Working to put his little sister through school?
That answer caught Nick somewhat off guard-in fact, he was quite surprised.
This was not Cyrus, after all. According to their records, the siblings had been living on the streets for quite some time, at least six months and close to a year.
Although he knew the siblings were good, smart kids who had never given up trying to change their circumstances, Nick had expected to hear that they would use the money for travel expenses and head to some city in the South, somewhere like Los Angeles that was better suited to spending the winter, to look for opportunities-there were more jobs there than in Portland.
School was an almost impossible answer for homeless people whose every decision revolved around "immediate survival."
Nor did people in this country have the deeply ingrained belief that education could change their fate.
"You know how difficult that path is, right? For you personally, at least, do you know what this means?" Nick did not immediately throw cold water on the idea. He wanted to know exactly how Hansen had thought this through.
"Gracie's really smart. Her grades in middle school were always good. If it hadn't been for..." Hansen's expression dimmed at that point.
"But she deserves a better life, and I'm willing to give everything for that. There's a Pizza shop owner who once promised he'd hire me as long as I could find a permanent place to live. If that's not enough, I can also..."
"Hansen!" Gracie suddenly cut her brother off. When she raised her head, her eyes were already full of tears. "
You promised me you wouldn't do that kind of thing."
Seeing that the siblings were about to argue, Nick quickly interrupted.
Whether it really was delivering pizza