All Chapters of Drawing 30,000 Suns for Mom: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Vivian Reed drove fast. Outside the window, the houses and trees blurred into gray smears.Her building was tall—so tall we had to ride up in a big metal box that dinged when it stopped. The apartment itself was small and cluttered, messier even than the home I'd shared with my mother, and the air inside smelled bad.She pointed to a small, pitch-dark room stacked with cardboard boxes. "You sleep here from now on." Then she pointed at a corner. "That's the bathroom. Drink water if you're hungry. Don't come out. Don't make noise."She shut her own bedroom door behind her.This home was colder than the inside of her car had been.I spread the little blanket my mother had left me on the floor, hugged my backpack, and sat down on top of it. I didn't dare move. I didn't dare make a sound.At night, Vivian would set a bag of stale crackers on the floor outside my door, knock once, and walk away. They were salty and not very good, but eating them kept my stomach from growling. I was hun

Vivian and the man who smelled like rusted blades were fighting.I was in the storage room, listening to things crash outside—plates, bowls, cups, shattering one after another like firecrackers on New Year's. I could hear Vivian crying too. Her crying didn't sound like mine, all locked up in my throat. Hers was sharp, like a knife scraping glass, and it made the hair on my arms stand up.After a long, long time, it finally went quiet outside.I eased the door open a crack. Vivian sat alone on the floor, surrounded by broken porcelain. A long gash ran across the back of her hand, bleeding steadily—drops of red hitting the floor, one after another, like the little flower-petal clots my mother used to cough up. The rain smell coming off her had turned thick and heavy.I thought of my mother. She'd told me that if you were bleeding, you had to hurry and put on one of the magic bandages that blew the pain away. I ran back to my corner and dug through the little tin box my mother had lef

I stood there and waited. There was a manhole cover by my feet, and I was scared of falling in, so I traced circles around its edge with my toe. One circle, two, three. I waited a long, long time.The sun crawled from overhead down behind the buildings to the west. The sky darkened, little by little. The ice cream cart drove off. Vivian still hadn't come back.I was cold, and my stomach hurt from hunger. I took the meat pie out of my pocket—the one Vivian had bought me that morning. I'd been holding it so long it had gone soft and shapeless, but I hadn't let myself finish it. I'd saved half, thinking I'd share it with her when she came back.Then it started to rain. The drops weren't heavy, but they came fast and cold against my face. Everyone around me put up umbrellas or ran for cover. I was the only one still standing there. I held the meat pie tight against my chest so the rain wouldn't ruin it.The rain kept coming harder. My clothes, my hair—everything soaked through. I was s

The man grabbed an empty beer bottle off the table and raised it high, ready to bring it down on Vivian's head.All I could think of was my mother's hand on my back, forcing me to memorize things, telling me, "Jamie, be strong!"I screamed. It came out loud and shrill, nothing like my usual voice—like a puppy whose tail had just been stepped on. I bolted out from under the table, running faster than I ever had, like some cartoon character sped up on screen. I threw my whole body into it, driving my head into the back of his leg.He lost his balance, yelped, and stumbled backward. The bottle flew out of his hand and shattered against the wall. He crashed to the floor with his full weight, the back of his skull striking the sharp iron corner of the radiator.He grunted once, his body jerked, and then he went still. His eyes stayed open, staring straight up at the ceiling. Red liquid pooled slowly beneath his head.The world went completely silent.Vivian scrambled up off the floor.

We arrived somewhere very far away. There were no tall buildings here—just low, squat houses, and the air smelled like grass and fresh earth. I liked it.We moved into an even smaller room. There was only one bed, and Vivian and I shared it. The mattress was hard, and it creaked whenever either of us turned over. But it was warm, because Vivian was right there beside me.She cut off her long hair, so it was as short as mine now. She stopped wearing those ripped jeans and put on a gray work uniform instead. She left early every morning and came home late every night, always carrying the smell of kitchen grease and sweat, but that faint hint of sunshine never left her.She didn't give me stale crackers anymore. Instead, she'd bring home hot meals from some loud, busy place where she worked—meat, vegetables, soup. Every night, she'd make me a sunny-side-up egg. Hers always came out round and golden, just like the suns I drew.I kept drawing my suns every day. That was my promise to my