certainly no panic—as she turned off the computer. She left the salad, barely touched, on her desk. No need for it now. No desire for it. She got everything ready; it wasn’t difficult. She’d been preparing for this night for a long time. Once all was in order, she came out to the porch to watch the moon and feel the satin air and fill her eyes and lungs and ears with the world one last time. She had no expectation of a change of heart. The relief in her decision was too great, so great that by the time she finally got to her feet, just as the moon slipped behind the trees across the street, she was very nearly smiling.
2
Tara
Going upstairs to call Grace for dinner was becoming a habit. I knew I’d find her sitting at her computer, earbuds in her ears so she couldn’t hear me when I tried to call her from the kitchen. Did she do that on purpose? I knocked on her door, then pushed it open a few inches when she didn’t answer. She was typing, her attention glued to her monitor. “Dinner’s almost ready, Grace,” I said. “Please come set the table.”
Twitter, our goldendoodle, had been stretched out beneath Grace’s bare feet, but at the mention of “dinner” he was instantly at my side. Not so my daughter.
“In a minute,” she said. “I have to finish this.”
I couldn’t see the screen from where I stood, but I was quite sure she was typing an email rather than doing her homework. I knew she was still behind. That was what happened when you taught at your child’s high school; you always knew what was going on academically. Grace had been an excellent student and one of the best writers at Hunter High, but that all changed when Sam died in March. Everyone cut her slack during the spring and I was hoping she’d pull it together this fall, but then Cleve broke up with her before he left for college, sending her into a tailspin. At least, I assumed it was the breakup that had pulled her deeper into her shell. How could I really know what was going on with her? She wouldn’t talk to me. My daughter had become a mystery. A closed book. I was starting to think of her as the stranger who lived upstairs.
I leaned against the doorjamb and studied my daughter. We had the same light brown hair dusted with the same salon-manufactured blond highlights, but her long, thick mane had the smooth shiny glow that came with being sixteen years old. Somewhere along the way, my chin-length hair had lost its luster.
“I’m making pasta with pesto,” I said. “It’ll be done in two minutes.”
“Is Ian still here?” She kept typing but glanced quickly out the window, where I supposed she could see Ian’s Lexus parked on the street.
“He’s staying for dinner,” I said.
“He might as well move in,” she said. “He’s here all the time, anyway.”
I was shocked. She’d never said a word about Ian’s visits before, and he only came over once or twice a week now that Sam’s estate was settled. “No, he’s not,” I said. “And he’s been a huge help with all the paperwork, honey. Plus, he has to take over all Daddy’s cases and some of his records are here in his home office, so—”
“Whatever.” Grace hunched her shoulders up to her ears as she typed as if she could block out my voice that way. She stopped typing for a second, wrinkling her nose at her screen. Then she glanced up at me. “Can you tell Noelle to leave me alone?” she asked.
“Noelle? What do you mean?”
“She’s always emailing me. She wants me and Jenny to—”
“Jenny and me.”
She rolled her eyes and I cringed.
“Make things for her babies-in-need program.” She waved her hand toward her monitor. “Now she’s on this ‘community work will look great on your college applications’ kick.”
“Well, it will.”
“She’s such a total whack job.” She started typing again, fingers flying. “If you could compare her brain with a normal brain on an MRI, I’m sure they’d look completely different.”
I had to smile. Grace might be right. “Well, she brought you into the world and I’ll always be grateful for that,” I said.
“She never lets me forget it, either.”
I heard the timer ringing downstairs. “Dinner’s ready,” I said. “Come on.”
“Two seconds.” She got to her feet, bending over the desk, still typing furiously. Suddenly she let out a yelp, hands to her face. She took a step back from the keyboard.
“Oh, no,” she said. “Oh,
“What’s the matter?”
“Oh, no,” she said again, whispering the words this time as she dropped back into her chair, eyes closed.
“What is it, sweetie?” I started toward her as if I might somehow be able to fix whatever was wrong, but she waved me away.
“It’s nothing.” She stared at her monitor. “And I’m not hungry.”
“You have to eat,” I said. “You hardly ever eat dinner with me anymore.”
“I’ll get some cereal later,” she said. “Just…right now, I have to fix something. Okay?” She gave me a look that said our conversation was over, and I backed away, nodding.
“Okay,” I said, then added helplessly, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“She’s having a meltdown,” I said to Ian as I walked into the kitchen. “And she’s not hungry.”
Ian was chopping tomatoes for the salad but he turned to look at me. “Maybe I should go,” he said.
“No way.” I spooned the pesto-coated rigatoni into my big white pasta bowls. “Someone needs to help me eat all this food. Anyway, it’s not you that’s keeping her away. It’s me. She avoids me all she can.” I didn’t want Ian to leave. There was comfort in his company. He’d been Sam’s law partner and close friend for more than fifteen years and I wanted to be with someone who’d known my husband well and had loved him. Ian had been my rock since
