Chapter 6

Caleb and Ava struggled in their own way.

Their mother was in prison. They loved her. She was their mom. But she'd also hurt them. Used them. Made them watch. Made them complicit.

Caleb got angry. He got in fights at school. He stopped talking. He spent hours in his room.

Ava got quiet. She stopped eating. She had nightmares. She started wetting the bed — something she hadn't done since she was four.

Dad got them therapy. Both of them. Once a week. He went to family therapy with all of us. He went to his own therapy too.

"I don't know how to do this," he told me one night. "I don't know how to fix what she broke."

"You don't have to fix it," I said. "You just have to be here. And you are."

He smiled. It was a sad smile. "You're wiser than me, Nia."

I wasn't wise. I was just — tired. Tired of being scared. Tired of being hungry. Tired of watching my family hurt.

But slowly, things got better.

Caleb started playing football. It gave him an outlet. He made friends. He stopped fighting. He started talking — at dinner, at first just a little, then more. He told us about practice. About his friends. About the girl he liked.

Ava joined a dance class. She loved it. She came home every week, showing us new moves. She started eating again. The nightmares got shorter. She stopped wetting the bed.

And me — I joined the school newspaper. I wrote about food insecurity. About kids who didn't have enough to eat. About my own story, anonymously at first, then with my name.

People read it. People wrote to me. Other kids — in my school, in other schools — told me their stories. About stepmothers. About locks on fridges. About hunger. About being scared to tell.

I started a club at school. A food pantry. Free. Anonymous. For any kid who needed it. We stocked it with donations. We kept it open before school, after school, during lunch.

By the end of the year, thirty kids had used it. Thirty kids who wouldn't have gone to bed hungry because of something I started.

Dad came to the club's one-year anniversary. He looked at the shelves — full of food, free for anyone — and he cried.

"You did this," he said. "You turned your pain into this."

I looked at the shelves. At the kids coming in, shy at first, then relieved. At the volunteers — my friends, Caleb, Ava, even Mrs. Ellison.

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"We did this," I said. "All of us."

And I meant it.