I’ve never had a real winter coat, and only hats and gloves for fun. We never needed much more than a heavy sweater in Louisiana. After digging through two tall boxes, I find a red wool coat with a hood and pockets. “It’s perfect,” Mama says. “The red shows off your pretty blond hair and green eyes.” Describing my hair as blond is a bit of a stretch—it’s more light brown—but that’s okay. My eyes are, for a fact, green.

After we’ve gotten our coats, hats, and gloves, Daddy says we should walk around and “get the lay of the land.” He said this same thing in Tallahassee, where his buddy Jim had promised him a job; in Baton Rouge, when we stayed with Mama’s cousin; and in Abilene, Texas, where our car broke down. For good. And where Dylan landed in the emergency room with bad asthma, which used up almost all our money.

The wind blows hard and cold. I pull my hood up and take the gloves out of my coat pocket. A little slip of paper flutters to the sidewalk. I pick it up. It’s from a fortune cookie. It says “The stranger you will meet will become your friend.” I snort. I show it to Mama. “Everybody here is a stranger,” I say. Back home, between school and my Firefly Girls troop, I had lots of friends. And the town was so small, there were hardly any strangers.

“Yes, but every stranger you meet is a friend in disguise,” she says, looping her arm through mine and bumping me with her hip.

We stand in line again, waiting, for the Sixth Street Community Kitchen to open. At least Daddy gets to go inside and eat with us. Mama’s talking with a woman behind us who has a little baby with a runny nose. Daddy’s frowning at the Help Wanted ads in the newspaper. Dylan is just about worn completely out, so I keep him close to me and pull his new hat down over his ears.

There are lots of people in this line waiting to eat. Some have big packs on their backs, some push shopping carts loaded with all kinds of stuff. There are old people who don’t talk much (unlike the old people back home), and women telling their kids to behave. People talking, some laughing, bare hands rubbing together to keep warm. The wind carries the smell of buttered bread and unwashed clothes.

Other people—people looking like they have somewhere important to go—don’t look at us. They don’t want to get too close, like our situation—standing in a line to eat—might be catching. I shrink inside my coat. I’m glad everybody here is a stranger.

I see the girl with the long black hair from the shelter ahead of us. She smiles and waves.