freeze, stunned to hear him bring up Mom.
“What’s that supposed to mean? What does my mother have to do with this?”
“She got it,” Harris says, not missing a beat. “But you don’t, do you?”
I have no idea what he’s talking about. “Got what?” I ask, already afraid of what he might answer.
Harris stares at me, like I should know.
“How it feels to be trapped. Folks look at you, get all twitchy. They can only see one thing—tomorrow’s loser.” Jesse twirls around Harris, still holding on to his hand. “At first, I thought I was imagining it or going crazy. But she said no, what I was feeling was real. People judge me before they even know me.”
He gives me a long look. “She got it.” Then he storms off the dock, dragging Jesse behind him. I stand there shaking, his words ringing in my ears.
All around me, people are getting ready to board the research float. It seems like only a minute has passed since I arrived at the dock and it seems like a day. Is Harris right? Was that what I was really thinking?
The first time I met Harris, I was probably ten years old, which would have made him about twelve, my age now. Mom had taken me with her to the youth shelter where she volunteered. Mostly she kept her daytime work separate from family. But she’d talk to me and Dad about the kids she worked with at the shelter, helping them with reading and schoolwork, things like that. Once a month she spent the night, supervising any kids who were staying overnight. Kids who got kicked out of their houses or some, like Harris and Jesse, who might need a night away once in a while from a parent on a drinking binge.
It would always be written on our kitchen calendar—the night Mom would be staying at the shelter. She’d lug her sleeping bag and a book to the car, and the next morning when I woke up she’d be back home. I remember always feeling it was as if she’d never really been gone.
I can’t remember why I needed to go with Mom that night—maybe Dad was away on a carpentry job—but what I’ll never forget is the feeling of wanting to be someplace else, anyplace but there at that shelter with those kids who were all so … different.
I walked behind Mom down the steps—the center was in the basement of a church hall. Through the grimy windows I could see a bunch of women and kids spreading out their sleeping bags and milling around. I stopped on the steps and wouldn’t go any further. Mom reached out her hand to me but I wouldn’t take it.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?”
“I don’t want to go in there,” I whined. I stood there and wouldn’t budge.
“Why? It’ll be all right. I’ll be with you.” She peered in through windows that were at waist level. “Harris is here tonight! Remember I told you about him? He’s a real character … you’ll like him.”
“I don’t want to,” I repeated, louder, meaner.
“Can you tell me why?” she asked, still patient.
I desperately wanted to turn and run away. Why didn’t she understand? From inside the room I heard loud laughter and shivered.
“I’m afraid,” I finally whispered.
Mom took a few steps back up the stairs and crouched down so that we were at eye level.
“Marisa,” she said, “you don’t have to be afraid. The people in there are just ordinary people, like you and me. They just haven’t had the best of luck, maybe they made some bad choices. We all do. Now they just need a little extra help and somebody to believe in them is all.” She paused to let her words sink in. “It’s okay to need help, M. What’s not okay is being too afraid to ask for it, or to reject somebody because of it.”
I had no choice. She put her arm around me and together we walked down the steps to spend the night. More than two years later, I’m still standing on those steps, except Mom isn’t here to help. Now all the choices are mine.
Harris and Jesse are already halfway back up the hill, Jesse running fast to keep up. At the top of the street, he turns around for one last look.
“Bye, Reeesa!” he yells down when he sees me watching, and smiles his big, innocent smile.
I sink down onto the grass, feeling like I might cry. Whatever energy I started out with this morning is completely gone now.
I messed up again, didn’t I? First Mom, then Dad. Now Harris.
I’m not even sure I know what I’m fighting for anymore.
CHAPTER 7
Marisa? What’s wrong?” Lena is suddenly at my side.
“Not now….” Sitting on the cold ground, I try to stop my body from shaking. My eyes sting and my chest feels like it will burst. “Just leave me alone.”
“No,” Lena whispers. “I’ve told you a million times. I won’t leave you alone.” She looks around. “Where’s Harris?”
Harris is gone, and he’s right. Mom believed his story. It’s me who doesn’t believe it—his story or hers. Me.
“It doesn’t matter,” I shake my head, “you wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me,” I hear Lena say. She pauses. “This is about your mom, isn’t it? Tell me what happened.”
I shake my head again, but she plops down beside me and waits. This time I know she won’t let me off the hook.
“She left,” I finally say. I can’t look at her, but at least I’ve answered.
“Well, duh, I know that. I’m asking why. C’mon … you’ll feel better if you talk about it.”
“She just left. I don’t know why.”
“Marisa …” Lena sighs, exasperated. “There has to be more to the story than ‘she just left.’ What did she say?”
I shrug and look away, across the bright expanse of the inlet stretching out in front of us, suddenly wondering where Muncher is right now.
“You didn’t ask her?” Lena guesses.
“It … it all happened so fast. One day she was there and then the next she was gone. I mean, I guess she tried to tell me … she wanted to talk the night before she left. And she sent me some letters.…”
“And?” Lena stares at me with wide eyes.
I pause, not understanding.
“Her letters—what did she say in them?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “I never read them.”
“Well, hello!” Lena practically shouts. “That might be a good place to start.”
I
