With that, I slam the office door and slide down to the cool linoleum. I can’t shake this heat, like it’s under my skin. What’s the big deal about the Reverend anyway? Everyone acts like he’s this big celebrity, and I’ve never seen my mom get so girly about someone before. I know what it is. The Reverend is tall, bearded, and strong looking. Just like Dad. It doesn’t matter that he’s losing his hair or has glasses—he’s got authority. A leader. People like him.

That is very unlike Dad.

It bugs me that Mom is being so obvious. It bugs me that the Reverend reminds me of Dad, but a “better Dad,” although that’s not a high bar to jump.

There’s something else. Something about him…I can’t put my finger on.

A fog hovers constantly over my thoughts about the Reverend. As if there’s something about him, just beyond my brain fog, that I’m supposed to understand. The fog feels like amnesia, or a dream—a secret I’m trying to tell myself. My brain knows what it is, but it can only tell me in riddles. What is this secret? There’s something the Reverend and I have in common. Something embarrassing. Something bad. Something neither of us want. My entire being senses our connection, but my brain is being stubborn and won’t tell me the answer.

It’s just on the tip of my tongue.

The frustration is too much sometimes, and I want to cry or yell at somebody, even if they don’t deserve it.

“You see that boy’s face?” I can hear the first secretary talking inside the office. “That cut’s gonna get infected if his mom doesn’t wash it.”

“Trash,” the second woman says, and I press my ear to the door without making a sound. “We’re gonna have no end of trouble with that kid, you wait. And he stank like tuna.”

“Maryann—!” the first woman shrieks, but in a fit of delighted giggles.

“I’m serious, she probably puts a tin of cat giblets on a plate for him and the little monster gobbles it up.” Humiliation finds me as I crouch beside the door. Maryann is more right than she knows: we’ve had the same stinking StarKist dinner every night for over a week. My ribs have grown gills by now.

“That’s not right,” the first woman says. “The father ran off, they don’t have anything—”

“Don’t give me that. How cheap is a jar of peanut butter? I know the type, she just doesn’t give a damn. You said it yourself with that kid’s scab.”

“Oh, kids fall down all the time. She probably can’t keep up with that one.”

“I saw that mother in church. Wanna know what I saw…?”