They didn’t send him anything. He didn’t ask for anything. But he would have liked to go to his mailbox one day and find the slip that meant he had a package to pick up. One with chocolate and clean socks, like the ones that Gerald got periodically. Or with a brand-new sweater that cost $250 if it cost a dime. Jonah Adams got that. They all seemed to accept it as a matter of course, that your parents might drive you crazy but you would get stuff from them, talk to them once a week, feel a part of the family, even though you weren’t living at home anymore. Just like they all seemed to take it for granted that they deserved to be there, that Chelsea had, in fact, bestowed on them some special characteristic that was theirs and theirs alone. That it wasn’t all just luck.

He was loaded down with these thoughts as he walked out of the dorm one morning. Gerald had just gotten yet another care package (what an expression, “care package”; where was his package of care?), and while he’d generously shared some of his Milky Ways, it didn’t brighten Rashid’s mood any. It was mid-October, and the air had that insistent coolness that tells you winter is not far off, not yet uncomfortable but undeniable. The grass had a dull, brownish cast dimming its lushness, and the trees were bare and angular. A few kids sat on the wall that ringed the main academic building, their puffy coats open, trying not to look cold. The sun was hard on their faces, their bright hair. Rashid felt himself to be some sort of small, dark foreigner, a cabbie, perhaps, an absence in their midst. He wished he had English class before Latin. He liked Ms. Hansen.

It was funny with Mr. Washington. The ease that he had assumed would quickly grow up between them simply hadn’t appeared. Between cross-country and Latin, he saw the man all the time, too. But he didn’t feel close to him—talking to him was like dancing to music that was a little bit off the beat. You could keep going, but it didn’t feel quite right. It was odd, too, because Rashid was used to teachers wanting to help him. Like Ms. Havens back at Banneker. If it wasn’t for them, neither he nor Kofi would have ever even heard of the schools that they ended up attending. But Mr. Washington—there wasn’t any of that “We’re brothers alone here” feeling that he’d hoped he’d have. Especially in Latin.