She lights up a hand rolled cigarette. “Did you go to church like a good boy in your good clothes? Did you sit in the pews and fold your hands and listen to the choir?”
I smile respectfully, “Yes, I did.”
 She laughs her throaty laugh. Her wonderfully rough and razored laugh that I live for. Why? Who knows. Why? Who cares?
 ”You say that, boy, like it’s a good thing.”
 ”It is a good thing. The church is clean and glistening and sparkling. And there’s a brilliant cross–”
 ”–Behind the preacher’s head. Yeah, I know! You think I don’t know?”
 ”Oh sorry.”
 I bow my head in shame because she had sat in the same pew fifteen years ago in that same spot. Before I was even born.
 ”Hey, man, I sat in that same pew in that same spot fifteen years ago, akay? So don’t be sitting there in your fancy little suit telling me about the shiny sparkly cross. I had to stare at that damn thing every Sunday for the first fifteen years of my life. It was torture! Even if we were sick! Even if that old bastard had beaten my mother to a bloody pulp she’d strap on her trusty scarf and sunglasses and sit in that pew like nothing else on earth pleased her.”
 I sigh and look toward the wind. My eyes water. “He’s doesn’t do that anymore, you know? He doesn’t hit Grandma. He’s better now.”
 ”Oh yeah? Well, good for him. And where does that leave me?”
 And I’m left watching people come and go.
 ”Hey,” She nudges me and I turn to see an apologetic smile. “Hey, I’m sorry.”
In that doorway in the middle of downtown is a historic place. This is where I first laid eyes on my mother. And when I tell you this story it’s funny, because I always wonder if it really was the first time. She said she had had me in the darkest, most-echoing alley she could find. She said it was so her parents, my grandparents, could hear her lonely screams and realize what they had done. But those screams must have blown away in the wind because when she slumped, half collapsed, on the doorstep to my grandparents home my grandfather snatched me up and slammed the door in her face. That was the last time my mother had ever seen them. And it makes me wonder who had heard those screams, who those screams still haunt to this day.
 But see this is where it’s funny. I say I first saw my mom in the doorway but that night in the dark echoing alley did a sliver of light shine down on us enough to exchange a glance before she bundled me up in an old coat and cried while I drifted softly to sleep. I’m always afraid to ask. Always afraid the answer would ruin the magic of the mystery. My own little secret. She probably wouldn’t have remembered anyway.
 ”I understand. What they did… how they treated you is horrible but let’s lay out the cold hard facts here; they treat me good. Three square meals a day, firm in just the right moments, soft as they could in the others. Heck, they even gave me The Talk.”
 She looks up at me in amazement, “They did? Birds and the bees and everything? Wow.” She looks at her lap in bemusement while I nod slowly and smirk. “I can just see dad with his hand on his knee saying, ‘Son, girls have vaginas. And vaginas are always bad unless your married. And if you ever even see one before that you’ll die the worst possible death.’”
 ”You do the face perfectly.”
 ”Thank you. Had to look at it for fifteen years.”
 ”They told me they wanted me to wait. That I wasn’t mentally mature enough to handle sex… or it’s consequences.”
 ”Oh, Jesus.” She finishes her first cigarette and starts on another. “He should have just said, ‘Don’t have sex or you’ll end up like your mother.’ ‘Course he’dda never called me your mother.”
 ”You get on his case but you have your own rants. You get going all the time about how you had to endure fifteen years of torture so who am I to go tell you about your parents? It’s almost as bad as the Walking Ten Miles Through the Snow To Get To School routine.”
 She laughs hoarsely. And I smile and shiver with pleasure at the sound. At her approval. Just because my mother sleeps in a doorway and occasionally gets her lunch out of the garbage doesn’t mean I can’t still strive for her approval.
 She looks off into the streets of downtown Grand Rapids. “I wouldn’t have been able to give you the life you deserved. I’ll give them that. I wouldn’t have changed a single moment fifteen years ago when I crawled up that doorstep and pathetically rang the bell. But don’t think I didn’t love you with every bit of my heart that night. Don’t think I ever stopped thinking about you. For six years I wondered if every little boy that passed was you. Even if the ages didn’t add up I didn’t care…” She looks at me and the tears glisten on her lashes. “I wish I could have given you the world, Walker.”
I almost reach out to wipe the tears but I know my mother better. Instead I let her speak.
 ”You were so perfect. And after six years of wondering I knew. If I’d only known that when my baby boy came along I’d know exactly who he was I wouldn’t have spent all those years wondering but simply waiting.”
I remember the day exactly. Grandmotherand Grandfather took me to get an ice cream cone and I absolutely begged them to have a walk around.
 ”No, Walker.” Grandmother had said. “Downtown is filthy and full of homeless people and muggers.”
 ”But ,Grandmother, my legs need stretchin’ and I wanna walk around while I eat my ice cream.”
 She looked around warily, “Well, alright but only for a little while.”
 And now I get it. The wary looks, the sparse trips downtown. They were keeping me from my mother. They said it was unsafe but they took trips down there to visit friends. They’d always leave me with the baby sitter and the only sweet sights of downtown I got were from a car window on the way to the ice cream shop. Even Grandfather couldn’t resist the ice cream.
 I tripped along the bumpy sidewalks with an ice cream dripping down my hand, my shoelaces flying behind me, my eyes full of the hope and innocence of the young. Thank God I hadn’t stopped to tie my laces even though Grandmother had yelled for me too. Did I know as well as my grandparents that my mother was somewhere around. It must be why I was so drawn to downtown. Not just the beautiful paintings on the sides of building or the celebrations or just the daily hustle and bustle but it was because that’s where it all began. That’s where my heart was, that’s where my mother was. I was born in the heart of it. And I took that heart with me. Back to the suburbs.
 But it was destined to happen! It had to be. I always listened to my grandmother so why on that day did I choose not to? Why on that spot did my shoelaces choose to trip me? Why, when my hands began to sting along with my eyes and the tears threatened to fall, did a caring hand dare to reach out and caress my back. The hand of a concerned mother.
 When I turned around there she was. Dirtier than all hell but stank to high heavens and I loved her for it. This woman and me shared a connection, the bond between mother and son that can never be broken.
 ”Yeah I remember, Ma. I remember your face that day.” I chuckle. “Bewildered with dirty streaks down your face.”
 ”Yeah, that’s before I became a clean bum and started washing in the sinks at McDonald’s. That’s where all the classy, cream of the crop bums go.”
 ”Say what you will about you back then but I’d have stayed down on that ground; hands stinging, smelling your sweet stink, and looking at your dirty face forever if Grandmother hadn’t come and gotten me.”
 ”It’s funny how you never saw me and I never saw you and I knew who you were and you knew who I was but my mother didn’t. She saw me and all she said was ‘Filthy homeless rag.’ Ha, those were her last words to me. I’m hoping she’ll take those to the grave with her.”
 I silently stroke my mothers matted hair, “I think she did know who you were.”
 ”Nah.”
 ”I think she knew you were still there, downtown where you always were.”
 ”Nah, I’m sure she thought I’d split as soon as I dumped my baby off and went out across the country to make more.”
 ”You didn’t dump me off, Ma.”
 ”I know, baby. But that’s how she saw it. And I’m sure no matter what anybody says she’d believe that no matter what.”
 ”She never let me go downtown.”
 ”Because of all the bums and debauchery at every turn.” She doesn’t ask it as a question, but more of a fact.
 ”No, because she knew you were still here.”
 ”Get real.”
 ”A mother and her child are always connected. She knew where you were. She knew you’d stay. She knew you wouldn’t just dump me off and then hit the road. She knew you’d stick around and look for me. She knew if she came down here she’d have to run into you. That’s why we never came down here.”
 Ma falls back onto her elbows and looks sceptical then interlocks her hands behind her head and looks at the sky with her head out of her doorway.
 ”Ma?”
 ”Yeah, Baby?”
 ”Did we… meet when I was born.”
 ”Well, it’s kind of hard not to meet someone who’s just ripped through your internal organs.”
 ”No… I mean did we look into each others eyes and just sit and stare.”
 She looks back up at the sky outside the doorway looking like she wants to float up and touch it, and stays quiet for a moment. Then she says, “Your eyes were just as bright a blue that night in the alley as they are now. Some people lose that bright eyed innocence but you never did. Keep that, Walker. It’s precious.”
 With all the confirmation I needed I lean back and watch the sky, wanting to float up with my Ma and touch it while we look over this earth of ours.