Watching my mom hold Jasper, I felt slow soft tears in my eyes. She looked . . . like a mom. My mom. The real one. I had missed her so much. How I had missed her. I wanted to reach out for her myself in that moment, but it wasn’t my turn. Jasper needed her now. I let my tears fall and then wiped their trails away.

Jasper shook her head. She still wasn’t really crying, but her eyes shone too, and her voice was tight when she said, “People . . . say things like that. But it’s just not true.” She took a deep breath. “You can’t help me. There’s no way. If I thought you could, I would let you. I really would. That’s all I want.”

Then there was a sob, a wrenching sharp sound, almost a bark, and Jasper was crying.

Mom was still holding her, but she looked over at me now. I couldn’t tell what she wanted me to say. I couldn’t think of anything to say.

Across the room, Dad had uncrossed his arms. His brow was furrowed, and he strode toward us, to perch on the edge of the coffee table. His voice softened, but the words he spoke were terrible.

“Jasper, let us help you. I don’t want to call the police, but if you don’t tell us what’s going on . . . that’s what I’ll have to do.”

“No!” cried Jasper, through her tears.

“Then talk to us,” said Dad. “Help us understand. We can’t responsibly let you walk out into the street. How old are you, anyway?”

“Fourteen,” said Jasper, sniffling.

“Yeah, see, you’re just a kid. I would never be able to live with myself if I let you go. If you don’t want to call your parents, I’ll be forced to call the police.”

“No,” said Jasper, wiping her tears with her bare arm. “Please? Please don’t do that?”

Everything was happening too fast, and I felt lost in it all. My parents were trying to help, and I knew it, but they didn’t understand. And it was late at night, and they were tired and lost too, and I could see where this would end. It was a bad ending, but there was nothing I could do. Jasper was crying and Mom was crying, and my dad had his head in his hands now. They hadn’t been able to handle the cat box for the last year or the lint trap. They hadn’t been able to carry on a normal conversation, and now they were trying to handle this? They were broken. We were all broken. But somebody had to do something.

I opened my mouth, and when I spoke, it wasn’t to my parents. It was to Jasper.

“That’s it,” I said. “It’s over. You have to tell them. If you don’t, I will.”