My stomach drops. She’s never asked me to call her from school. Maybe her test results got mixed up — maybe she’s not actually okay. Fear surges up in me like a geyser, and I’m desperate to know things aren’t as bad as what I’m imagining.

I glance around. The library is as good a place as any to make a call; the halls and certainly the cafeteria will be too loud. When I get my book checked out, I head to the stacks in search of a quiet spot and dial my mom.

“What is it?” I ask as soon as she picks up.

She starts with a great rush, and as she talks, I slide to the floor, utterly unprepared for the bomb she drops.

A bed has opened up at Little Lambs Village.

A bed. It sounds so small and simple. A bed! A piece of furniture. But what “a bed” actually means is the end of life as we all know it. It means shipping Jonah off to a “home,” to be cared for by strangers. A place where he doesn’t know anyone.

Where no one knows him.

Where no one loves him.

My mother sounds borderline hysterical — maybe because it’s such devastating news or maybe because it’s such great news. Maybe both. This is something people wait years, even decades for! Little Lambs Village is one of the best facilities in the state of Oregon! He will have professionals caring for him! He will have activities and friends!

I struggle for words. Jonah had a weekend visit at Little Lambs Village in the spring so they could evaluate him or whatever, but I didn’t expect anything to come of it. “I thought there was a long waiting list,” I finally manage.

My mom says, “There is, but it’s not that simple. They factor things in. My cancer diagnosis . . . We were moved up on the priority list because of that, and the vacancy is in a unit that has kids like Jonah. You know — very high staff ratio. So it’s not right for everyone on the waiting list.”

Yes, it would have to be a high staff ratio. Sometimes three-to-one hasn’t been enough at home.

I hold myself together as my mother finishes explaining about all the things they have to do before he’s admitted a week from Friday. There is really nothing to decide: they might not get an opportunity like this again for years, perhaps many years — even into Jonah’s adulthood. And if something happened to my mom before then . . .

It’s as good as done.

I wish I could say what I’m really feeling: Please don’t give Jonah away. You can’t. You just can’t.

The legacy of being thrown away . . . It’s more terrible than my parents know — or will ever know, because I have never been able to tell them.