The You I've Never Known
Ellen Hopkins
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With love and heartfelt appreciation to my husband, John, who steadfastly held my hand through the roller coaster ride so many years ago. Special thanks to my editing team—Emma, Ruta, and Annie—whose insights helped make this book the exceptional story it has become, and to my publisher, for offering understanding and patience when I desperately needed them. And a giant shout-out to my dear friend Susan Hart Lindquist, who listens to my rants and helps me sort through the reasons for them. Sometimes you just need an ear.
To Begin
Oh, to be given the gifts of the chameleon!
Not only the ability to match the vital facade to circumstance at will, but also the capacity to see in two directions simultaneously.
Left. Right.
Forward. Backward.
How much gentler our time on this planet, and how much more certain of our place in the world we would be, drawing comfort like water from the wells of our homes.
Ariel
Home
Four letters,
one silent.
A single syllable
pregnant with meaning.
Home is more
than a leak-free roof and insulated walls that keep you warm when the winter wind screams and cool when summer stomps all over you.
Home is a clearing in the forest,
a safe place to run when the trees shutter all light and the crunch of leaves in deepening darkness drills fear into your heart.
Home is someone
or two who accepts you for the person you believe you are, and if that happens to change, embraces the person you ultimately find yourself to be.
I Can’t Remember
Every place
Dad and I have
called home. When
I was real little, the two of us sometimes lived in our car. Those memories are in motion. Always moving.
I don’t think
I minded it so much
then, though mixed in with happy recollections are snippets of intense fear.
I didn’t dare ask why one stretch of sky wasn’t good enough to settle under. My dad
likes to say he came
into this world infected with wanderlust. He claims I’m lucky, that at one day till I turn seventeen I’ve seen way more places than most folks see in an entire
lifetime. I’m sure
he’s right on the most basic level, and while I can’t dig up snapshots of North Dakota, West Virginia, or Nebraska, how could I ever forget watching Old Faithful spouting
way up into the bold
amethyst Yellowstone sky, or the granddaddy alligator ambling along beside our car on a stretch of Everglade roadway?
I’ve inhaled
heavenly sweet
plumeria perfume,
dodging pedicab traffic in the craziness of Waikiki.
I’ve picnicked in the shadows of redwoods older than the rumored son of God;
nudged up against
the edge of the Grand Canyon as a pair of eagles played tag in the warm air currents; seen Atlantic whales spy-hop; bodysurfed in the Pacific; and picked spring—
inspired Death Valley wildflowers. I’ve listened to Niagara Falls percussion, the haunting song of courting loons. So I guess my dad is right.
I’m luckier than a whole lot of people.
Yeah, On Paper
All that sounds pretty damn
awesome. But here’s the deal.
I’d trade every bit of it to touch down somewhere Dad didn’t insist we leave as soon as we arrived.
I truly don’t think I’m greedy.
All I want is a real home, with
a backyard and a bedroom
I can fix up any way I choose,
the chance to make a friend
or two, and invite them to spend
the night. Not so much to ask, is it?
Well, I guess you’d have to query Dad.
I know he only wants what’s best
for me, but somehow he’s never
cared about my soul-deep longing for roots. Home is where the two of us are, was a favorite saying, and, The sky is the best roof there is. Except when it’s leaking. The rain reference cracked me up when I was real young.
But after a time or twenty, stranded in our car while it poured because we had nowhere else dry to stay, my sense of humor failed me.
Then he’d teach me a new card
game or let me win at the ones
I already knew. He could be nice like that. But as I aged beyond
the adorable little girl stage,
the desire for “place” growing,
he grew tired of my whining.
That’s what he called it. Quit your goddamn whining, he’d say.
You remind me of your mother. Why don’t you run off and leave me, too?
Who’d look out for you then, Miss Nothing’s Ever Good Enough?
No one, that’s who! Not one person on this planet cares about you.
No one but Daddy, who loves you more than anything in the whole wide world, and would lay down his life for you. You remember that, hear me?
I heard those words too often,
in any number of combinations.
Almost always they came floating
in a fog of alcohol and tobacco.
Once in a While