#039;t you?&amp;quot; and I said, &amp;quot;No, ma&amp;#039;am,&amp;quot; because I didn&amp;#039;t know what she was talking about. Then I ate six whole pieces of cake and no one stopped me. I don&amp;#039;t remember falling asleep but I woke up in Aunt Pam&amp;#039;s bed, next to Mama softly snoring like on long bus rides. Now, on the bud ride home, she says she should have gotten married first, then the baby but that she&amp;#039;ll get married to Gerald, by and by. I look out the window, the stores passing by fast, then faster. I see the black umbrellas and the stiff flowers and the women&amp;#039;s shiny black heels sinking into the grassy mud, the preacher talking to a dirt rectangle. The bus stops, and I see him--Daddy--trying to open an umbrella with the wind always pushing the other way. I don&amp;#039;t know when the rain started, but by the time I understand it&amp;#039;s just some man with an umbrella, I can&amp;#039;t stop bawling\u2014not even when my mother hugs me and promises to let me name the baby, not even when we get off the bus, on our way home to tell the good news. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a2508/esq0207zzpacker/>