I try not to focus on what happens next for me. There are no transcripts for Ms. Silverthorn to produce, and there never were, so I guess not much has changed, but the illusion of normalcy—going to class, hanging with friends—is gone because I can’t go to class, and two of my four friends are suspended. I have no idea how long Ms. Silverthorn can let me stay with her, and what other choice do I have?

We’re all in her living room, but she’s not here, having returned to campus to meet with Frohmeyer. Leeza is giving Chaz a pep talk about his parents. The reality has sunk in as he thinks about what life will be like in the months between now and the start of college—if they don’t try to stop him from going, that is. Leeza points out that he turns eighteen in a few weeks, so really, they can’t prevent him from attending a school he’s been accepted to. He just has to find a way to pay for the parts his scholarship doesn’t cover. “ ‘Just,’ ” he murmurs.

Ma Elena arrives with trays of Wendy’s: four Frosties and four large fries. I know before she says it that she’s going to call this “The Cure” because she has been calling it that my whole life. You eat your French fries one by one, dipping each in the Frosty as you go. Because I’ve been doing this since before elementary school, it seems perfectly natural, but Chaz and Leeza react like it’s gross and horrifying. All it takes is one sweet and salty bite to convert nonbelievers. I mean, please, chocolatey and fried all at once? It’s a pleasure delivery system. Mom always deploys it when she’s blue or I’ve had a bad day at school. I may even have broken up with a boy or two just to deserve “The Cure.”

Dunking a slender fry into her cup, Leeza asks where we think we’ll be in ten years. Ma Elena is crystal clear: By then, she will be done with nursing school and working. She’ll be married, but she won’t have kids right away, because she wants to travel. (Mom? Travel?) Obviously, she can’t go to Cuba, so maybe Puerto Rico first and then Spain. Chaz says he’s going to be in the Alvin Ailey Dance Company or doing whatever leads up to that. He says he knows he’ll have to work other jobs on the way, so he wants to get a teaching certificate and become a drama coach.