Mom shook her head. “Honey, I know this is hard for you to understand. But sometimes, there are problems that aren’t ours to solve. That are simply too big for us to fix. Sometimes it’s better not to help someone. . . .”

“Better not to help someone?” I repeated slowly. “Is that what you just said?”

Mom frowned and pulled her knees up under the covers, hugged them close. “That isn’t what I meant to say,” she said. “I only meant . . .”

I could feel myself getting upset, but I wanted to stay calm. I wanted them to hear me. “But don’t you get it, Mom? She’s living in an abandoned house with no running water or electricity, because that’s better than home. She has nobody. Truly nobody. Except . . . maybe me.”

“Leah,” said Dad, “I love that you want to help. But you’re a kid. And I think what your mom means is that there are people trained for this kind of thing. There are therapists and social workers. The responsible thing to do is to call those people.”

“I knew you’d say that,” I said. “I just knew you would. That’s the Dad answer. But this time you’re wrong.”

Dad shook his head. “I don’t see what we can do for her. We have no place in this whole mess. We don’t know this girl, this family. We’re strangers, Leah.”

I looked up at my dad then, and I felt . . . disappointed.

“You’re only strangers if you choose to be strangers,” I said. “A few weeks ago, Jasper and I were strangers, and then we chose each other. You can choose too.”

My dad looked at me and held his hands up, as if to show me they were empty.

“This is exactly why Jasper was keeping secrets,” I continued. “This is what she was afraid of. She’d rather be alone in a storm than go wherever we’d send her.”

“Sometimes we have to do things that people don’t like, because it’s what’s best. That’s what it means, to be a grown-up.

I shook my head again. “And when we go to visit her at some group home, or something . . . and if she’s miserable, will you still think it was for the best? Because it’ll be your fault. For sending her away.”

Mom frowned slightly at that. “Even so . . . ,” she said. Then she paused and chewed at her lip. Which meant she was confused.

I watched her closely, and then I just said it. “Jasper should live here. With us.”

“Nope,” said Dad, practically before the words were even out of my mouth. “No way.”

“But why?”

“It’s just not possible,” he said.