Me and Momma are lying in my bed. Tomorrow’s the first day of school and we’re practicing getting me up early again. It’s six-thirty A.M. Momma’s letting me read Shiketa’s letter. She finally wrote the whole thing. Dear Shiketa, it says.

You and I are a lot alike, you know. When I was fourteen, I smoked and drank and hung out in the streets. Then my mother died. A neighbor took me in and showed me that I could do better. Hard times still follow me like flies do an elephant. But I’m not giving up. Don’t you, either. You are strong-minded, like me, and willing to work hard. Better’s out there, if you want it bad enough.

Mrs. Hill

P.S. I’m still trying to forgive you. It’s not so easy, though. Tell Miracle that I said hello. I will write you both again. Promise.

Momma folds the chocolate stationery the letter’s written on, ties the satin brown bow over it, and puts it back in the matching envelope. I put my feet on my walls and ask her how come she never told me none of this stuff before.

“I don’t like to talk about it. After my mother died, I lived with Odd Job’s family and his mom set me on the right road.”

I look at her. “You lived with them? I thought Odd Job lived with your family.”

Momma says that Odd Job lived with her when she was nine and hard times hit his family. Then when her mom died and her family fell apart, they moved in with Odd Job’s family. “Nobody makes it on their own.”

I look up at the stars on my ceiling and count. It’s like Momma’s talking to herself. Saying out loud how Odd Job’s mother taught her to sew and cook. “She showed me what it really means to have people look out for you.”

Momma picks up the envelope and holds it up to the light like she can see through it. Then changes the subject back to Miracle and Shiketa. She says she was always in Shiketa’s business because she could see she was headed for trouble. “And I didn’t want it to find her like it found me. ’Cause I knew maybe she wouldn’t be so lucky and turn out so well.”

I walk over to the window, and watch the woman across the street get in her red BMW. “Let somebody else help her.”

Momma’s right behind me. “Somebody else can help her. But we can help her too.”

She sits the letter on my dresser. “Everybody does something wrong sometimes.”

I think about what Sato said. “Daddy did wrong. You gonna forgive him, too?”

Momma heads out my room. I’m following behind. “I’m trying to forgive your father. But I’m not all the way there yet.”

We go out on the porch and sit down on the swing. I reach behind Momma and pick up the purple scarf she left out earlier. I tell her that I haven’t forgiven him neither. “But I think about him. Wonder if he got on shoes.”

Momma pushes and cool air blows my hair when the swing moves back and forth.

“Nobody’s perfect,” she says, waving at Mrs. Johnson next door. “No place is perfect either.” She’s right, I think, pressing the silky smooth scarf to my cheek.

“Hurry up,” Momma says, driving away, even with my door still open. “My chemistry class starts at nine o’clock.”

Momma’s down the street and around the corner when I ask if she’s picking up Zora. She hadn’t thought about it. Figured her father would do that.

“Can we?” I ask.

She drives over to Zora’s house. I get out the car and knock on the door. Her dad answers. He smiles and winks at me. “Zora. Your ride is here.”

Zora comes down the steps zipping her jeans. I hold my hands behind my back so she don’t see ’em shaking. I’m scared. She might tell me she don’t wanna ride to school with me.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” she says.

Words spill out my mouth like pop with too many bubbles. “Momma was gonna take me to school by myself but I told her to come by and get you so we could be together if that’s what you wanna do ’cause I know you still mad at me. . . .”

“Oh.”

Zora picks up her purse, the red one. Puts it over her shoulder and looks at me. “I’m ready,” she says, smiling just a little.

We get in the car. I’m in the front and she’s in the back. Momma’s on the front steps talking to Dr. Mitchell.

“Sato told me you two go together.”

I look back at Zora, and tell her everything that happened between me and Sato back at the old place.

“You can’t go selling him candy and chips, now that you go with him.”

I think about that. “You right.”

“You can’t take what’s not yours, either.”

I cross my heart. “I won’t.”

She stares at me, like she can see a lie in my eyes. But she never did tell her dad or my mom the full truth about what I did. She still must want them to trust in me. Maybe that means someday she just might forgive me.

Momma gets back in the car and drives off. Zora’s quiet all the way to the school. When the car stops, she gets out and walks to the front door by herself. But she don’t go inside without me. She waits till I get there. Just like she used to.