And I had hurt someone. Even though I only felt half-bad about the party bag, I did feel sorry about shoving Angus off that chair.

“Shouldn’t I feel really bad about all of it?” I asked Miriam. “Because”—I waited to feel really bad about making Carrie’s mother pick up all that candy corn—“I don’t.”

“Carrie’s mom was humiliating you, Bea. You got angry. That’s normal. Throwing candy isn’t a great way of expressing your feelings, and that’s the part that needs to change. But it doesn’t make you a bad person.” And to prove it, she threw a gummy bear at me.

That was the day Miriam and I became actual friends. She could have taken the gummy bears away, and I would have kept going to see her anyway. But she didn’t. She just kept refilling the jar.

Box!

In the waiting room at Miriam’s, Mom’s head was bent over the papers in her lap. She didn’t hear me come in because of Miriam’s noisemaker. It hums really loudly so that no one can overhear anyone else’s private conversations.

I tiptoed over to Mom and kissed her on the hair. When she looked up, her glasses were crooked. She pulled me onto her lap, and I leaned back against her, like she was my chair.

“Look at those long legs,” Mom said. “How did you get to be ten years old?”

I decided to give her a Miriam-type answer: “One day at a time?”

—

When Mom unlocked our apartment door, Red was standing right inside, meowing his head off.

“Oops,” Mom said. “I must have forgotten to feed him this morning.” Because Red never comes to the door when we get home. He’s the kind of cat who wants you to come and find him. And then he’ll let you pet him, but only for half a minute.

“Sorry, Red.” Mom grabbed his food bag and shook some onto his plate. I refilled his water bowl, and then I opened the refrigerator and yelled “Box!”

That’s what Mom and I used to say whenever Dad left us a food package. He came at least two times a week and left stuff in our fridge, as a surprise: rice with vegetables, chicken in lemon sauce, meatballs, cheesy polenta, and so many other things, always packed in containers with reheating instructions scribbled on strips of blue tape across their tops.

—

The first time Dad left us food was right after he moved out. It was in a big cardboard box, crammed into the fridge, and I yelled “Box!” when I saw it, and pointed. After that, we always yelled “Box!” whether it was actually in a box or not. Then Mom would reheat whatever it was, make a salad, and say, “Voilà, dinner!” When there was no box, Mom made us cheese quesadillas, tuna salad with pickles, or scrambled eggs.

—