“How old is she, your sister, anyway?” I asked.

“Twenty-nine,” said Jasper.

“Wow, that’s old!”

“Yeah, but we have different dads,” said Jasper, as though that explained everything.

“Oh,” I said. “How many kids does she have?”

Jasper took a swig of her root beer. “Two. A girl and a boy. Madison and Connor. And they’re cute, but, wow, are they busy. Lots of work!”

“I bet,” I said.

“Anyway,” said Jasper, “the point is that my sister doesn’t need any more stress right now. She didn’t mind me leaving. She knows I can take care of myself for a while. But I swore I wouldn’t get her into any trouble. And I won’t. Okay? I can’t. If anyone found out, I don’t even know exactly what would happen. Foster care, I guess, for me.”

“Foster care?”

“Maybe. Or some kind of group home. I’m not sure.”

“There’s a boy in my class,” I said. “Seth. And he was in foster care, when we were littler, and then his foster parents adopted him, and they actually seem pretty great. His mom was our room parent last year, and—”

“What’s your point?”

“Oh, I just . . . I don’t know. I thought it might help, to know that it’s not always so bad. Maybe?”

It took her a minute to reply. At first I thought she was mad at me, but when she finally spoke, her voice just sounded sort of quiet. “The truth is, I don’t know what it would be like. My mom made it sound . . . not good. She called it the System. She said I didn’t want to be in the System. That if that happened, I’d be really unhappy, and we’d never be back together.”

“Oh,” I said.

“So maybe you’re right. My mom was unreliable for sure. But whatever the System would be like, I don’t think it would be like . . . this.”

I looked out at the green vines sprawling all over. There was a hummingbird just a few feet away, zipping around. “Yeah,” I said. “I see what you mean.”

“Thanks,” Jasper said, polishing off her soda and setting the bottle down on the step below her.

I wondered again what exactly had happened to make Jasper leave her sister’s house. But I didn’t say anything else. She didn’t want to talk anymore, and I figured we had plenty of time. All the time in the world.

We just sat there together then. Feeling sorry for each other, I guess, and feeling sorry for ourselves, but lucky too. Feeling everything. All the things. Holding on to everything at once.

Then I looked up and realized the sky had pinked up like it does sometimes in the summer, before the sun goes down. I sighed and rose from my step. “Well,” I said. “I should head home, I guess.”