Technically—maybe legally—I should have told Francine about it, about wanting to work in general, but I waited. Some foster parents are not down with kids working. It interferes with school and makes the tether too long, but if we’re aging out, how else are we supposed to build a résumé so we can get a job to support ourselves when we’re out? I’ve played a long game, working a job in one way or another since the day I started dodging adoption.

I’ve been a barista, a grocery store bagger; I’ve pumped gas and cleaned car windows at a gas station; but my most recent job and very favorite in the world ever was tutoring and reading to little kids at the Seattle Central Library. Being alone on the island was making me miss little kids. I missed Zola. Sometimes I used to pick her up after school and take her with me on the bus to the library and let her color and read while I worked, and for that job I’d been fingerprinted and had security clearance with the Seattle police and with the freaking FBI. Salishwood, as it turned out, was looking for help with the little kids’ summer camp and day hikes. Which required security clearance. I mean. Magic.

Aside from my Muir-based knowledge of the world as our home, I am the least “Kumbaya” person I’ve ever met, but even to me this felt like the universe wanted me at Salishwood, which Jane from the poster, when I spoke to her on the phone, described as “two hundred fifty acres of forested land beside the water turned environmental research and education center.” Internship, so no pay, but internships can lead to jobs—in a forest. I hadn’t wanted anything so badly in a long time.

Francine, three days in, was being really nice—leaving me mostly to myself; she let me walk and made me eat only when I felt like it, but I was scared to ask her stance on kids working. So I took ye olde “It’s better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission” tack.

The sadness I’d felt pressed beneath lifted just a little with every step to the bus stop on the route to Salishwood. The driver let me off at the entrance to walk a one-lane road that wound through dense forest, and I made myself breathe in deep, exhale all I could. Birds sang, sunlight streamed through the dense branches to clover and ferns on the forest floor. I’d never felt more Muir.