Parents' Guide to Onyx & Beyond

ONYX & BEYOND begins with a brief flashback to April 5, 1968, the day after Martin Luther King was assassinated. What Onyx remembers most about that day is not the fires in Washington, D.C., that made it seem as if the world was burning, but that his mother got lost on the short drive home to Alexandria, Virginia, because she "misplaced" road signs. Two years later, 12-year-old Onyx is now the sole caregiver for his mother, who has lost her job because of early-onset dementia. His beloved Gran has passed away, and it's now Onyx who shops for groceries, does the laundry, and earns extra money sweeping up at a local barbershop. He's desperate to become a "Superhero boy named Smoke" who can find a way to collect all his mother's memories and keep them safe in her head. But until he can find a way, he's decided to keep his mother's struggles a secret. Although he takes a bus every Friday to see his father (Pops), who lives and works in Washington, D.C., he never reveals his secret to Pops, his Grandma Emma, or his cousins. When a letter arrives announcing that social services will be coming in two weeks to do a "wellness check," Onyx knows that time is running out. He remembers the stories his Gran told him about how Africans on slave ships bound for America prayed to their ancestors, jumped out of the ships, grew wings, and flew back to their homes in Africa. So Onyx decides to build his own wings. Wings that could make a miracle happen for his mother. "If I can believe hard enough like the Black people who grew wings and flew, if I can imagine hard enough, it will work."