Jarrett thinks back on his early life with his grandparents, starting with his first days at school, where (when asked to draw his parents) he told the teacher he didn’t have any, and drew Shirley and Joe instead.

The Krosoczka household was loving, but troubled. Both Shirley and Joe were strong personalities, and had problems with alcohol. While they showered Jarrett with affection, they often fought with each other: “But it was nothing like the fights they used to get into—or so I was told. No one drew blood” (77). Living in the comparative security of his grandparents’ house, Jarrett still had frequent nightmares.

Joe and Shirley would sometimes take Jarrett to visit Leslie at Spectrum House, a halfway house for recovering addicts coming out of jail. Jarrett was too little to understand where Leslie was staying and why she couldn’t come home, but he loved to see her. She gave him a fluffy white teddy bear he named Snow Cone, which he adored: “When you don’t see your mom much, you treasure everything that she gives you” (84).

When Jarrett left preschool, he went to Gates Lane Elementary, the same school that everyone in his family had attended.