She dipped her head, ashamed to admit it to Garrison. “He isn’t trying to be mean or anything. He just cares about me. About us.”
Garrison took her hand. “Take a walk with me.” Obediently, she went, enjoying the warmth of his hand on hers, his nearness. “You know, Katie, I liked you from the first time I laid eyes on you in English class.”
“Even though I tried to ignore you?”
“Especially then.” Moonlight lay on the scattered leaves in front of them on the trail. Katie shuffled through the dry foliage, sending the beams off into the shadows. Garrison said, “And when we worked on our paper together, I saw that you were smart. And when I watched you run at track meets, I saw that you were talented.”
“You came to the track meets?”
“Most of them.” Somehow, his admission delighted her. “Anyway,” he continued, “the thing that impressed me most of all is how you kept on going in spite of your heart transplant. Do you know there are people who would have given up all thoughts of a regular life if they’d had to face a transplant?”
“I never wanted to give up my dreams because of my health,” she told Garrison. “In fact, running track again is what helped me recover and recuperate faster.”
“If that’s the way you feel, then what you just told me about being undecided over taking that scholarship doesn’t make any sense.” He stopped walking and turned her by the shoulders and gazed down at her. “You know what you want, Katie. What’s really holding you back?”
“I—I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Is it Josh? Is he stopping you?”
“No.”
She said the word too quickly, and Garrison dug his fingers into her shoulders. “Tell me the truth.”
She didn’t owe him any explanations, but she was desperate to talk out her feelings. “Josh is part of it,” she admitted.
“What’s the other part?”
Moonlight spilled over Garrison’s broad shoulders and she felt the urge to touch it, as one might brush fingers across a glass top. Would the moonlight feel cool, like glass? Or warm from the heat of his body? “I’m scared,” she whispered. “I’m scared of moving so far away from home and my doctors and everything that’s safe.”
Garrison nodded and gently pulled her against his chest. He stroked her hair and ran his fingers down the side of her cheek. “Who wouldn’t be scared? It shows you have good sense.”
She pulled away. “But why should I be? I’ve wanted this all my life. Once, I dreamed of running in the Olympics, and the first step on that road is a successful college running career.”
“The Olympics?” He smiled and stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. “You do dream big, Katie O’Roark.”
“I’ve pretty much given up that part. But the other—running track in college—is still something I want. But what if I get out there and something goes wrong with my heart? It’s Josh’s brother’s heart inside me. And I feel I should do whatever’s necessary to keep it safe.”
Once the words were out, Katie realized that was honestly her deepest fear. Until then, she’d thought that she’d only been afraid for her own safety. “He lost his brother,” she continued. “And if I die, in a sense he’ll lose us both forever.”
“We all have to die, Katie.”
“I know that. But I got a second chance at life. Getting a transplant is an awesome responsibility. I can’t be stupid about it. Or careless.”
Garrison hooked his hands behind her waist and gazed up through the canopy of moon-studded trees. “Josh’s brother was an athlete, wasn’t he?”
“A football player. He died on the field.”
“If he’s up there looking down at you,” he gestured toward the starry sky, “don’t you think he’s pleased knowing another athlete got his heart?”
She followed Garrison’s gaze upward. “I’d like to think so.”
“And if that’s the case, don’t you think he’d want you to carry on with the athletic career he can never have?”
She’d never thought about it that way before. Never imagined what Aaron might have wanted. What dreams he never got to fulfill. “You ask hard questions. Garrison.”
He returned his gaze to her upturned face. “My father always said I had the Gift of Questions.” He chuckled. “Maybe I’ll be a lawyer or something.”
“You’d make a good one.”
He stood there in the moonlight looking down at her face for the longest time. For a moment or two, she thought he might kiss her. She remembered when he’d kissed her at his Christmas party and trembled slightly. But he didn’t kiss her. He unlocked his fingers from behind her waist and stepped backward. “You know, Katie, I’ll be home next summer from college. If you and Josh can’t work things out …” He let his sentence trail.
“You’ll meet smart, beautiful girls at Princeton and forget my name.”
He grinned. “We’ll see.” He jammed his hands into his jacket pockets and she heard him rattle his car keys. “It’s late, and I have a long drive.”
“I thought you said it wasn’t so long.”
“It’s long enough.”
They headed back up the trail toward Jenny House. “I’m glad you came,” she said when they neared the parking lot. “It was nice of you to come out of your way and surprise me.”
“I just knew I wanted to see you again and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to unless I drove up here.” He looked over at the soaring structure that was Jenny House. The windows glowed brightly with lights and kids could be seen in the lobby and on the broad wooden deck. “Nice place,” Garrison said.
“It’s a wonderful place.” Briefly, she told him about Jenny Crawford.
“So she managed to achieve her dream even though she died,” Garrison mused.
“I don’t think it was her dream until she got sick.”
He tipped her chin with his finger. “You think about what we discussed before you go telling that coach ‘no’ to his scholarship offer. And you write me while I’m at Princeton. I’ll leave my address with your parents.”
Katie watched Garrison jog through the parking lot, get into his car, and drive away. She stood watching long after his car was gone, long after his tail-lights had disappeared into the night. A strange and wistful longing filled her. She raised her face upward, closed her eyes, and let the moonlight wash over her skin, like silken water. “So, Aaron,” she asked quietly, “what do you think I should do?”
Thirteen
“IS IT ME, or is Dullas actually trying harder to be a human being?” Katie asked the question after she, Lacey, and Chelsea had wrapped up the work on the play for the day.
Everyone had been given a free time and so the three friends had gone into the snack shop at Jenny House and ordered sodas, ice cream, and french fries. Lacey had carefully allotted herself a diet soda and a small portion of each food. “I think she’s trying harder,” Lacey said between bites. “Just this morning, she asked me if I could help her get a wig.”
“And you said?”
“I told her I’d ask Kimbra.”
“Gosh, Lacey,” Katie declared with an impish grin, “you just might have a career as a social worker ahead of you.”
“Very funny.”
“She is doing better with you,” Chelsea said. “You’ve got to admit that much.”
“I admit nothing. I just don’t put up with any of her meanness. It’s a battle of the wills and mine’s stronger than hers.” Lacey sipped from her straw, set down her glass, and turned to Katie. “So, are we never going to hear who your mysterious visitor was last night?”
“No one special.”
Lacey looked exasperated. “Don’t you know there’s a fine art to fibbing? Your fibs are written all over your face, Katie O’Roark. Like words on a book.”
Katie felt herself blush.
“Maybe she doesn’t want to say,” Chelsea insisted. “She has a right to privacy, you know.”
“Well, excuse me.” Lacey
looked miffed, but Katie appreciated Chelsea’s stance. She honestly wasn’t ready to talk about Garrison’s visit. Mostly because the news would get back to Josh and she wanted to be the one to tell him.
All at once, Latika and Suzanne came running into the snack shop. “Come quick!” Suzanne cried. “Dullas has gone crazy and she’s trashing your room.”
Katie was the first out the door, followed closely by Lacey and Chelsea. The younger girls trailed behind. They bypassed the elevator and raced up the stairwell, where their footsteps made echoing, hollow sounds. When they reached the closed door of Lacey’s room, they stopped. From the other side of the door, Katie heard the sounds of objects hitting the walls and muffled cries. “Maybe we’d better get a staffer,” Katie said.
But Lacey stepped up to the door and grasped the knob. “Not yet. Let me see what’s going on.”
“It could be dangerous.”
“Not much but clothes and books to throw,” Lacey said. Yet her heart pounded anxiously.
“There’re your makeup bottles,” Chelsea said.
“I’ll kill her,” Lacey insisted. She pushed her friends away from the door. “Please, let me try calming her down first. If I scream for help, then go get somebody on staff.”
“I don’t know—”
“She is my responsibility,” Lacey reminded Katie. Swallowing hard, Lacey pushed open the door and stepped inside the room.
It looked in shambles. Clothes were strewn everywhere. Drawers had been pulled to the floor and a bed pillow had been ripped. A flurry of feathers fluttered through the air. Dullas was down on her knees, busily tossing things out of the closet and sobbing. Lacey closed the door behind her and took a deep breath. “You’d better have a good explanation for this one, roomie.”
Dullas stopped mid-sob and rose shakily to her feet. “Go away!”
“I live here, remember?” Lacey gripped the doorknob behind her back, both for support and for the possibility of needing a quick getaway. “If you wanted to rearrange the room, you might have checked with me first.”
Dullas spun. Tears were streaming down her cheeks and she looked terrible. “I—I—” Her voice broke. Suddenly, she ran to Lacey, threw her arms around her, and buried her face in Lacey’s T-shirt.
Stunned by the unexpected move, Lacey stood motionless, then very slowly, she encircled the crying girl with her arms. Minutes passed. Finally, Lacey ran her hand over the top of Dullas’s head in an attempt to soothe her. Dullas’s skin felt smooth and tight, with the softest fringe of downy hair on the back of her skull. “Let’s sit down and talk about it,” Lacey said when Dullas’s sobs tapered off.
Lacey led her to a bed and sat down with her, keeping her arm around her shoulders.
“You two all right?” Katie opened the door and stuck her head inside the room. “It got quiet all of a sudden.”
“We’re fine,” Lacey told her, watching Katie’s eyes grow large at the sight of the damage.
“Should I call for reinforcements?”
“No. Dullas and I are about to talk this out.”
“If you need anything—”
“Everything’s under control.”
Katie shut the door and Dullas looked up at Lacey. “Are you going to have me kicked out?”
Lacey surveyed the wrecked room. She was upset, but realized there had to be an explanation. “My room at home looks like this, and that’s just when I’m getting ready for a date.” She felt amazed at her own ability to remain calm.
Dullas sniffed and Lacey found an overturned box of tissue on the floor and handed several to the girl. “It—it was the letter,” Dullas said.
“What letter?”
Dullas rummaged around through the piles of clothes strewn over the bed and extracted a piece of paper. “It’s from my dad.”
Lacey took the paper. The top bore the letterhead of the state of Florida penal system. The handwriting looked scrawled and disjointed. Lacey squinted to make sense of it.
Dullas snatched it away. “He wrote to say he was denied parole and that it’ll be another couple of years before his chance for one comes up again.” She paused. “And that he thinks it’s best to give me up for adoption.” Dullas muffled a sob. “How do you like that? After three stinking years in foster homes, after thinking that one day he and I might have a home together, he decides to dump me. Just like my mom did.”
Dismayed, Lacey offered, “Well, maybe it’s for the best. I mean, now instead of foster homes, you can get a real home. Adoption isn’t so bad. There’s a girl at my school who’s adopted—”
Dullas exploded. “Get off it! Don’t you know anything? People only want cute little babies. No one wants an ugly thirteen-year-old. Especially a bald one with cancer.”
Lacey had no snappy comeback this time. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Anyhow, HRS was going to stick me in another foster home. So I guess it doesn’t matter anyway if he dumps me.”
“It matters,” Lacey said. “It mattered to me when my parents split up last Christmas. But there wasn’t anything I could do about it either.”
“You still have a home though, don’t you?”
“I live with my mom. Visit with Dad every other weekend or so.”
“At least they care about you. About what happens to you.”
Lacey had to admit that Dullas had a point. No matter how much her parents battled with each other, neither had made her think that she wasn’t important. “Maybe your dad cares about what happens to you too. I mean, it doesn’t seem like there’s too much he can do for you if he’s stuck in jail.”
Dullas’s lower lip trembled. “He doesn’t have to throw me away. Like I was garbage.”
Lacey winced at the pain she saw on Dullas’s face. At the hurt she felt for the girl. “I wish I could make it better,” she said. “But I can’t.”
“Are you mad at me? Are you going to make them send me away?”
“You said you hated it here.”
“It’s not so bad.”
Lacey squeezed Dullas’s thin shoulders tightly. “Welcome to the Jenny House family.” She stood and studied the wrecked room. “You’ve got an hour before dinner. So let’s start cleaning up.”
“You’ll help me?”
“Don’t look so shocked.” Lacey stooped and began to gather up clothing. “I’ve thrown a few temper tantrums myself, and my friends, Katie and Chelsea, stuck by me.”
“Are you saying we’re friends?”
“Well, we haven’t made very good enemies, have we?”
Dullas shook her head. “I really have been trying harder, you know.”
“I know,” Lacey conceded. She hesitated. “We don’t have to clean this up by ourselves, you know. Katie and the others will help if we ask.”
“They hate me.”
“Are you so sure?” Lacey crossed to the door and opened it. There in the hall, sitting cross-legged on the floor were Katie, Chelsea, Suzanne, and Latika. “You all busy?” she asked.
They scrambled to their feet and edged into the room. “Major earthquake,” Suzanne said, looking around.
“Dullas and I need some help getting it back into shape before dinner. Any volunteers?” Lacey eyed each of the girls, all but daring any to refuse.
“I’ll help,” Chelsea said, picking up a drawer.
“Me too.” Katie shuffled through a pile of shoes and started for the closet.
“Thanks,” Dullas mumbled as everyone set to work.
“It’s history,” Lacey said breezily, knowing it wasn’t easy for Dullas to be grateful to anybody. “And you did have the good sense not to smash my things.”
Dullas gave her a tentative look and allowed the smallest bit of humor into her quavering voice as she said, “No way. Not even I’m that brave.”
Fourteen
BY THE NEXT morning, Dullas’s actions were the talk of Jenny House. And Lacey found herself in Mr. Holloway’s office in a meeting with him and Kimbra concerning Dullas.
“Is she dangerous?” Kimbra asked. “We can’t have someone staying who might harm others. Or herself, for that matter.”
“No,” Lacey told the two worried adults. “She’s not dangerous. She got a letter from her dad and it upset her, so she reacted to it.”
“More like overreacted,” Richard Holloway said. “Look, Lacey, you don’t have to stay in the same room with her. We can move her into one of the adults’ rooms and keep her under surveillance. In fact, I’m thinking that perhaps we should go ahead and make arrangements for her to leave as soon as possible.”
“Where would she go? Kimbra said HRS in Florida hasn’t found another foster home for her.”
“She’d be put into a group home until other arrangements could be made,” Kimbra said.
“You mean a place where she lives with a bunch of other girls that nobody wants? Where they keep you under lock and key?”
“It isn’t like a jail. It’s just a temporary place. Until a more suitable home can be found for her.”
“But what if she doesn’t get another home?”
“Then she’d stay in the group house until she’s of legal age.”
“That’s awful,” Lacey cried. “What about the fact that she’s got leukemia? Who’d take care of her?”
“She’d be under constant supervision. She’d go for regular medical checkups and attend school just like any other girl.”
“But it’s not like being in a family,” Lacey said stubbornly. “She needs to be living with a family.”
“A group home may be the best we can do.” Kimbra looked concerned as she attempted to calm Lacey’s fears.
Mr. Holloway interrupted. “As I said, maybe we should start looking for a suitable group environment for her now.”
“I’m telling you, things are okay. She just trashed a room. We all pitched in and put it back into shape. It’s good as new.”
“That’s not the point. We can’t have someone act so violently just because they get some bad news.”
“Bad news!” Lacey jumped to her feet. “An F on a math test is bad news. Dullas got told by her own father that he was giving her away. I’d say she got more than bad news.”