My father’s been writing me letters from jail. When his letters come in the mail with my name on them, I get excited, but I don’t let my mother see me. She hates him and wants

me to hate him too. She’s never said that, but I know she does. And besides, I should hate him: he doesn’t take care of me or spend time with me. We are poor and he doesn’t help us not be poor.

Sometimes I write him a letter back, and sometimes I don’t. His letters and questions about my life make me feel happy inside. When his letters come I usually lie in my bed, staring at them for a while. Unlike me, he has very nice handwriting, but beyond that, to know that he has touched this piece of paper with his bare hands, and that this piece of paper was sitting right there in his jail cell with him, and that he wrote on it . . . just for me. It makes me feel kinda, good. Makes me feel . . . almost special.

….

Sometimes in his letters he sends me pictures of himself. My half-brother Bryan and I sit on my carpeted bedroom floor staring at one of our father’s pictures. I stare at the picture even longer than I stared at his letter. During the times when my father’s actually out of jail and I see him hanging out in front of my building with all the other men who sell drugs, I can only stare at him for a little while, and when I ask him for money, I usually have my head down.

His pictures allow me to really examine all his body parts, so I can see if they look like mine. I try to figure out if this stranger is really my father.