Keesha's House by Helen Frost Page A

say, Yes, I’ll be the kind of steady
    father I should be. It’s hard to forget about college.

I FOUND A PLACE      KEESHA
    Stephie walked by this afternoon, holding
    her umbrella in front of her face.
    When it rains like this, all day, into the night,
    that’s when you need a home
    more than you need your pride. She still
    goes home to her folks, but she’s scared
    of something. I can tell when someone’s scared
    and I can usually guess what it’s about. She’s been holding
    her books in front of herself, and she still
    wears that heavy jacket, even when the weather’s good. Her face
    clouds over whenever it’s time to go home.
    She’ll go home again tonight, but one night
    soon, she’ll find her way here. Just watch—Sunday night
    or a week from Tuesday, she’ll show up scared,
    like she’s the first girl that ever ran from home.
    I know how it is. The night I ran off, holding
    on to my picture of Mama, like her face
    could talk to me or something, I still
    believed someone would come after me. I still
    thought the cops or somebody would look for me all night,
    and Dad would say he didn’t mean it. His face
    when I left, so tight and dark. I’m scared
    when his eyes flash like that— Don’t come back. Holding
    his bottle like a gun. What would a real home
    be like? An everybody-sit-down-at-the-table home?
    I remember when Mama was still
    alive, sitting on that brown couch holding
    Tobias. He had an earache, he cried all night,
    and she stayed up and tried to quiet him. She was scared
    of Dad. I remember his face,
    so angry when one of us cried. And her face,
    softer when he wasn’t home.
    I’m never going to live like that, scared
    of what a man will do to me. I’m still
    in school. I found a place to sleep at night,
    and I’m smart. You won’t see me holding
    a baby anytime soon. I’m still trying to hold
    my own life together. I face each night
    by calling this place home. No one’s going to see me acting scared.

HOW I SEE IT      DONTAY
    They’ll be sayin’ I ran
    off, but that ain’t how I see it. To me—
    I went to Carmen’s house
    where all my friends chill out,
    and when I called home for a ride,
    my foster dad said, You got there on your own, son;
    you should be able to get home. They call me son
    like that. But if I was, they’d run
    out in that fancy car and give me a ride
    when I need one. It ain’t no home to me.
    It look like one, sittin’ on that green lawn, out
    in the suburbs. My caseworker say, This house
    has everything. Four bedrooms, three baths, the house
    of your dreams. Sound like she sellin’ it. Their real son
    has a bathroom to hisself, and a sign that says K EEP O UT
    on his door. He got the whole crib on lock, runnin’
    the whole show. But me—
    I feel like I’m beggin’ if I ask for a ride.
    I hafta ask if I can eat! I got a ride
    home last Thursday, and when I went in, the house
    was quiet. They was all done eatin’, nothin’ left for me.
    My foster mom said, Sorry, son,
    you need to learn, if you want to run
    around with those kids, and stay out
    past suppertime, you can’t expect us to go out
    of our way to feed you. Where they live, you need a ride
    to go get food. You can’t just run
    to the corner for a sandwich or go to a friend’s house
    and eat with them. Carmen’s grandmama call me son
    too, sometimes, but if I’m hungry at their house, she’ll feed me.
    So now I don’t know what to do. It’s gonna look like me
    messin’ up again. But to me—they locked me out!
    If I had my own key like their son,
    I coulda got in last night when I finally got a ride
    from Carmen. It was midnight, and the house
    was dark. Carmen thought I’d gone inside. I tried to run
    and catch her, but she didn’t see me standin’ out
    there in the dark street—no house, no