Chapter 7: YARON

That night, when I came back home, I told my parents about Vee’s father.

“There’s nothing you can do, Yaron. People like Luke Hart don’t change, no matter how many chances you give them. The man can’t keep a job. He is what he is. There’s not much more to it,” my father sentenced.

“His wife died, and he’s depressed, Dad.”

“He shouldn’t be drinking then.”

I didn’t believe what my father had said. I believed people could change. I wanted to help people like Luke Hart or Barnaby become better versions of themselves. With the right help, people could turn their lives around if they put their minds to it.

Dad was right about Vee’s father, but I didn’t want to hear anything about that, because if her father died, Social Services were going to take Vee away from me, and they would probably do their best to extinguish her light. To turn her into a “normal girl,” and Vee would become a shadow of the person she was.

“I’ll pray for him,” my mother said. I doubted that praying would help Vee or her father at all.

“Mom, I’m going to see Vee,” I announced after dinner.

I walked into the kitchen. Mom was doing the dishes. Taking advantage of her back to me, I put a couple of lunch boxes from the fridge in my backpack so that Luke and Vee could have a decent dinner that night. I knew Mom had made them on purpose. We both knew that she had been cooking too much lately, and the reason was obvious.