Until something goes wrong. And not even then, actually. First something has to go wrong… then someone has to find out about it. Bennett knows from experience how long that part can take.

Bennett pushes worries about school out of her head and settles on worrying about what will happen when the woman leaves. She worries about whether her grandmother will take her father’s side. Will she be angry at Bennett for getting caught? How far did the apple fall from the tree? That’s another thing she learned in third grade.

It was in a book they had read about another girl without a mother who had to be dropped off at a stranger’s house. Bennett had found something quite familiar in that girl, Anne, who had gone to live on a farm in Canada. That was the book that fin...

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