I could hear people around us whispering about the crazy drunk man and his dirty little urchin children, but who cared what they thought? None of them had ever had their hand licked by a cheetah.

“Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten,” Dad said, “you’ll still have your stars.”

“Don’t you worry,” Dad said. “You leave

“Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten,” Dad said, “you’ll still have your stars.”

“No one expected you to amount to much,” she told me. “Lori was the smart one, Maureen the pretty one, and Brian the brave one. You never had much going for you except that you always worked hard.”