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his street, Houston’s heart beating a horrible tattoo in his chest, his mouth watering from the smells and the sights of the freshly baked bread. Looking around, it was crowded, no one paying any attention to him. Sam’s back turned. Houston’s hands closing around one of the still-warm loafs in a basket outside the counter, stuffing it under his thin jacket. Lifting his eyes to see Sam looking straight at him. And then Sam turning away, saying nothing, and Houston feeling the shame of the baker’s pity so strongly he could not eat the bread. He brought it home to his mother, who had been indifferent to the offering, uncaring of what it had cost him.
    Molly was looking at him, understandably perplexed by the question.
    Stop it, he ordered himself. But another question came out anyway, clipped with unexpected anger. “Out of work?”
    “I don’t suppose the summer I chose to volunteer here instead of taking a paying job counts, does it?”
    “The fact you could make a choice to volunteer instead of work indicates to me you have probably not known real hardship.”
    “That doesn’t make me a bad person!” she said sharply. “Or unqualified for my job!”
    “No,” he said, taking a deep breath, telling himself to smarten up. “Of course it doesn’t. I’m just saying your frame of reference when choosing projects may nottake into account the harsh realities the people you are helping live with.”
    Another memory popped over that wall. His father drunk, belligerent, out of work again. Not his fault. Never his fault. His mother screaming at his father. You loser. The look on his father’s face. Rage. The flying fists, the breaking glass.
    Houston could feel his heart beating as rapidly as though it had just happened. Molly was watching him, silently, the dismay and anger that had been in her face fading, becoming more thoughtful.
    He ordered himself, again, to stop this. It was way too personal. But, master of control that he was, he did not stop.
    “Have you ever had no place to live?”
    “Of course not!”
    Homelessness was so far from her reality that she could not even fathom it happening to her. Not that he had any right to treat that as a character defect, just because it had once been part of his childhood reality.
    The eviction notice pounded onto the door. The hopeless feeling of nowhere to go and no place to feel safe. That sense that even that place he had called home was only an illusion. A sense that would be confirmed as the lives of the Whitfords spiraled steadily downward toward disaster.
    Again Molly was silent, but her eyes were huge and had darkened to a shade of green that reminded him of a cool pond on a hot day, a place that promised refuge and rest, escape from a sizzling hot pressure-cooker of a world.
    Her expression went from defensive to quiet. She studied his face, her own distress gone, as if she saw something in him, focused on something in him. Hedidn’t want her to see his secrets, and yet something in her steady gaze made him feel seen, vulnerable.
    “You’re dealing with desperation, and you’re doling out prom dresses? Are you kidding me?”
    Houston was being way too harsh. He drew a deep breath, ordered himself to apologize, to back track, but suddenly the look on her face transformed. Her expression went from that quiet thoughtfulness to something much worse. Knowing.
    He felt as transparent as a sheet of glass.
    “You’ve known those things, haven’t you?” she guessed softly.
    The truth was he would rather run through Central Park in the buff than reveal himself emotionally.
    He was stunned that she had seen right through his exquisite suit, all the trappings of wealth and success, seen right through the harshness of his delivery to what lay beneath.
    He was astounded that a part of him—a weak part— wanted to be seen. Completely.
    He didn’t answer her immediately. The part of him that felt as if it was clamoring to be acknowledged quieted, and he came back