Shamar’s Thirteenth Birthday

Shaktiki Sharma provided this thought-provoking picture for this week’s 100 word Friday Fictioneer prompt. And, as always, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields posted it for our merry band. Thanks to you both.

Mind whirring, Shamar jangled two quarters,
bus money Mama handed him saying,
“Don’t come back ’til 3:00. Need me some time.”
“I’m a man now,” Shamar thought, stepping aboard the bus
from N.Y. to Chicago.
“She won’t never see me again.”

“5:00! Where is that child?”
Tanisha asked the current man in her life.
He shrugged.
Balloons hung everywhere.
A HAPPY BIRTHDAY banner snapped on the lawn.
Tanisha drifted to Shamar’s room
doing the same thing,
hoping for a different result.

And for the first time, she saw the note.
“Take this $100 and get the hell out.
Your mama don’t need you no more.”

(102 words)