Prospect Street by Emilie Richards

We’ve sold the house. There was no way around it. Your father and I are getting a divorce, and there’s no way around that, either. You’re fourteen and have to live with me, but there are some things we can control. I’ve thought of a way to keep us from moving to Great Falls with your grandparents.”
    As she had guessed, Remy reluctantly let curiosity take the reins. “How?”
    â€œIf your grandmother says yes, we’re going to move into the house on Prospect Street.”
    Remy sat up. The sullen expression was replaced by incredulity. “You’ve got to be kidding. That house smells like someone went to the bathroom in the halls. And I saw something moving in the kitchen, maybe a rat, and there was a homeless man down the street picking cans out of somebody’s trash. How would I get to school?” She paused, the reality dawning. “I wouldn’t, would I?”
    Faith considered how best to answer that. She was still making decisions, still proceeding with caution. “None of this is certain yet. As for the academy, the tuition is too much for me if I’m going to save for college, too. I have to invest whatever I can now, so you can go to a good university.”
    â€œLet Grandfather pay for college. He will.”
    â€œAnd if he pays, you’ll have no choice about where you go or what you major in. Those are the hard facts.” Faith knew from experience.
    â€œThen let him pay for the academy. He will.”
    Faith wasn’t sure her father would pay the academy fees, even if she begged. He was still so angry at his son-in-law’s humiliating “defection” that he wasn’t above punishing the children just to make David squirm.
    But even if he did, she didn’t want to be beholden to Joe Huston. He was a rigid man, and leverage was a senator’s stock in trade. If he helped Faith pay tuition, he would exact repayment in a thousand different ways, none of them endearing.
    Faith looked down at her daughter. “Here’s a big dose of reality, because you’re old enough to handle it. The last half of the year at the academy was tough for you, and it’s always been tough for your brother. I think you need a new school, one that doesn’t pretend everybody in the world thinks the same way. You need a larger view.”
    â€œI’m not going to public school.”
    â€œMaybe you need to start over. Not boarding school, but somewhere with a different outlook. Public school could be the place.”
    â€œYou just don’t want to spend your precious savings on me. You don’t care.”
    The telephone rang, and when Remy made no attempt to answer, Faith reached for it. Her mother was on the other end of the line.
    Faith hung up a few moments later.
    â€œYou’re really going to move us to that slum, aren’t you?” Remy said. “No matter what I say.”
    Faith wondered what she had just agreed to. She had given up the security of Great Falls and a lifestyle that was, at the veryleast, familiar. She had traded that known quantity for a wreck of a house on Prospect Street and the dubious joys of city life.
    She gave a short nod. “Georgetown is nobody’s idea of a slum. If you think it is, then you really do need a larger view of the world. So you’re about to get one. Your grandmother has decided to let us move into the house.”
    â€œI’m not going.”
    Remy had no choice. Faith only hoped that in the not too distant future her daughter would understand why this move and everything that came with it were necessary.
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    An hour after her conversation with Remy, Faith lay in the tub in the master bathroom. She had capped off her session with her daughter by breaking the news to her son. Alex, heavily involved in trying to bypass the strict controls David had set up on his computer, looked up when she finished.
    â€œCan I live in the attic? I don’t want to go