~Close Reading Focus~ Hope and her aunt are getting in their car to begin their latest move…

Memory Moment We walked across the street to the old Buick that was packed
to the hilt with everything we owned and had a U-Haul trailer
chained to the back.
Excerpts from…Hope Was Here It was May 26. We were heading to Mulhoney, Wisconsin,
by Joan Bauer to start work in a diner there that needed a professional
manager and cook (Addie), was short on waitresses (me), and
was giving us an apartment. The man we were going to work for
had been diagnosed with leukemia and needed help fast. I don’t
mean to sound ungenerous, but working for a close-to-dying
man didn’t sound like a great career move to me. I had to leave
school right before the end of my undistinguished sophomore
year, too.
I hate leaving places I love.
We were about to get into the car just as Morty the
cabdriver double-parked his Yellow taxi.
Good old Morty. The first time I waited on him, he
unloosened his belt a notch before he even looked at the
menu. I knew I had a true believer.
I raised my hand to a great tipper.
“You always took care of me, kid!” He shouted this from
across the street as a UPS truck started honking at him to
move his cab.
“I tried, Morty!”
“Wherever you go, you’ll do okay. You got heart!”
The UPS driver screamed something heartless at Morty,
who screamed back, “Watch your mouth, big man in a brown
truck!”
I didn’t know what kind of customers I’d get in
Wisconsin.
This book is about a sixteen-year-old girl named
Hope has gotten in the car with her aunt, Addie, and are about to set out on
Hope and her aunt who, once again, must leave a
a trip to a new life in Wisconsin. Addie is trying to reassure her…
place she’s called home to move.
She grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze.
Addie never promised that life would be easy, but she
did promise that if I hung with her the food would be good.
 Believe me when I tell you, I know about survival. the chart consistently over twelve months. Donald Raspigi,
I was born too early and much too small (two pounds and who occasionally said sensitive things like “Nice sweater,” had
five ounces). For the first month of my life I kept gasping for been on twice.
air, like I couldn’t get the hang of breathing. I couldn’t eat Enter memories, sweet and sour.
either; couldn’t suck a bottle. The doctors didn’t think I would Harrison and me baking enormous mocha chip cookies
make it. Shows what they know. My mother didn’t want the for the high school bake sale and having them stolen on the
responsibility of a baby so she left me with Addie, her older Lexington Avenue subway.
sister, and went off to live her own life. I’ve seen her exactly Harrison’s African fighting fish, Luther, who ate Chef
three times since I was born- when she visited on my fifth, Bovardee ravioli without chewing.
eighth, and thirteenth birthdays. Harrison reading my mother’s photocopied annual
Each time she talked about being a waitress. What made Christmas letter that she sent to family and friends- “Dear
a good one (“great hands and personality”). What were the Friends...”
pitfalls (“crazed cooks and being on your feet all day”). What (She’d cross out “Friends” and write in “Addie and my little
was the biggest tip she ever got ($300 from a plumber who had Tullip.”) Harrison commenting that motherhood should be like
just won the instant lottery). driving a car- you should have to pass a test before you get to
Each time she told me, “Hon, leaving you with Addie was do it legally.
the best thing I could have done for you. You need constants I held the prism up to the light. The sun hit it and
in your life.” She had a different hair color each time she said showered colors through the windshield. “Now isn’t that
it. something?” Addie said, smiling at the sight. “Yeah.” I looked
Addie’s been my number-one constant… out the window, trying not to cry.
Because of this, I don’t buy into traditional roles. My
favorite book when I was little had pictures of baby animals,
like foxes and lambs and ducklings, who were being raised by
other animals, like dogs, geese, and wolves.
Addie said it was our story.

I stared out the window as the Buick roared west to whatever.

Harrison Beckworth-McCoy, my best male friend at
school,... had given me a goodbye present, and I was opening it
now as Addie pushed the Buick through Ohio. Inside the box
was a small glass prism that caught the sun. A hand-printed
note from Harrison read, “New places always help us look at
life differently. I will miss you, but won’t lose you.”
Harrison was always saying sensitive things like that,
which put him instantly on Jocelyn Lindstrom’s male sensitivity
chart. He was the only male either of us knew who had made