Lupe Morales liked me. It was a miracle.

    Lupe was a straight-A student, the smartest kid in school. She could read in Spanish or English. She could write in both languages. She had even won awards for her stories. And for her photos. She wanted to be a news reporter, so she took a camera and a notebook everywhere.

    I was not a straight-A student. Not even straight-B! I was lucky if I was straight-C. When I tried to read, the words kept moving around. The letters were always jumping. I couldn't remember things I read. If someone read to me, then it was better. But in school, they expected you to read everything yourself. Not be read to like a little kid. So I had problems.

    But Lupe didn't care. She actually liked me!

    I once asked her why she liked me. She said, "You're a good person, Jacob. You're solid. You're honest. And I do think you're smart. Not school smart, but smart at other things."

    I didn't think so, but I was sure glad she did. I called her Loop for short, because when she wasn't writing or taking pictures, she was knitting. Making loops with yarn. Loop after loop after loop. Add them all up, and they turned into sweaters. She was so good that she could knit in the dark, without even looking at her hands.

    "Why do you knit all the time?" I once asked her.

    "I hate doing nothing," she said. "Knitting keeps me busy. And I like what I make."

    "I like what you make, too," I said. She was wearing a sweater she made. It looked great on her!

    Her parents owned a store on South Broad Street, the main street in our town. They sold Mexican groceries. I loved the delicious smells in that store. Her mother made enchiladas, tacos, and tamales. She sold them to workers who were far from home, far away from their families back in Mexico. Every day at lunchtime there was a line down the block.

    When I started going out with Lupe, my mother told me, "I know this is your first real girlfriend. She's a nice, smart girl. And I don't want to hear about any trouble with her. You better behave yourself. If you know what I mean."

    "I know what you mean," I said. And I treated her like the queen she was.

    Before Lupe's parents opened their store, my mom, my dad, and her parents worked together at The Mill. Everyone in town called it The Mill. Most people in town either worked there, or had someone in their family who worked there.

    A long time ago, it was a knitting mill. They made underwear and t-shirts. Did you know that underwear is knitted? It is. If you look at it close up, you can see the little tiny loops. Like Lupe's sweaters, but much smaller.

    But the knitting mill closed and it turned into a plastic factory. They made the plastic boxes that car batteries go in. It was a smaller factory, so some of the workers lost their jobs.

    My mom was one of them. She kept looking for another job. She got one working at the donut shop.

    Lupe's parents lost their jobs, too. That was when they opened their store.

    My dad kept working at the plastic factory. He fixed all the machines there, so they couldn't run the place without him.

    But after a few months, he started getting more and more tired. "You're working too much," my mom told him.

    "I just need to get a good night's sleep," he said.

    He got a good night's sleep, and he was still tired. Tired, and quiet, like there were things he couldn't say. He was thinner, too. No matter how much he ate, he got skinnier and skinnier.

    Finally, he went to the doctor. They kept him in the hospital. They said they were going to do some tests.

    "OK," I said.

    When we got to the hospital, my dad was in a room by himself, with a plastic bag of medicine attached to a pole next to him. The clear liquid dripped slowly through a tube, from the bag into his arm.

    "And, uh..." She looked at a folder of papers she was carrying. "Jacob?"

    "Yeah," I said. I stood up, too.

    "No, no, you can sit down. Please. Thank you for bringing your son in today, Mrs. Gardner. I'm glad we have this chance to talk."

    Cancer?

    "Is he going to die?" I interrupted.

    The doctor looked at me. Right into my eyes. "We don't know," she said. "He is very ill. But we'll do everything we can to help him."

    My mother started crying.

    I just stayed frozen.

    The doctor kept talking. She said that once they figured out the right treatment for my dad, he could probably come home from the hospital. Nurses could come visit him at the house. For a while, though, he would stay in the hospital.

    He had already been in a lot of pain at home and now he was finally getting relief from it. That was what the bag of medicine on the pole was. Pain relief.

    I actually don't remember much after that. Don't remember driving home, or talking to my mom, or going to bed.

    But I didn't want to be scared. It was scary to be scared. So instead, I got mad. Really mad. Mad that my dad was sick. Mad that he might die.

    I got up in the dark and got dressed. Put on my socks and shoes. Went into the hall.

    And it made me so mad that I wasn't scared of the dark anymore.

    I went down the street. Walked a few blocks. I found myself in an alley behind an old, run-down building that no one used anymore.

    Someone had broken one of its windows.

    I wondered how it would feel to smash a window like that. Before I knew it, I had a rock in my hand. That was one thing I was good at. I could throw and hit anything I wanted to, pretty much every time. I had been good at that since I was little.

    I threw the rock. It hit the window just right.

    Smash! The sound echoed down the street.

    Man, did that feel good. It was like I was breaking my dad's cancer. Breaking my fear. I wished I could do another one. But I didn't want to get caught. So I ran.

    Back home, back inside, pajamas on, pretending to be asleep. I lay there with my eyes closed tight, trying hard to sleep. Trying to close my eyes so tight that no tears could get out.

    I thought about my dad for the longest time. Then, finally, I fell asleep for real.