Shelby’s suitemates hadn’t arrived yet. Mary Ellen explored the common room with wonderment, exclaiming over the flat-screen TV, the kitchenette, the sleek furniture. “How can you call it a dorm without cinder blocks and This End Up furniture? This is nicer than my first apartment!”
“This is how they are now, Mom.” Shelby was pulling pillows out of a trash bag, keeping an eye on the hallway, where some loudly chattering girls were broadcasting their social proficiency to the world.
“I bet you’re going to love your roommates,” Mary Ellen said, reading the names posted on the door. “Aaliyah, Brooke, Madison—they sound nice.”
“Mom,” Shelby complained, “you’re being ridiculous. Those are just names.”
“Okay, okay. Where do you want your shoes? In the closet or under the bed?”
“Wherever.”
Mary Ellen helped Shelby unpack in silence until a short brunette entered the suite and introduced herself as Brooke. While Shelby made awkward small talk in the common room, Mary Ellen stayed in the bedroom putting things away. In a pocket of the suitcase, she found the wooden nameplate that had hung on Shelby’s bedroom door since she was a baby. Mary Ellen took it out with a fond smile, running her finger over the colorful carved balloons and prancing cats that decorated the letters of Shelby’s name. She found some pushpins and mounted it on the outside of Shelby’s room door, then turned to Shelby and Brooke with a wide smile. The girls stopped talking, and Shelby’s face fell into the kind of deathly slackness she reserved for moments of fury or despair, or both.
After retreating to her room and slamming the door, Shelby hissed, “I can’t believe you,” her face working hard to maintain its mask of indifference.
“I don’t understand… It’s cute! Why did you bring it if you didn’t want to hang it up?”
“Mom!”
“So take it down!”
“I can’t now. God.”
“Then I will.”
“Don’t touch anything. Don’t do anything, Mom; just stop, I swear. You’re just…uhhh.” Shelby squeezed her eyes shut. “You’re ruining everything.”
“I’m sorry. I—”
“Shh!”
What was it about being shushed that was so infuriating? Mary Ellen crossed her arms, tamping down her anger, struggling to find a calm, reasonable way to defuse the situation. “Now, Shelby—”
“Shh!”
“Don’t shush me!” Mary Ellen’s breath caught up in her throat. Shelby’s eyes flew open. “Excuse me.” Mary Ellen pinched the bridge of her nose. “No, actually, don’t excuse me. I’m on your side, Shelby. Can’t you see that? You have no reason to hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“You have no reason to act like you hate me, even if you’re stressed out.” Mary Ellen paused, breathing hard. “You should treat me with respect, damn it. I’m your mother.”
Shelby’s face folded in on itself, and after taking a moment to recover her senses, Mary Ellen sat beside her on the bed. “I know it’s hard, especially with Sydney going to Pitt. But you’ll make friends. It’s going to be amazing. You’ll see.”
“I know.”
“Just…try not to get sucked into the party scene, okay? No more fake ID shenanigans.”
Shelby looked down and away.
“I know we never really talked about it, with everything that happened, but Shelby, come on.” Mary Ellen searched for a way to say what seemed so obvious that it shouldn’t need saying. “Don’t do stuff that’ll get you in trouble with the police. And aside from all that, don’t drink too much. You start doing it for fun, but later on, it becomes, like, an excuse to avoid dealing with life. And then it’s not fun anymore. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” She patted Shelby’s knee. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you after you got sent home. I was caught up in things that were happening up there, and I don’t know. I don’t really have a good excuse.”
“Did they ever catch that girl? The runaway?”
“I don’t think so.” Mary Ellen played with her wedding rings for a moment. She hadn’t told Matt or the girls very much about Ivy. “She was a pretty determined person. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s in Montana by now.”
• • •
Matt wanted to sue Justine. “Dale says it’s winnable.”
“Dale the tax lawyer?” Mary Ellen slid a letter into an envelope and passed it over to Matt, who stuck a stamp on it. She’d joined the board of Greensgrow and was helping with their annual appeal.
“He went to law school.”
“I really don’t see the point in suing her.”
“She sends you to this place in the middle of nowhere, no land line, no reception, and doesn’t bother paying the snowplow bill? She’s liable. Sorry.”
“Okay, but I think I just want to move on. Don’t you?”
“This is how we move on. By making the responsible party pay.” His jaw was tight—she could see the joint twitching under his second-day bristle.
“I guess I see it more as a mistake,” Mary Ellen said. “I mean, yes, what ended up happening was horrific. But I blame the woolly adelgid more than Justine.”
“The what?”
“The bug that’s been killing all those trees.”
Matt stuck a stamp to an envelope and pounded it with his fist. “I’m sorry, but that bitch—”
“Matt!”
“—has to pay.”
Mary Ellen squinted at him disbelievingly. It had been building for months—the muttering, the door slamming, the parking ticket he’d ripped to shreds and thrown to the ground. She’d never seen him like this. “Why are you so angry?”
“Why are you so not angry?”
She sighed and picked up another letter, folding it carefully and drawing her finger along the crease. In the beginning, she’d been touched by Matt’s fury. It had seemed
