She heard Ms. Watter’s voice and thought move, Lexi, but she couldn’t do it. She looked up at the woman who had been the only steady presence in her life for the last six years. Every time a foster family had given up on Lexi, returned her like a piece of fruit gone bad, Ms. Watters had been there, waiting with a sad little smile. It wasn’t much to return to, maybe, but it was all Lexi knew, and suddenly she was afraid to lose even that small familiarity.

“What if she doesn’t come?” Lexi asked.

Ms. Watters held out her hand, with its veiny, twiglike fingers and big knuckles. “She will.”

Lexi took a deep breath. She could do this. Of course she could. She had moved into seven foster homes in the past five years, and gone to six different schools in the same amount of time. She could handle this.

She reached out for Ms. Watters’s hand. They walked single file down the narrow bus aisle, bumping the cushioned seats on either side of them.

Off the bus, Lexi retrieved her banged-up red suitcase, which was almost too heavy to carry, filled as it was with the only things that really mattered to her: books. She dragged it to the very edge of the sidewalk and stood there, perched at the rim of the curb. It felt like a dangerous drop off, that little cliff of concrete. One wrong step could break a bone or send her headlong into traffic.

Ms. Watters came up beside Lexi, opening an umbrella. The rain made a thumping sound on the stretched nylon.

One by one, the other passengers disembarked from the bus and disappeared.

Lexi looked at the empty parking lot and wanted to cry. How many times had she been in exactly this position? Every time Momma dried out, she came back for her daughter. Give me another chance, baby girl. Tell the nice judge here you love me. I’ll be better this time…I won’t forget about you no more. And every time, Lexi waited. “She probably changed her mind.”

“That won’t happen, Lexi.”

“It could.”

“You have family, Lexi,” Ms. Watters repeated the terrifying words and Lexi slipped; hope tiptoed in.

“Family.” She dared to test out the unfamiliar word. It melted on her tongue like candy, leaving sweetness behind.

A banged-up blue Ford Fairlane pulled up in front of them and parked. The car was dented along the fender and underlined in rust. Duct tape crisscrossed a cracked window.

The driver’s door opened slowly and a woman emerged. She was short and gray-haired, with watery brown eyes and the kind of diamond-patterned skin that came with heavy smoking. Amazingly, she looked familiar—like an older, wrinkled version of Momma. At that, the impossible word came back to Lexi, swollen now with meaning. Family.

“Alexa?” the woman said in a scratchy voice.