Free Shadow Baby by Alison McGhee

was the plan. The old man never told me that but still, I know. I believe it to be true.
    But the old man came alone to America.
    You could write a book report about the old man. You could use his real name and the true facts of his life. His life could be a historical biography, like Eli Whitney or Julia Ward Howe. His life could be boiled down to a two-page plot synopsis. You could include his boyhood in a country that doesn’t exist anymore, his coming to America at age seventeen, his job as a metalworker, and how he ended up at Nine Mile Trailer Park in Sterns, New York. You could call the book report
Georg Kominsky: American Immigrant
.
    That’s a book report I would not write.
    I decided to make a show of nonreading solidarity with the old man.
    I cut the labels off all the cans in the can cupboard. When I was done, I had three dozen labelless cans. The big fat ones were plum tomato cans. They stood out. But all the others, the other thirty-one cans, were anonymous. No pictures, no words. No identifying characteristics.
    The cans lined up nicely, stacked one on top of the other, nothing to tell them apart. I was in the dark. Helpless. Nothing I could do would reveal the meaning of these cans other than opening them up.
    Tamar was not pleased.
    “What the hell’s going on here, Miss?” she said when she opened up the can cupboard. Tamar prefers to eat out of cans and jars. She likes food that comes in glass and tin packages. Sometimes she heats them up, sometimes she doesn’t.
    All the nameless cans shone in the overhead light. They were pretty, shining like that. Tamar crossed her arms and leaned against the counter. She had a look in her eyes.
    “For school,” I said. “They’re doing a label drive.”
    She just looked at me.
    “We each have to bring in three dozen labels.”
    She kept on looking.
    “For reading,” I said. “It’s a literacy drive. Literacy is very important.”
    Still looking. She didn’t budge. That’s one of her skills.
    “What’s going on here, Clara?”
    There was nothing I could say that would be true without giving away the old man’s secret.
    “I got going and I couldn’t stop,” I said.
    Still she kept looking at me.
    “Is there something you’re not telling me?” she said.
    “I got going and I couldn’t stop,” I said again. I kept seeing the words in my head:
I got going and I couldn’t stop, I got going and I couldn’t stop, I got going and I couldn’t
—
    “Stop,” I said.
    Tamar was taking all the cans out of the cupboard. She put them in a brown paper Jewell’s Grocery bag and handed them over to me.
    “They’re yours, Clara,” she said. “You can have a mystery food dinner party. I expect replacement cans to be in the can cupboard by Thursday evening.”
    No plan. No instructions. That’s Tamar. She’s a you made your bed, you lie in it kind of person. I watched her fix herself a bowl of Cheerios with a banana and raisins and sugar in it and eat it up. That was her dinner. It looked pretty good.
    • • •
     
    I took the Jewell’s bag of unidentifiable cans down to the old man’s the next night, which was Wednesday, choir practice night. Tamar didn’t say anything when she dropped me off and saw me haul it out of the back seat. Three dozen cans is a lot. Heavy. Awkward. The bag split halfway down to the old man’s house. The lady who lives two trailers down from the old man and wears men’s winter boots pushed her living room curtain aside and watched me pick them up.
    Did she come out to help? No.
    I put a few cans in my jacket pocket and carried as many as I could in my arms and hands. Then I put them all down and put just one large can on top of my head. That’s the way African women carry water, in jugs on top of their head. If they can do it, I can too. I tried walking that way. It’s quite difficult. You can’t look down with your whole head. You have to trust where you’re going. Little steps.
    The old man opened the door for