I watch her and Micah ride around, but my heart isn’t in it. My heart is in these stone steps. It’s in the big rock Ivy and I pretended was a cruise ship. A lookout tower. A safety zone in a sea of lava. My heart is in this driveway and all its cracks. It’s in the wall with the school photos. It’s in the paper lamp in my bedroom, and the curtains blowing in the breeze. It’s in this house.

Home is where the heart is.

I can’t imagine mine anywhere else.

Chapter Twenty-One

The screen door opens, and my mom and dad step out and sit on either side of me. My dad puts his arm around my shoulders, and I lean into him.

“I’m sorry, kiddo,” he says quietly.

I reach my arms around his middle and hold tight. I want to cry but keep it in, knowing my tears will just make him feel worse.

My mom is quiet at my other side. I don’t dare look at her. The three of us watch Ivy and Micah bike in circles, up and down ramps, swerving through marks they’ve made with chalk on the cracking pavement. Behind them, the old Bittersweet Farm sign seems to mock us. You can’t have sweet without bitter.

“I should go take care of the animals,” I say.

My mom doesn’t respond, but my dad pats my back.

“You want company?”

I shake my head.

Ivy and Micah don’t seem to notice me leave.

I go out back first to feed Rainbow and put him to bed in his stall. I try not to cry again, wondering where he’ll go if we can’t take him with us. “I love you,” I tell him. “I love you so much.” I press my face against his neck and hug him tight, then cross the street to the Townsends’. I feel like I’m walking out of bitter: old, worn house and beat-up driveway; to sweet: brand-new house with freshly paved driveway and new bushes planted just so.

I go through all the evening chores silently. The animals don’t seem to notice.

I don’t say hello when I carry Lucy’s food to the fence and step up on the rung. As soon as she sees me, she jumps to her feet and trots over. She lifts her head and sniffs the air.

“Yes, I have your dinner,” I tell her. “Same old same old.”

She walks closer and stands by the fence.

“I’m not in the mood to be knocked over,” I tell her.

She tilts her head slightly to one side.

“Got it?”

She waits.

I carefully lift the bucket over the top and set the handle in the hook.

Lucy keeps watching.

As soon as I step off the fence, she reaches her nose into the bucket and begins to eat slowly.