The young apprentice

Separated but United

Kim Yarboro has found a licensed clinical social worker to help Marcus if there is a divorce. "When parents fall apart," said the counselor, Marvin Sessions, "that child falls apart, too."

It's partly for that reason that Kim took in her 16-year-old nephew from Columbus last month. He had come for summer visits before but now is staying, she said. She does not want to lose him. Two of her husband's nephews have been shot in recent years. One died in a shooting that was ruled an accident; the other, who served time for a drug offense, was shot five times and survived.

The tragedies are reminders to Kim of why Marcus must not grow up, like so many black boys, without his father. She takes comfort in the pledge she and Mark have made to keep their focus on Marcus.

They attend every event at school and at their church, First Mount Zion Baptist in Dumfries. Mark is at the house every weekend, and the family continues to take trips together. It's not easy. Conversations on the phone, and in person, are sometimes stilted. There are more unilateral decisions. Kim's parents divorced when she was a teenager; Mark's 15 years ago.

"We try to operate in the best interest of the only person that matters at this point," Kim said of herself and Mark. "If someone is affecting him inappropriately, then Mark and I need to change whatever it is. . . .

"[The separation] is only hard if I think about me."

* * *

Slipping Influence

Turtles are everywhere. Marcus has dozens of them -- plastic ones, plush ones, ceramic models. He even had a turtle-shaped Easter basket. He thinks when he grows up he might like to become an "animal doctor."

Marcus loves fast-paced video games, but he is still a boy who sleeps with the covers over his head and climbs in bed next to his mother during storms.

It's the shell that fascinates him, the way the turtle lives with armor on its back.

"If you have a good defense system, that means they can't get in your house and kill or hurt you."

Life in his own house is different now.

He is up at 5:30 a.m. on school days and dresses as his mother makes breakfast. He used to make his bed every morning, too -- one of his father's rules -- but now he doesn't bother with the bed until weekends. His dad doesn't call those shots anymore. And he's not around to drive him to school in the mornings, when it would be just the two of them talking or listening to music.

Mark is living in a condominium he owns near his job at Fort Belvoir.

Once the Yarboros decided to separate, they sat Marcus down to tell him that mommy and daddy were taking a break. They told him that it wasn't a secret, that he shouldn't feel bad about it and that they both loved him. Still, it's not a subject he talks about much.

"I do want my dad to still live here," Marcus responded one day when asked, then paused.

One good thing, though, is that his father's ban on sci-fi movies is no longer in effect. "I don't have to put up with that anymore," he said.

He said this plainly, as simple fact. His father was there, and now he is not.

Mark can already feel the slippage and knows that teaching his son to be a man is more difficult when he is no longer at home every day. He replays moments again and again.

Recently he was back at the house with Marcus and told his son to hurry along.

"All right, I said I was going to do it," Marcus snapped.

Once, that kind of comment might have gotten him a spanking. But Mark is especially careful now with disciplining his son, even when Kim asks him to.

"I don't want it to be a situation where every time dad is here, he's yelling."

* * *

Joy Leavened With Worry

"Go, Marcus!" Kim yelled from the front row as Marcus did his best to break-dance during a performance with other boys. They had spent months preparing to be escorts for the Little Miss Crimson and Cream pageant. They had walked the little girls in their white dresses across the stage and bowed. And now it was their turn to show off, nearly 20 little boys moving to the crowd's shouts and cheers.

Marcus was on the floor twirling around in that black tux.

Mark was at the back of the auditorium with the video recorder.

Waiting at home was the Italian cream cheese "celebration cake" that Kim makes for special occasions, a tradition started when Marcus was a year old. Her mother, in from Columbus, had also helped to prepare ribs, green beans and sweet-potato pie.

"Did you see my pose?" Marcus asked his mom after the performance. Then he dashed off to play with the action figures he and the other boys had received as gifts.

Every so often, his parents scanned the room to make sure he hadn't strayed.

Even on days like this, the easy ones, Mark can't help but wonder about the moment when Marcus will realize that there's something different about the way a black man has to walk in the world.

"I call it his day of reckoning," he said. "I don't know when it's coming, but it's coming. I want him to be ready."

Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.

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