At top, Paul and his daughter head home after attending a fatherhood development class at Next Door Foundation. Above, Paul takes a break from his fatherhood development class to change his daughter’s diaper. He agreed to continue coming after his 16 sessions were up, thinking about the free baby supplies, and thinking that help might be something he’d need.

“Do they drug-test?” Paul asked, thinking about the urine tests he had failed at Target and Milwaukee Sanitation.

“No,” the counselor said. He pointed to Paul’s tattoos. “You might need to cover up all those marijuana leaves on your arm, turn them into hearts or something. But the main thing is you need to call her tonight.”

“I’ll borrow a phone,” Paul said.

“Or you can just drive out there and see her,” the counselor said.

“I don’t have a car, but I’ll bus.”

“It’s way out in Waukesha.”

“What? The job is in Waukesha?” Paul said. Waukesha was three bus transfers to the west, a mostly white suburb where 83 percent of children lived with both parents, 90 percent of families were middle class or better, 93 percent of adults were high school graduates and 95 percent were employed. “What are they going to let me do in Waukesha?” Paul said, but he listened as the counselor outlined a plan: Cover the tattoos. Get the job. Save enough money to rent an apartment near work and move with Sapphire to Waukesha, where she could enjoy all the advantages of an America that Paul had never experienced, an America nine miles away.

“Waukesha,” the counselor said, stretching the word out, nodding his head. “That could be the answer right there. She’ll grow up right. She’ll have some rich friends.”

“She could go to one of those day cares with a garden and a big old playground,” Paul said, nodding now, too.

“She’ll go to college,” the counselor said.

“She’ll become a doctor or something,” Paul said.

He promised the counselor he would call about the job, and he started traveling back across the city. Sapphire fussed and he cradled her to his chest. She spit up on his shoulder and he didn’t bother to wipe it off. “Waukesha,” he said, still getting used to the idea, because maybe it could work. He would get a bank account. He would save money to put himself through school and win full custody of Sapphire. “Gonna overcome everything for this little girl right here,” he wrote, posting a photo of Sapphire to his Facebook page, and by the time they arrived back at his mother’s house it looked to him like a place he was already preparing to leave. “A week tops and I’ll be out,” he said, carrying Sapphire up to the front door. He reached for the knob, but it didn’t turn. He knocked, and nobody answered. He pushed his shoulder against the door just to be sure. “Damn,” he said. “Locked out.”

They sat on the curb, waiting for his sister to come home with a key. After a few minutes, Sapphire started to cry, so he wrapped her in the blanket and gave her the rest of her milk. After 10 minutes, two teenagers walked by, and Paul stopped them. “Hey, give me a dollar,” he said, but the kids kept walking. He smoked one cigarette and lighted another. He wrapped the blanket tighter around Sapphire. “I’m sorry,” he told her.

A neighbor came out to talk to Paul while they continued to wait. “What’s happening?” he asked, and Paul told him about the trip back to his high school, the counselor and the $10-an-hour caretaking position. “Waukesha? Yeah, you’d fit in real good in Waukesha,” the neighbor said, laughing at the idea, and something about his reaction made Paul realize how ridiculous it seemed. He didn’t have a job. He didn’t have hearts on his arms, or a car to get him to work, or money to rent an apartment in the suburbs. He didn’t even own a key to his own home.

“Waukesha,” he said. “I know. Pretty stupid, right?”