I scan my closet for a hiding place. I kneel in the corner and pull back the carpet, tuck the key there, and carefully push the carpet back down on the tack strip. I place my hand over the patch of carpeting, like some truth will filter through. Some-thing that is all, one hundred percent, mine.

My hand hovers, but no truth comes, only the knowledge that maybe this is my way of balancing the power.

Trust

It's midnight. The house is dark. Quiet. Mother and Lily have been in bed for an hour.

I watch Year Seven / Jenna Fox. It's the only disc I have watched more than once. This is my fourth time.

Seven-year-old Jenna leads Father through the house. He has a blindfold on. Lily must be filming. Glimpses of Mother smiling and following along, giggles from Jenna, and hollow protests from Father punctuate the journey.

"Where are you taking me, Jenna?"

"You can't ask, Daddy!" Jenna wails.

"The moon?"

"Daddy!"

"The Mayflower?"

I watch Father being pulled, pushed, and turned. He trusts me as I lead him from room to room and down hallways. Step up. Step down. He exaggerates his movements, lifting his feet like he is stepping onto a stage. But he trusts me. He trusts seven-year-old Jenna. What did I do to make that change?

They reach the kitchen doorway. A large, lopsided blue cake is on the kitchen table, candles already burned halfway down during the long, blindfolded walk. The icing sags and bunches out on one side like a slow-moving glacier, bringing tipping candles along with it.

"Stop!" Jenna says. "Turn. No, this way, Daddy! Bend down. Ready?"

I remove the blindfold. "Surprise!" Mother and I yell and clap our hands. Father throws his hands in the air. He gasps. Jenna beams. Her gap-toothed smile is nearly angelic.

"It's beautiful! It's perfect! It's the best cake I've ever had!"

"She made it herself," Mother says proudly. "We doubled the batch because she wanted it big."

Mother and Father share a glance, a brief look that flies over Jenna's bouncing head. It is a full look just between them. A look of love, satisfaction, fulfillment. Easiness. Completeness. Everything they want and need is right in that room.

"It's big, all right! And blue!" He continues to praise and adore it. Just as he adores Jenna.

I watch them dig in with forks and no plates. More laughter. More squeals. More looks.

It makes me feel all the ways I've wanted to feel ever since I woke up.

Trusted.

Happy.

Enough.

Father takes a fingerful of blue icing and decorates Jenna's nose, and she squeals.

And now, in the quiet of my room, I laugh, too. I laugh out loud.

Just as I have done every time I've watched it.

Sanctuary

The church is empty. No priests. No Lily. Not even sweet singing voices to stir the air. The sanctuary is in the shape of a cross. I stand in the crosshairs, feeling like an imposter, waiting to be found at any moment and ushered out.

Sanctuary.

I weigh the meanings. A holy place. Refuge.

A place of forgiveness.

Rows of candles flicker on either side of me in the smaller arms of the church. I step forward, my clumsy feet scuffing the floor, echoing across the stillness. Souls, if there is such a thing, are nourished and mended here. In case of error they can't be uploaded like the whole Boston curriculum — there are no spares in case one is lost. Souls are given only once.

I walk up the three steps to the altar and step over the small railing that separates the masses from all that is sacred. I am trespassing, but I can't stop. I wait to feel something. Something different. But who knows what a soul feels like?

I dare to step closer, violating the holy space that surrounds me. I rest my hands on the altar, feeling the linen cloth only meant for a priest's fingers. History. I can feel it in the threads. I close my eyes searching for my own history, the intangible bits that will tell me if what I am is enough.

A voice booms. "You shouldn't be up there."

My eyes fly open and I turn around. Just as quickly, I turn back, carefully placing my hands on the altar, willing them not to tremble. I ignore the warning and the footsteps getting closer.

"Still can't talk to the dickhead, hm?"

Oh, God. I have to say something. "That's not a word you should be using in church," I answer.

I hear him getting closer, his footsteps softening as he walks up the steps. "Then I guess we both have one mark against us. You walking where you shouldn't, and me saying a bad word."

I hear a few more steps and his shoe banging the railing as he steps over it. I turn around and face him. "Two."

"What?"

"I only have one mark against me. You have two. You also stepped over the railing."

His face contorts to an unflattering mix of frustration and anger. "You are so — " but just as quickly, his scowl is gone and the sharpness vanishes. His soft brown eyes stare into mine for a second or two. Or three. "Jenna," he sighs, "I don't want to argue. I just came looking for you. You were supposed to meet me over an hour ago down at the lavanderia. If you don't want to work on the project with me anymore, Father Rico has some-one else who — "

"No," I say.

He walks closer, an arm's length from me. "No, you don't want to work with me?"

I can't answer. What I should say and what I want to say are two different things. Have I always been this mixed up?