He reaches out and pulls me to him. “Hey, chicken. You doing okay?”

“I’m okay, Daddy,” I say against his new coat. It already smells like him.

Daddy lifts Dylan up and up onto his shoulders while we wait for the bus. “I can see the whole world!” Dylan sings.

I take off a glove and run my hand over the snow resting on the bench. It’s cold and wet and melts as soon as I touch it. I bring my fingers to my lips to taste the snow.

“Piper,” Daddy says, frowning down at me. He shakes his head. “It’s dirty.”

But how could something so white, so new, be dirty? I take off my other glove and, not looking at him, bury my hand beneath the snow.

We spend all day standing in lines.

Lines at the employment office and lines at the unemployment office.

Dylan ate too many doughnuts at breakfast, so he has the sugar crazies. I about wear myself completely out trying to keep him from turning everything upside down and getting us kicked out.

Then we walk three blocks through the wet, cold snow to wait in another line at the Department of Human Services.

My red high-tops have turned into popsicles. Dylan’s sugar’s worn off and turned him into a screaming, whining meemie. I try my best to distract him with I spy, but it doesn’t work. At all.

By the time we get to the front of the line, most of Mama’s hair has come loose from her braid and Daddy has a twitch in his eyelid.

I am almost asleep on my feet when I hear my mother say in a voice I’ve never heard, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” My eyes pop open.

Mama’s face goes red, then white. She’s quivering all over. I haven’t seen her look like this since Grandma Bess’s funeral.

The woman behind the glass divider taps a sign taped to the window with her red fingernail. “It says right here: children under the age of sixteen must have birth certificates in order to apply for general assistance.”

Mama looks at the woman like she has two heads. Then I see something shift in Mama’s eyes.

“Look,” she says. “I understand the need for the rules, I really do.” Mama leans in closer and puts on her best practical voice. “And I know you’re doing the best job you can”—she glances at the woman’s name tag—“Mrs. Fulton.”

I relax just a little. Mama will get this straightened right out.

“But,” Mama continues, nodding to us, “we’ve never been in this situation before. All we want is for our babies to be safe and warm, with food in their bellies. The last thing on my mind was birth certificates.” She blinks back real tears. “You can understand that, can’t you?”