The Man April 21, 1998, my mother gave birth to a newborn girl that she named Alishai Dominique Bryan. I was loved by the most important person in my life and that was enough for me at the time. It was only three months later that I was hospitalized for a fever that showed no signs of declining. My mother was frantically pacing the room back and forth with worry on her chest. The door to my hospital room swung open, and in walks the man with the hood. He peered down at my baby body, not wanting to stay long. He then turned and left, not uttering a word. That was my first encounter with the man, not that I remember it at all. My mom was raising me all alone, while simultaneously earning a medical degree at Florida State
