Jacqueline Woodson. Riverhead Books. 2019
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Heroin happened to him. Heroin made your daddy king of every party we went to.
He had a place in Philadelphia somewhere. I’d call and call and call and no one answered. Few months later, I was doing some research and decided to see what I could find out about him. Came across a small obit on microfiche. He’d been dead nearly a year by then. Overdose. The end. Felt like movie credits going up a screen. Felt like a heavy curtain come down over me.
But before she left for Oberlin, she watched from her bed as he rose at six every morning, changed Melody’s diaper, brought her to Iris, then showered, shaved, and dressed for work. High school had been all he needed, he told her. “I’m good with a diploma and a job. Plus it’s a Regent’s Diploma so I’m golden.” He’d been so proud of the golden seal attached to his diploma—a symbol of having done well on the exams in the five main subjects. If he had taken the SATs, Iris knew he probably would have scored high enough to get into any school he’d chosen. But he was done. He was good. Some mornings he whistled softly. Iris didn’t understand his happiness. How this was absolutely enough for him.
the Books that Bind 