Mom was frowning at Dad across the bed. “I think . . . I think what your father means to say is that as much as we’d love to take her in, it just won’t work.” She shook her head. “I want you to know I really am hearing you. I get that this is terrible. And I know why you feel the way you do. I can conjure up that guilt so clearly. How we’ll feel if this all ends badly. Do you think I don’t wake up every day thinking about how we sent him . . . your brother . . . off to camp, when he didn’t want to go?”

“Wait, what?” I said.

“Of course I’d love to just say, well, let’s just ignore everything and take Jasper in and nothing will ever hurt her again!” she went on. “But that’s a solution from a storybook. A happily-ever-after. She’s not a stray kitten, Leah. You can’t adopt a kid, just like that.”

“Why not?”

“Well, because she has her own family,” said Mom. “We can’t know what her sister is feeling right now. She might be panic-stricken. And her mom could be in rehab this minute.”

“Okay fine,” I said. “But what if she isn’t? I mean, her sister is right there down the street in East Lake. Jasper’s been checking in regularly, and nobody even brought her food or anything.”

“Really?” said Mom. She was chewing her lip again. Now she crossed her arms tightly. “That just seems . . . hard to believe.”

“Yeah, well, it’s the truth. So what if her sister doesn’t care? Or what if she cares, but can’t deal with it for . . . other reasons. What if they make her live with her sister’s bad-news husband, and he hits her? Doesn’t that seem likely? What happens then?”

“Then . . . I guess she’ll go into foster care for a few years,” said Mom. “And I know that doesn’t sound ideal, but it doesn’t have to be bad. Look at what happened to Seth Jones, from your class in school—”

“Not ideal?” I said. “How would you feel if I went to foster care?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Dad broke in. “That would never happen. You’d go to your grandparents.”

“So what if her sister says it’s okay?” I asked. “Then can she live here? Can we be her foster family?”

“We have a family, Leah,” said Mom. “We can’t just add a stranger into the mix here. We’re busy and distracted and limited already. The last year has been . . .”

“Horrible!” I said. “It’s been horrible and depressing.”

“Yes,” said Dad. “Exactly. So do you think we’re really equipped to take on an extra kid? Is that fair to Jasper?”

“Fair to Jasper?”

Dad nodded. “Fair to Jasper. To take her in when we’re . . .” He trailed off.