My mama Francine was a beautiful woman, and she was smart. When I was a kid, she worked three jobs and went to school. We used to do our homework together, and she would cook hamburgers while she was reading Shakespeare and Pythagoras.

"Baby," she would say, "education is everything. I don't care what grades you get. I just care that you try." Turns out, we both got a lot of As. I went to her university graduation, and they let me wear a miniature cap and gown and walk the stage with her. Everybody liked her. It's just how she was.

She didn't walk the stage with me when I graduated, but I would have been happy if she had. She was sitting on the front row in my high school auditorium, grinning her head off. "Wally," she said, when I came down and handed her my cap—a full-sized one this time—"you're everything I ever hoped you would be." I felt so proud I almost couldn't take it.

Mama knew she was sick by then. She didn't know how bad it was yet, but I think she had a feeling. She didn't tell me because she wanted me to go on to college, but I found some of her pills, and I made her tell me. She'd already lost weight, and she was smaller than I'd ever seen her, which was saying a lot because she was always slight—like something I needed to protect, even though she was tougher than steel.

"Baby," she finally admitted, "I'm not well." That was the first time I heard the whole story. She could hardly look at me when she explained that back a while, before I was born, she'd been an addict. a hardcore one who went to rehab after rehab.

"I never told you because I was too ashamed."

"Mama," I answered, "I'm just proud. You went through that and became who you are. I'm just proud."

She cried, and I hugged her frail body tight, and I didn't accept any of the offers I got for college scholarships that spring. I stayed home, and I worked, and I drove Mama to her job at the addiction counseling center where she'd helped hundreds of people change their lives the way somebody had helped her.

Pretty soon, it was clear she wasn't getting better. She had to stop working, and she had doctor's appointments once and month and then once a week. She didn't like to talk about it a lot, but I knew we wouldn't be able to afford it much longer.

So I lied. I lied to the most beautiful woman in the world, and I told her I'd gotten a second job. The truth is, I was street racing, and I was good at it. Sometimes I made thousands in a night, when a good audience came out. I hid the money so she wouldn't figure it out, but I paid for all of her medical bills.

She said I was an angel for working so hard. I felt bad, but what was I supposed to do? She was dying, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. All I could do was make sure she had the best of everything, to make sure she would never have to suffer.

When she had bad days, I carried her to the bathroom and to bed and to the sofa, so she could read by the light of the living room lamp and look out the window. I quit my regular job and told her I was working nights. By then, we could survive on what I made racing.

They gave her a new medicine that made her a little bit better for a while, but by then they were talking about her life in terms of months, not years. She told me she wanted to go to Central City, and I couldn't come with her. "Why are you being like this, Mama?" I asked. I wanted to go, but she said she had to do it alone, to take care of things that had to do with her life before—before me, before sobriety, before she was the woman I knew.

She didn't come back for a few weeks. I called her every day to see how she was, to make sure she was taking her medicine, just to hear her voice. She wouldn't tell me what she was doing. Finally, when she came home, I picked her up at the airport, and she looked so tired and tiny that I almost cried. I hugged her as tight as I could, but I was afraid of hurting her.

"I have to tell you some things, Baby," she said. That night, she was too tired to talk, so I fed her some soup and tucked her into bed and gave her her sleeping medicine. Like always, I went to the races. It was the best I'd ever done. I made $5,000 in two hours. It was like all of my sadness and worry had become anger that fueled me and made me faster. I drove for my mama, though she didn't know it.

The next morning, we ate breakfast together, and I sat on the couch beside her with a bowl of cereal. "Wally," she said, "it's not going to be long before I have to go into the hospital. I think you know that. I didn't want to tell you what I was doing in Central City in case it didn't work out. I went to find your dad and your sister."

Dad. Sister. I'd always wanted to have a dad. What kid doesn't, who hasn't had one? Mama hadn't talked about him much, other than to say he was out of her life before I was born. She'd never said anything bad about him, but she hadn't said anything good, either. As a kid, I'd spent hours imagining he was somebody cool, like a spy or a fireman. Once she'd finally told me about her past, I'd assumed he was part of her bad times, probably a drug addict like she'd been.

"My dad?" I'd long ago given up on ever knowing him, and I wasn't sure I even wanted to any more.

"His name is Joe West," she said. "He's a police detective, and he's the most decent man I've ever known." My mind started spinning around in circles. You might think I'd be angry at her for not telling me. If he was such a great guy, why couldn't I know about him? But I was just surprised. "I'm sorry—I waited until now to tell you," she continued. "He and Iris, they were part of my other life, and I didn't know how to explain it."

"It's ok," I said quickly, not wanting her to get upset, "you had your reasons."

That's what I told myself. She was my mama. Of course she had her reasons. Good ones. Besides, no matter what she said, how good of a guy could he be if he was a police detective who lost his wife and never found her?

I didn't know him, but Joe West was a good target for my anger, so I turned it all that direction. And I had a lot of anger. I was watching my mother die, I had a family I'd never known about, and I had no idea if I'd ever be able to go back to school and finish my education to become the man my mama had always hoped I'd be.

She let me think about things for a couple of days. I was helping her wash her hair when she brought it up again. "Son, when it comes time for me to go to the hospital, I want to go into the one in Central City, near your dad and your sister Iris."

"Why?" I asked. "Your doctors here are great."

She shook her head. "You do what I tell you, Wally West. Before I go, I want to know that you know your family. I can't leave until I give you to Joe."

Give you to Joe. I didn't argue with her; I was determined to never really argue with her about anything ever again; her time was too short. But I seethed inside. Who said I needed her to give me to anybody? Hadn't I been taking care of her for months, all by myself? I was a man, for heaven's sake. I'd gotten by that long without a dad or a sibling. I couldn't understand why she wouldn't just let us be together to the end.

"Baby." She could tell I wasn't happy, even though I tried to hide it. "Joe is—he's not like other people. He's the best person I've ever known in my entire life. And your sister Iris is beautiful and kind and smart, just like him. I didn't have any right to push myself back into their lives after all this time, but they met with me, and they listened to me. I want you to know them. I want them to take care of you when I'm gone."

I bit back the urge to tell her that I didn't need anyone to take care of me and finished rinsing her hair. Two weeks later, I found myself checking her into long-term stay in the McGregor's unit at the Central City General Hospital.