“But then I realized I wasn’t broken for good. It was like magic. How being with Jasper sort of fixed me. Woke me back up. But it isn’t just me. It’s all of us. It’s like . . . like we were your coffee cup, the four of us, and the cup could hold joy and fun and everything. But when Sam died, that cracked the cup. So now it doesn’t hold anything anymore. We try to put things in it. But everything just . . . dribbles out.”

“Oh, Leah, no,” said Mom. She looked like she might cry too.

I nodded. “Yes! And now Jasper is here, and she’s not taking Sam’s place, exactly. But she’s patching the cup. She’s the glue. I know the crack won’t go away, ever. We can’t pretend the cup wasn’t broken. But we can fill it again. Can’t we?”

“That’s a very wise thing you just said,” said Mom. “A wise thing . . .”

“Well, maybe if I’m so wise, you should listen to me,” I insisted.

Dad took a moment before speaking again. “Leah, even if we wanted to, I don’t know how it would work, legally. We might have to go to court. It’s just not a thing people do, to take in some kid off the street.”

“Then I don’t want to do what people do,” I said. “I want to invent our own way to do things. Maybe she can just have an overnight here, like Tess used to. And then she can have an overnight tomorrow, and the night after that, and the night after that. I bet her sister would let her. It’s better than living on the streets.”

Dad didn’t say anything, and I knew that meant I was right. But Mom sighed. “You’re going to discover, Leah, that the world is full of sad people, sick people, people with problems. You can’t fix everyone. And it isn’t your fault when you can’t.”

“I know that, Mom,” I said. “But I’m not trying to fix Jasper. Aren’t you listening to me? We have a room that is just sitting there, empty. That room hurts. It’s not a memory. It’s a hole. And meanwhile, we have this person who could fill it, a person who’s all alone.”

“It’s true,” said Dad slowly. “That room . . . it’s . . .”

I waited. To see what he’d say. But he only put one hand over his eyes and fell silent again.

“No!” I said. “Stop it! It’s too much. The sadness is too much.” I reached up and pulled his hand down, held it. “No more sadness, not like that. Sam is gone and that room is a dusty, horrible shrine. So why not?” I said. “Why not Jasper?”

Mom was staring at me now. “Leah,” she said. “What happened to your brother—”