“I’m expelling her,” the principal said. “Sorry. Ms. Cutter will tutor Jenna at home until a suitable placement can be found.”

Nola returned home the next day, drove out and packed Jenna’s things. The four-year wait for the court hearing was over. Her sister belonged with her, in her apartment. Let Social Services fight her to take Jenna away. She doubted they would, given their workload.

Nola lay in the dark of her bedroom, Jenna next to her, flailing her limbs in her sleep. Nola's eyes were wide open, and she curled away from Jenna’s kicking. Her mind free-associated. One day—not yet—she would write a song about the “one moment.” The one moment of Jenna's accident that froze in time, that she never stopped wishing to turn back, replay and fix, to make right. Then the second “one moment,” in which both their lives had been hurled into orbit. By then, though, Jenna had already been an orphan in practice, if not in fact.

In the gap between the tall Manhattan buildings, a friendly moon hovered low in the sky, large and full, as puckered and uneven as the face of the old man who had died last week. The last of her adult family was gone. The moon sent translucent caresses through the slats of the Venetian blinds, as if the old man were still around, his silence reassuring. Jenna kicked. Nola rose out of bed, went to the next room that served as her study and sat on the window bench, her knees under her chin, rocking herself. Poor, poor Jenna. What could she say to a girl who only wanted to show her ugly side? At the movie that afternoon, when a five-year-old in the next row talked too loud, Jenna had poured her Coke over his head. The theater manager had insisted they leave.

For three weeks now they were living in the spacious apartment Nola had prepared with the hope of satisfying the caseworkers. Their life together, which she had visualized for so long—laughter-filled meals at their kitchen table, Sundays in Central Park—was coming together. For so long she had fantasized about the richness of a mother’s love that she was now filled with knowledge. She acted it out as she tried to infuse Jenna with that kind of caring. At Nola's former city school, many deprived children had coped well. They had played. They had laughed. They had made friends.

Not Jenna. Wade had pulled strings to enroll her in a private school, jumping years ahead on the waiting list. Samples of Jenna's writings had helped convince the principal. But at the gate on the first day, Jenna broke into one of her temper tantrums.

“My scars make me the ugliest thing alive, and everybody will hate me,” she screamed, attracting the attention she claimed to dread.