I figure out how to take up less space.

  It’s not something I decide all at once. It’s more like I learn it the way you learn anything, a little at a time, noticing what works and what doesn’t.

  What works: good grades. Papa looks up from whatever he’s doing when I show him a good grade. Not for long. But he looks up and he says “good” and sometimes he says “that’s my girl” and that’s the whole response but it’s something. It’s response.

  What doesn’t work: bringing drawings home. Talking about my friends. Asking questions that need long answers. Those conversations go nowhere and I’ve stopped starting them because there’s something worse about a conversation that dies than just not having one at all.

  At school I’m easy to be around. I’ve gotten good at that too. I ask questions that make other people talk. I laugh in the right places. I don’t bring my problems into the room. Nobody knows that I go home to a house where Papa eats dinner with the TV on and goes to bed at nine and I do my homework alone and fall asleep to the sound of the house settling.

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  You’re fine. You’re doing fine.

  I tell myself that every morning. I’ve gotten pretty good at believing it.

  At twelve I find an old photo at the back of Papa’s drawer. I’m not snooping. I’m looking for a stapler.

  It’s Mama and Papa at what looks like a wedding that isn’t theirs, standing at a table, laughing at something outside the frame. Mama is wearing a green dress. Her hand is on Papa’s arm. She looks so easy. So warm.

  I look at it for a long time.

  Then I put it back exactly where I found it and I don’t say anything about it.

  But that night I take out the notebook I keep under my mattress and I write:

  Mama looked happy once. Before me.

  I stare at that sentence.

  I cross out before me and write in the photo instead.

  I close the notebook.

  I don’t sleep well.