I was grateful the doctor had been able to lower his meds. Hopefully, his appetite was returning too. At first he’d been transformed into one of those zombies —staring off at a distance with drool dripping from the corner of his mouth. He’d been there in body only. I hated it too, much like a lot of everything else that came along with my father’s mental disorder, but I loved him with a fierceness that kept driving me forward to find solutions to help him. Sure, there’d been setbacks and the doctors had warned us. Each time I crept close to the point of giving up, I’d recall the witnessing in the chapel that stormy Sunday and remind myself how Pa had never given up on a single soul. Those reminders —and a whole lot of praying —fortified me to keep on keeping on.

We arrived back in town by late evening. After we ate, me devouring a burger and Pa picking at his food, I returned Pa to the nursing home and understood we still had a very long row to hoe ahead of us.

Upon arriving home, I found Jinx and Peg on the porch in rocking chairs.

“You know our boy wants to fly?” Jinx asked.

“Huh?” I looked at Peg for confirmation, but he kept his eyes pinned to the porch floorboards, face high in color. I hated that because it meant he felt ashamed about dreaming. Why had that become a thing amongst us Fosters? And why had I started hating everything? Both needed to change.

“He said something to Vance a while back, and come to find out Vance done took it upon himself and sent an application to an aviation school up in Colorado.” Jinx plucked the letter he had jutting out the top of his shirt pocket and handed it to me. “Phoenix has been accepted.”

I scanned the letter, and sure enough, a door had been opened for my brother. “That’s . . . Wow.”

Peg huffed and crossed his arms. “I can’t go.”

“Why the heck not?” I kept reading and found that he’d been awarded a disability scholarship that covered the entire tuition. “All we have to do is get you on a flight by the end of September. I think we can handle that.”

“With everything going on with Pa, I can’t leave y’all.” His face reddened as tears streamed down his cheeks. “We gotta get Pa better.”

“Pa and the doctors have to get Pa better. Not you and not me,” I pointed out.

Peg slapped the tears off his cheeks. “You spend all your time meeting with doctors and doing research at the library, so don’t try feedin’ me that bull.”