Free Drenched in Light by Lisa Wingate

like I was a baby, like Angelo. She was all sweaty and shaking, and I just wanted her to let me go. Then she did, and I was sorry I thought that, because then she did drugs until she died from it. When I was a kid, I always figured maybe I made it happen with all those mean thoughts.”
    The sentence ended with a silent question mark that found me wanting to cross the space between us, fold Dell into my arms, replay and recast that embrace from her mother. I couldn’t, of course. No one could, but I understood the yearning. Even after all these years, and as much as I loved my dad, I still wondered about my biological father. I wondered why he didn’t want me, or if he ever knew I existed.
    “But now that you’re older,” I said, hiding my own thoughts behind the therapist’s mask, “you know that you were not the cause of what happened. Your mother’s choices were her own. We all have to take ownership of our decisions.” A textbook psychologist’s phrase. Something Dr. Phil might use on his show. Small comfort to a kid abandoned by both of her biological parents.
    “I know.” Obviously, she’d heard that line before. Slanting a glance upward, she checked my reaction. “She decided to leave and go do drugs again. It’s not as easy as Just Say No.”
    “No, it isn’t,” I agreed, and I knew we understood each other.
    The bell rang, and Dell jerked in her seat, glancing over her shoulder as the corridor filled with students and staff members. “Great, now they’re gonna see me in here. Everyone’s gonna think I’m a suck-up.”
    “Why don’t you wait a minute until after the halls clear, and I’ll give you an admit for class,” I suggested, picking up my pad.
    “I better not.” Standing up, she straightened her body, taking a fortifying breath, bracing for the tide of people outside the door. “I’ve got Mrs. Morris next hour. If I’m late, she’ll make me read out loud and everybody’ll laugh.”
    “I see.” I had the strongest urge to walk down the hall and wrap my hands around Mrs. Morris’s bony neck—a fantasy I’d entertained many times back in middle school.
    “I’m gonna flunk her class anyway,” Dell added, looking glum. “All we do is read stupid books, and I hate reading.”
    “Really?” I motioned to the papers on my desk. “I would think you’d love reading. You write so beautifully.”
    She rolled her eyes.
    “Seriously,” I said.
    With a shrug, she started toward the door. “Reading’s different. You don’t already know the words. When you write, you can use the words you already know. I read that stuff in Mrs. Morris’s class, and it doesn’t make any sense.”
    Reading comprehension problems, I thought. That could explain a lot of things. Kids who didn’t read well had trouble in every subject, and kids who grew up in homes without books often didn’t read well.
    I was surprised to find myself actually thinking like a real guidance counselor. Apparently, I had learned something in graduate school. For the first time in a long while I had a sense of being useful, rather than just a burden to everyone else. It felt good. “What book are you reading in class now?”
    “Today we’re gonna start The Grapes of Wrath, ” Dell said with an obvious lack of enthusiasm. “Mrs. Morris said the school board put it on the list, and she doesn’t even like it. It’s got bad grammar in it, and she doesn’t see how we’re gonna diagram the sentences, like we usually do.”
    “You diagram the sentences from what you read?” The words came out with more disbelief than I meant to show. Criticizing a teacher in front of a student was strictly unprofessional, but nobody diagrammed sentences anymore.
    “Yes.” Huffing a breath, Dell glanced nervously toward the hall clock. “And I can’t do that part, either. We have to do fifteen sentences every day from what we read.”
    Drumming my fingers on the desk, I stood up to walk her to the door. No sense making her late