Maybe he looked at us in that moment and saw two daughters—his copper pennies—safe, but not safe. Girls. But black girls. And me, tall and skinny and always running and climbing trees and, even at thirteen, still coming home with skinned knees and jammed fingers. Me, who was always begging to have my braid chopped off so I didn’t have to deal with my hair every day, closer to a boy in some ways than a girl. Maybe he looked at me, his youngest copper penny, and thought It could happen like this. Me and Cameron sat there, my love for Daddy blossoming into something deeper, Cameron’s disgust growing fast as a weed. Later that night, I walked into the den to find him holding a picture of himself with the cops in his precinct. “I don’t feel safe anymore,” he said. He put down the picture and left the room. I looked at the picture for a long time after he left. I had known everyone in that picture my whole life. Twenty-two officers, all in blue. Look again, though. Blue and white.
