Chapter 1
Everyone in our small town said it, their eyes always filled with pity: I was the child nobody wanted.
My parents divorced when I was little. My father didn't want me. My mother remarried and moved on with her life. Only my grandmother truly cared for me, and then she was gone, too.
After she passed, all she left me was forty-five dollars and the old trailer we called home.
I grew up on meals from neighbors. I relied on student loans to finish my education.
I worked tirelessly to secure a good internship, proved my worth, and turned it into a permanent job after graduation.
This year, I finally paid off every cent I owed and managed to save my first real nest egg.
As the clock struck midnight and fireworks lit the sky, a new year began.
That difficult life was finally behind me. My new life was beginning.
*****
The day we buried Grandma, everyone assumed my mother would take me with her.
I was only thirteen, after all. She was the only family I had left.
I thought so too. So I packed my schoolbag and waited by the door.
But she picked up her suitcase and walked straight onto the bus.
She never looked back, not even as the bus disappeared around the bend.
I suddenly realized that during her entire visit, she never mentioned any plans for me.
I went back inside and, without thinking, called out, "Grandma, I don't feel good."
The house was completely silent.
That was when it hit me: Grandma was gone. Buried in the ground.
From then on, I was completely alone in that house.
A wave of fear washed over me, threatening to drown me.
What was I going to do now?
I sat on the doorstep all night.
At first light, I grabbed my backpack and headed to school.
My teacher always said, "Education is the only way out of this small town."
If Mom wouldn't take me, I would find my own way out.
*****
The other kids at school looked at me strangely.
"Why are you still here?" one of them asked.
"Are you really nobody's kid?" another added.
I didn't want their pity, and I certainly didn't want to see their sneering faces.
I straightened my back and lied without hesitation. "My mother says changing schools would disrupt my studies. She wants me to finish middle school here before she comes back for me."
It was a solid excuse. They believed it and stopped asking.
Life went on. I learned to cook for myself and tend to the vegetable patch.
With the last of the oatmeal from Grandma's pantry and the sweet potatoes from the garden, I scraped by, eking out a living one day at a time.
Then one night, I heard the sound of breaking dishes from next door.
The girl next door, Emily, was crying while her father shouted at her.
They were arguing over thirty-five dollars for schoolbooks.
I pressed against the wall, listening, and a chill settled in my chest with each word.
In two years, I'd be starting high school.
The problem was that our town didn't have a high school. I'd have to go to a school in another town. That required a bus ticket I couldn't afford and a room I had no money to rent.
If I couldn't scrape together the money, would that mean I couldn't go to school? What would I do then?
Emily showed me what that answer was.
The next morning, before dawn, she left.
She had her faded backpack slung over her shoulder.
It used to be stuffed with textbooks. Now it held only a change of clothes.
She was heading south to find work, to earn money for her brother's future.
I watched her figure fade into the morning mist, and my heart ached with a sharp pain.
I couldn't end up like her.
I wanted to stay in school.
But where would I get the money?
The little over forty dollars Grandma left me would not last long.
The only person who might give me money was Mom.
I remembered how, during the holidays, my half-brother Liam would cling to his father, all sweetness, to get whatever he wanted.
"Mom, Dad, I got a perfect score! Can I get a remote-control car?" he said.
Mom would smile, her eyes crinkling, and the next day she'd buy him the most expensive toy.
What if I earned perfect grades as well?
What if I ranked first in the whole school?
Would Mom give me money for tuition, if only because it would give her something to show off?
It felt like grasping a lifeline. That semester, I studied relentlessly, as if my life depended on it.
My days were packed with classes; at night, I burned the midnight oil by candlelight, digging my nails into my leg to stay awake when exhaustion set in.
When finals came, I really ranked first in the school.
The whole town was stunned.
"That neglected girl came first in the school?" someone exclaimed.
"On top of all that farm work, she still excels in her studies. The heavens must be smiling on her," another said.
Fiona, the neighbor, shelled a handful of nuts and teased, "Show that award to your mother. Maybe she'll buy you a new dress for the holidays."
I looked down at what I was wearing.
It was Grandma's old black quilted coat.
The cuffs were frayed, the darkened batting poking out.
It struck me then that the last time my mother bought me clothes had been seven years prior, before Liam was born. Back then, she would bring me a coat for the holidays.
Of course, I'd long since outgrown it.
These years, I wore hand-me-downs from my cousins.
Now with Grandma gone and family ties severed, the hand-me-downs stopped too.
All I had to face the winter was Grandma's old coat.
*****
The holiday season was approaching. People who had left for work were trickling back into town.
Emily returned too, dressed in nice clothes.
Every day, I waited under the big oak tree at the edge of town.
On New Year's Eve, snow was falling thick and fast.
I was so cold that my fingers and toes went numb, and my eyelashes were crusted with ice.
Finally, a figure appeared in the distance, familiar yet strange.
She was leading Liam toward me, fighting their way through the snow, with him dressed in neat, well-fitting clothes.
*****
"Why won't you wake up?" a voice asked, tight with worry.
I jolted awake. A biting wind cut through my coat.
No Mom. No Liam. No new coat.
Just Emily's worried face looking down at me.