Hope Was Here

Once Hope unpacks all her boxes, she looks around her room and realizes that she is physically settled in her new house, but it doesn’t feel like home yet. She remembers that each time she moves, she begins to feel rooted in a place once she finds a friend. Addie once set Hope up with a boxing instructor, and Hope punched the bag until she felt her grief break inside. She hasn’t boxed since, but she keeps the gloves as a reminder of how much boxing helped her release her anger. Hope pulls out her scrapbook and turns to the section she’s labeled “The Dads” where she keeps photos cut out of magazines that could resemble her father (58). She pretends to speak to her dad and asks advice for how to assimilate into her new town. Later when she can’t sleep, she uses her thesaurus to look up synonyms for a thief like Gleason Beal and her name, Hope.

Hope arrives at the diner early the next morning and is sad to see that Braverman isn’t there yet. She overhears Lou Ellen complaining about how quickly Hope procured the waitressing job. By seven o’clock, the diner is packed, and Adam Pulver is trying to convince G.