Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1

"But I don’t want fruit for breakfast, Mom!” Gia planted her chubby elbows on the granite countertop and scowled at Charlotte. “I want pancakes. With lots of syrup.”

“Gia, we don’t have time for pancakes today. Mommy has an appointment at ten thirty with Aunt Elizabeth. Maria will be here any minute. And I still have to shower. So please eat the fruit, sweetheart.” Charlotte darted around the kitchen in her silk La Perla robe, tearing through her morning to-do list. Let dog out in backyard. Feed dog. Give dog fresh water. Make list for supermarket. Load dishwasher.Gather dry cleaning to be dropped off. “It’s good for you, Gia. Fruit is good for you.” The first day of school couldn’t arrive soon enough.

Gia folded her arms across her chest and shook her head defiantly. “Fruit has a ton of carbs in it.” She pushed the plate away from her as if to declare pancakes carb free.

“Who told you that?” Charlotte glanced at her nine-year-old daughter, the apparent nutrition expert, in her oversized Justin Bieber nightshirt.

“Olivia’s mom. She knows everything about healthy stuff. She’s really skinny.”

“Is that so?” Olivia’s mom, Avery—who was precisely the type of person to have a name like Avery before names like Avery were even trendy—was really skinny. Too skinny, actually.

“Yup. She said I have to eat only protein and vegetables if I want to look like her.”

“Interesting.” Charlotte didn’t appreciate the unsolicited advice from skele-mommy. “Well, I think you look perfect just the way you are.”

In Charlotte’s opinion, prepubescent girls were not meant to be starving themselves or adhering to stringent dietary restrictions. There’d been none of that in her day. Charlotte had been pleasantly plump, as her maternal grandmother had affectionately referred to her, until she was at least fourteen, at which time she’d shed most of the baby fat. After that, her physique had been what one might call “sturdy” or “solid.” Fat wasn’t the right word. But thin wasn’t either. And skinny was out of the question, given her genetic inheritance. Charlotte’s own mother, while striking in many ways, had thighs so substantial she used to brag, “I could crush a can of creamed corn between these babies!” And her father’s protruding paunch preceded his entrance into every room. The writing was on the wall.

Still, by the time Charlotte was a freshman at Cornell University, she’d found a way to tame her voluptuous figure with control-top stockings and other gut-sucking paraphernalia. And by the time vanity had really set in, she’d found a way to stick her finger down her throat following every meal. It wasn’t ideal, but it was a means to an end: finding a rich, handsome husband to take care of her.

“Then why are you making me eat fruit?” Gia arched an eyebrow, a signature gesture that evoked her father. The same father who’d insisted that Gia was “unnecessarily overweight” and that if she didn’t slim down she’d be tormented by the kids at school. He’d suggested that the sooner she learned to adjust her diet to reflect the crawling metabolism she’d been bestowed with—a dig at Charlotte’s side of the family—her life and theirs (that part had been left unspoken) would be much easier.

Of course, Charlie had a point. Charlotte didn’t want Gia to be persecuted by her classmates any more than he did. But she also didn’t want Gia to grow up insecure about her body, desperate to conceal her ample rear end and padded midsection, as Charlotte had. It was easy for Charlie to set forth directives, especially when the onus was on Charlotte to follow them. He wasn’t the one who had to put a plate of fruit in front of Gia every morning. Or make up excuses to leave the playground early, before the ice-cream truck arrived, so that she didn’t have to deny her daughter the simple childhood pleasure of a snow cone. So what if she was a little overweight? She was only nine, for God’s sake! Nine-year-olds deserved to eat snow cones!

“I’m not making you, Gia. Clearly you haven’t taken one bite. Can you please just eat it, so I can get ready? You can have pancakes tomorrow. I promise.” Charlotte sat down at the kitchen table—adjacent to the breakfast bar, where Gia was perched on a barstool—sinking her tired body into one of the six cushioned chairs upholstered in deluxe celadon linen. She surveyed her Architectural Digest–worthy kitchen with its stark white frameless cabinets, black granite worktops crafted from volcanically formed natural stone, top-of-the-line stainless-steel appliances, and the pièce de résistance—an Italian glass chandelier, a modern interpretation of vintage Murano, that she and Charlie had purchased on their honeymoon in Florence—to preside over it all. She knew she was blessed.

“I don’t want pancakes tomorrow. I. Want. Them. Now!”

Charlotte sighed. She didn’t have the energy to fight with Gia. Not today. Especially since it wasn’t her battle; it was Charlie’s. She still had to deal with her sister, and it wasn’t even nine a.m. And that would extract every morsel of vitality from her being. It always did.

“Fine, sweetheart. Whatever you want.” She stood again, defeated, walked toward the freezer, retrieved two Eggo buttermilk pancakes, slid them into the toaster oven, and swiped the bottle of syrup from the refrigerator, setting it on the counter in front of her triumphant offspring.

“Great.” Gia revealed a complacent grin and dropped her arms to her sides. She’d won and she knew it. Granted, Charlotte hadn’t put up much of a fight, but then, she rarely did. She was the pushover parent. The good cop, if you will. Something for which she knew Charlie resented her.

It was impossible to pinpoint when things had turned for her and Charlie. There wasn’t a day or a month or even a year when their relationship had suddenly morphed from two people so madly in love it felt incomprehensible that they’d ever been able to breathe without each other to two people passing through the hallways of their house and their lives with little more than a quick conversation, a peripheral smile, and a chaste peck on the lips. What she wouldn’t give to return to that dispassionate contentedness. Now things were different. Most days, it felt as if she were dangling from the roof of the tallest skyscraper, which had been erected with layer upon layer of resentment. One rancorous floor on top of another, the windows welded shut to constrain the dense fog of suffocating bitterness. After all, it was one thing to be miserable. But quite another for people to know about it.

It would have been easy enough to blame their troubles on parenthood, a common scapegoat and credible culprit in destroying marriages, transforming them from spicy to icy faster than you can say “breast pump.” But that wasn’t the entirety of it. Charlotte would have loved more children. Gia hadn’t been an easy baby, but wasn’t there some sort of memory-erasing serum that obliterated all the physical and emotional pain inherent in childbirth and child rearing in those first few years? The sleepless nights. The hundred-and-four-degree fevers. The projectile vomit. The lavalike poops that seemed to erupt at the most inopportune times, like when you’d been waiting in a long line at the supermarket and were just about to load your items onto the conveyer belt at checkout.

They’d tried for a second baby when Gia was four. Charlie had wanted a boy. But month after month, test after test, the words not pregnant had taunted her. Three characters fewer and she’d have been a mother of two. Maybe of a Charles Crane, Jr. Would that have made things better?

They’d gone through five rounds of IVF, which had only intensified the ubiquitous strain in their marriage. Charlotte had been hyped-up on hormones. Charlie had grown intolerant of her radically swinging moods. And Gia, just a toddler, had been forced to listen to her parents throw down over things as innocuous as a glass of spilled milk. Turns out it was something to cry over.

There were still good days, though they were few and far between. Occasionally a whole week would pass without a fight and, for a brief space in time, Charlotte would remember why she’d fallen in love with Charlie in the first place. She could tell he was feeling the same way. Something in the way he looked at her, even touched her. If she was really lucky, she’d wake up to him caressing her back, knowing that he’d been watching her sleep with a certain fondness she cherished and tried desperately to preserve. How was it possible, she’d often wondered, that one person could evoke such radically far-flung emotions in another? How could she feel such intense tenderness for Charlie on any given Monday and by Wednesday have to restrain herself from wringing his neck?

“Here you go.” Charlotte placed Gia’s second pass at breakfast in front of her. “Just don’t tell your father.”

“My lips are sealed.” She pretended to zip her mouth shut with the tips of her thumb and index finger pressed together. “As soon as I eat these.” She giggled.

“Thanks.” Charlotte smiled as her daughter drenched her pancakes in a puddle of maple syrup. Sometimes it was easy to forget she was just a little girl.

• • •

Once Maria had arrived, a few minutes before nine, as she always did, rain or shine, Charlotte withdrew to her expansive white marble master bathroom to treat herself to a relaxing steam shower before meeting Elizabeth. It was remarkable, really, the way Gia’s whole attitude shifted when she was in the presence of anyone but Charlotte or Charlie. Suddenly she became obedient—polite, even—dispensingpleases and thank yous as if she had an excess to relinquish. But as soon as Charlotte so much as walked by the room where Gia and Maria were playing, invariably Gia’s diva demeanor would rear its ugly head. And then some.

Charlotte cranked the faucet all the way to hot, slipped out of her robe, and let it fall to the floor, where Janna, her housekeeper, would find it later on and dutifully return it to its hook on the other side of the bathroom, which was the size of a studio apartment in New York City. This was Charlotte’s favorite time of the day. The one hour of peace and quiet between Maria’s arrival and commencing the myriad errands and appointments that typically confronted her. There was no one to tug on her arm or interrupt her train of thought with a question that, surely, they could answer on their own.

Sometimes she had to remind herself that she’d gone to an Ivy League school and graduated magna cum laude. That she’d then landed a coveted position, albeit entry-level, at one of Manhattan’s most distinguished advertising firms and that, during her two-year tenure, she had been tapped as the company’s rising star. Then she’d met Charlie and decided to marry him within months, had gotten pregnant shortly thereafter, and had taken a “leave of absence”; still, that did not mean she’d forfeited her brain cells in exchange for a sprawling lawn and designer shoes.

Charlotte examined herself in the mirror, as she did every morning, zeroing in on each imperfection. The crow’s-feet radiating from the corners of her eyes and fanning down her cheeks. The sagging breasts. The way the undersides of her arms flapped like slabs of meat. The fact that her inner thighs kissed when she walked. And the saddest truth of all: her visibly bulging belly nine years post-baby. She needed a spray tan, a bikini wax, and either a diet plan that might actually work or liposuction.

Charlotte knew she wasn’t fat, per se, but you didn’t have to be fat to be considered fat when you lived in the Manhattan suburbs. If you were so much as average, you weren’t thin enough. Ladies’ lunches were salads only. Oil and vinegar on the side. Sugar-free iced tea or water with lemon, and no carbonation for fear of bloating. Regular exercise classes were a given—no less than six times per week, pick your poison, depending on how much you were willing to sweat. Personal trainers were another option, but not nearly as social. Because, ultimately, it wasn’t just about how you burned off your salad. It was about who saw you burning it off and how good you looked doing it—clad in Lululemon with a fresh blowout and an artfully made-up face, just enough effort to make perfection appear effortless.

Charlotte grimaced and slathered a mud mask on her face, which she’d let set while she exfoliated the rest of her body. Short of plastic surgery, it was the best she could do. She opened the heavy glass door to the shower, releasing a gust of thick, warm steam, and stepped inside the one place where she could shut off from the rest of the world, even if only for ten delicious minutes of solitude.

But before she could close the door behind her, the phone rang, dislocating her serenity. She didn’t have to answer it. What could be so important? Who could be so important? Gia was home with her. Charlie was at work. Her parents were definitely still asleep. And she was about to go meet Elizabeth. Most likely, it was a prerecorded message from some insurance company, informing her that—no matter what rates she currently had—they could do better. Still, she couldn’t fully relax without knowing who was on the other end of the line.

She scampered across the bathroom and into her bedroom, her damp feet padding through the plush white wall- to-wall carpeting, which they had to have cleaned every two months thanks to their dog Lolly’s eternally muddy paws. The phone chimed for a fifth time as she lunged for it.

“Hello?” she answered breathlessly and somewhat accusatorily. As in What could be so important that you have to interrupt my steam shower?

“The appointment was rescheduled,” Elizabeth droned through the receiver.

“What do you mean it was rescheduled?” Charlotte propped herself against the side of her king-sized bed. Heaps of pillows in different shapes, sizes, and patterns dressed the ornate wrought-iron headboard. It was hopelessly romantic. Hopelessly being the operative word.

“I mean it’s not happening today, so you’re off the hook.” Elizabeth delivered the news without so much as a hint of gratitude that Charlotte had rearranged her day to accompany her sister to her new shrink. The new shrink that, with any luck—more like a minor miracle, actually—would be the last in a long line of shrinks who Elizabeth had decided “didn’t get her.” Or “didn’t understand all that she’d been through.” Because no one could ever understand the depths of her sister’s pain. No matter how hard they tried or how many degrees they had hanging on their office wall.

The thing was, Charlotte had actually been looking forward to this appointment. Sure, she’d sat alongside Elizabeth for more therapy sessions than she cared to remember, but this time she had a purpose. A goal. She’d planned to tell this counselor—psychologist, psychiatrist, whatever she was—that she needed her sister’s help. That, while she understood—perhaps better than anyone else—the impact of the unthinkable tragedy Elizabeth had endured, there had to be a light at the end of the ten-year tunnel. And if there wasn’t, Elizabeth had to find a way to function as a normal, or at least useful, member of society, which meant assisting Charlotte in taking care of their sick parents. She’d pilfered the last part from Charlie.

“I don’t want to be off the hook. I was looking forward to meeting Dr. Lisa,” Charlotte griped, though she’d been instantly skeptical of the informal designation. In her estimation, anyone who used their first name to follow their title came off sounding more like a late-night radio-show host than a steadfast medical practitioner.

“Well, sorry.”

“So what happened?” Charlotte walked back into the bathroom to turn off the shower and to dab at the hardened mask on her face with a wet washcloth. “Did you make a new appointment?”

“Not yet. I have no way to get there,” Elizabeth mumbled.

“I don’t understand.”

“What’s not to understand? I. Have. No. Transportation.”

“What’s wrong with the Jeep?” Just three months earlier, Charlie had succumbed to Charlotte’s unremitting pleas to buy her sister a new car. Elizabeth’s twenty-year-old Volkswagen, which she never washed or had serviced, had smelled like a garbage dump and had been breaking down twice a week, and Charlotte, the ever-dutiful sister, had been driving all around town picking her up.

“Nick has it.” Nick was Elizabeth’s boyfriend. Her notoriously irresponsible boyfriend, whose penchant for gambling at Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods every few weeks had earned him his “winning” reputation.

“Okay, well, where’s Nick’s car?” Charlotte rolled her eyes in anticipation of the answer. Rather, the excuse. “Don’t make me pull teeth here, Lizzy.”

“I don’t know.” She was immediately defensive, as well she should be. They both knew, at this point, that it was more of an indictment than an innocuous query. “He said something about a friend borrowing it.”

“A friend.” Charlotte exhaled dramatically. “I see. So, what? He took your car for the foreseeable future, leaving you bound to your apartment indefinitely? That sounds like a good plan.”

“Don’t start.”

“Start? You think this is the beginning? This has been going on for three years, Lizzy. It’s not only your life that’s inconvenienced by his crap.” Charlotte flung her muddy washcloth into the laundry basket and instinctively ran the palm of her hand over her skin to make sure it was as supple and smooth as the bottle had promised.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I get in the way of your regular facial or massage? Which one was it today?”

Charlotte clenched her jaw and balled her free hand into a tight fist, coaching herself to breathe in and out. In and out. She wasn’t going to allow herself to be sucked into Elizabeth’s vortex of misery. Again. “Let’s drop it, okay? Just try to give me a little advance notice when you reschedule.”

“Fine.”

“Do you want to use the Range Rover until Nick gets his car back?”

“That would be helpful.”

“I’ll pay for the cab over here.”

“Can’t you come get me?”

“Lizzy . . .” Charlotte stopped herself and took another deep breath. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

Chapter 2

“Ican’t believe how great this place looks.” Allison scooted around the kitchen’s center island and knelt in front of a low cabinet so she could reorganize the piles of neatly pressed linen place mats and napkins her mother had picked up, along with “a few other necessary items,” as she’d referred to the collection of brimming shopping bags littering the already congested foyer. “Can you hand me that orange tablecloth?”

“Just a minute, sweetheart.” Her mom fluttered across the space, swooping from drawer to drawer, cupboard to cupboard, and in and out of the refrigerator so many times that Allison’s ten-year-old son, Logan, had said that Grandma was making him dizzy—at which point Allison’s father had suggested that “the men” take a trip to Dunkin’ Donuts for a tête-à-tête. And even though Logan had no idea what that meant, anywhere Grandpa was going, he was more than happy to follow. Over the past four days, that had included three separate trips to the toy store—apparently one could never have enough sporting equipment in suburbia—a visit to Grandpa’s office followed by a tour of the hospital where he did his rounds, and countless excursions to the Wincourt Library, where “the men” would get lost in the stacks for hours, while Allison and her mother whipped the house into tip-top shape.

Allison had no expectations that either Logan or her father would help unpack and organize things. When it came to complicated brain surgery, her dad was your man. But folding T-shirts and screwing in lightbulbs were not part of his repertoire. On the other hand, Allison’s mom had been making preparations for their arrival since the house had been purchased in June. They’d arrived to working telephones, a cable package with more channels than any two people could hope to watch, and a refrigerator bursting with prepared meals—lasagna, chicken casserole, beef chili, you name it.

Allison had been anticipating their move out of Manhattan for months and had been promising herself for weeks that she wouldn’t let Logan be the strong one. Resilience was deeply embedded in Logan’s DNA, as it had been in his dad’s; in Logan’s case, it was coupled with the heartbreaking circumstance of growing up without a father. How many times over the course of the past decade had Logan been the one to remind her, even when he couldn’t speak, that he needed to be fed, or dressed, or read a bedtime story? And he never cried, not even as a baby. Well, not never, but rarely. All the mommies in her mommy-and-me classes had been incredulous. Allison had chalked it up to God owing her one. A dead husband and a colicky baby; now, that would have been downright cruel.

It wasn’t the norm for Logan to play parent. It certainly could have been if she’d let herself be pummeled by the forceful waves of anger, depression, and fear that had submerged her more often than she cared to admit. But she’d refused to do that to her baby. Logan—or at least the promise of him—had been the lone shaft of light illuminating the dark abyss that was her life. Her life after. Because that’s how Allison defined it. Before Jack’s death and after. She’d thought about terminating the pregnancy for a fleeting moment, when one of the few “bus tragedy” widows she knew had done it without so much as a hint of penitence. “It’s not fair to bring a child into this world without one parent and with another who can barely get out of bed in the morning.” She’d said it so matter-of-factly. As if she didn’t have a choice. As if a piece of her husband hadn’t been living inside her. At the time, it had seemed evocatively hollow to Allison, but her mother had been quick to point out that everyone had her own method of grieving. And that what was right for this woman didn’t have to be right for her.

She barely remembered being pregnant. Nine months of doctor’s appointments, an ever-expanding belly, and knowing smiles from strangers had elapsed faster than a good night’s sleep, an experience that, for Allison, had perished along with Jack. She hadn’t returned to their marital bed after. She’d slept only on the living room couch, waiting for him to walk through the front door. Until his body was recovered, there was a chance he could come home, she’d rationalized.

Eventually, Jack’s body had been identified—or at least parts of it had. Allison’s father had handled those details, keeping anything remotely grizzly well concealed, while Allison’s mom had tended to things like grocery shopping and making sure her pregnant daughter was maintaining as healthful a lifestyle as could be expected for a woman who’d just lost her husband.

Her parents had also facilitated her move from the one-bedroom Upper West Side apartment she’d shared with Jack—their “love nest,” he’d dubbed it upon first sight—to a bright, spacious-for-Manhattan two-bedroom on the corner of Eighty-fifth Street and Lexington Avenue. The quiet of their West Side neighborhood, which had once seemed beguilingly romantic, had suddenly become haunting. Not to mention that every inch of space had reminded her of him. She’d needed noise around her. Something to drown out the unceasing turbulence in her head.

Initially, her mom had suggested, in her gentle way, that Allison move back home, to their intimate suburban enclave forty-five minutes from the hustle and bustle of New York City. If only for a few months, a year at most. But Allison had been resolute in her decision to stay put. She’d maintained that she craved the familiarity but had deliberately left out the truth—that she was terrified to leave Jack behind.

Now, eleven years later, she was still terrified to leave him behind. But she knew she was doing it for the right reasons. To give Logan the upbringing he deserved. And to give both of them a fresh start—a long-overdue fresh start. Logan was ready. For him, their move wasn’t the volatile cocktail of mixed emotions it was for her. He wasn’t beset with guilt over leaving behind a father he never knew. Or tortured by a slideshow of reminiscences looping in his head. He wasn’t even mildly bummed out about forsaking the only place he’d ever called home. Thankfully, these weren’t the kinds of things ten-year-old boys dwelled on and, fortunately, Allison had enough perspective to realize this. Just because Logan acted grown-up didn’t mean he was. And she’d be damned if she’d burden him with her own anxiety.

Perhaps Allison was the one who wasn’t ready. Perhaps she never would be, not entirely. “You have to take a leap of faith,” her mom had reminded her, although this was easier said than done, they both knew.

Still, when they’d arrived at their new home late Wednesday morning and Logan had dubbed it “the best place on earth,” Allison had been markedly relieved. Apparently, to Logan, living in Wincourt near his grandparents and having a big backyard where he could play baseball and soccer on a whim was just about as magical as the kingdom itself. Maybe she could put off the long-overdue Disney World vacation she’d been considering for a bit longer!

Allison had been pleased to find that she too felt immediately comfortable in their new home—a recently renovated white colonial with polished black shutters situated on a quiet side street five minutes from town. She delighted in walking through the front door into the two-story entryway bathed in sunlight, which gave way to hardwood floors with intricate inlays leading to a gourmet kitchen complete with a suspended pot rack and a walk-in pantry. The kitchen rolled effortlessly into an airy and bright great room, which overlooked the backyard, complete with a fenced-in vegetable-and-herb garden, a mahogany deck, and a stone wall ideal for displaying vibrant flowering plants. Instantly, Allison could picture Logan playing a game of tag football with her father and their neighbors while her mother grilled burgers and dogs for the voracious crew, and she ran through the vegetable garden barefoot, plucking ingredients for a festive salad. She could also see herself lounging on a recliner, sipping her morning coffee, and enjoying a warm croissant al fresco while Logan was at school. But, above all, the most enticing feature of their outdoor spread, certainly as far as Logan was concerned, was the built-in fireplace ready for roasting marshmallows at a moment’s notice.

As far as Allison was concerned, her brand-new art studio, nestled in a quiet corner on the first floor, with French doors that opened onto the patio, was reason enough to flee Manhattan. “If you love copious amounts of natural light when you paint, this is the home for you,” was what her Realtor had said before showing her the house last April. And she’d been spot-on. The original owner had been a sculptor, she’d informed Allison, who’d considered this coincidence a sort of divine providence.

Allison had also been lured by the peace and quiet, something she’d grown to covet, having been a single mom in New York City for a decade. That and the master bedroom outfitted with two custom walk-in closets and a sprawling marble master bath with double sink, extra-deep walk-in shower, and two-person Jacuzzi tub. It felt fit for royalty or, in this case, one lone queen, even though Allison knew that, compared to the other houses in Wincourt, hers was ordinary at best. It was hard to imagine that all this space was hers and Logan’s, when they’d so contentedly occupied an apartment half the size for close to a decade.

She’d fallen in love with the property at first sight, before the couple living there—who’d just become pregnant with their fourth child in six years—had even put it on the market. The price tag had been heftier than expected, but thanks to the income from a few of her pricier paintings, which had sold for Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, along with the steady stream of money that Jack’s parents, Nancy and Bill, funneled into her account, she could afford it. That was the thing about Nancy and Bill. Physical presence was practically impossible for them, but they were nothing if not prompt and generous when it came to providing for her and Logan. Jack had come from a notoriously wealthy—and controlling—New England family. They drank more than they ate, always with stiff upper lips. And they couldn’t be counted on for more than an occasional call, reserved for major holidays and birthdays only, but when it came to assuaging their guilt via financial support, Nancy and Bill had yet to disappoint.

Logan had met them only three times, which was why—to this day—he still called them by their first names. Three times in ten years. Once when he was five months old, which arguably didn’t count since he had no recollection of that encounter. Once when he was four. And then again when he was eight. Initially, Allison had felt apathetic toward their indifference when it came to Logan. Nancy and Bill had been unpleasant to deal with when Jack was alive, so not having to deal with them once he was gone had seemed like an unexpected gift. Until Allison had held her sweet son in her arms and promised to give him everything in the world, including a relationship with both sets of grandparents. Whether she liked it or not, life was no longer about her.

They’d been invited to Logan’s bris but had declined, offering a friend’s daughter’s wedding as their excuse. They’d also been invited to every birthday party over the course of a decade, but there’d always been one reason or another—nothing of any real merit—why they simply couldn’t make the arduous drive from Boston to New York to celebrate an important milestone with their one and only grandchild. “Maybe it’s too hard for them to face him, since they lost Jack,” Allison’s mom had suggested, acknowledging the profound physical resemblance between father and son—slightly cleft chin, empathetic brown eyes, obnoxiously flawless olive complexion—while at the same time doing what she always did: trying to see the best in everyone. Even if there was no best to be seen. “If I died, would you stop seeing Logan?” Allison had countered, knowing full well it was not only a ridiculous thing to ask but an insensitive one. “Stop seeing him? I’d adopt him!” her mom had declared, immediately adding, “And don’t say things like that,” after which she’d deliberately turned the conversation to her friend Martha Horowitz’s botched total hip replacement.

Allison had stopped coddling Logan a long time ago, if only when it came to Nancy and Bill, once she’d finally realized that promising they’d come visit soon was doing more damage than good, since they never showed up. If they didn’t realize how sweet and special her son was and how lucky they all were to have a piece of Jack with them forever, then it was their loss.

Initially, Allison had been wary of accepting their money. She’d felt like a kept woman, hired to ease their grandson into the reality that they weren’t going to show on Christmas, despite the dozen or so shipped boxes they sent of toys, clothing, and tickets to whatever kiddie show was currently live at Madison Square Garden or Radio City Music Hall. But Allison’s mother, relying on her predictable Pollyanna posture, had insisted that Nancy and Bill were doing what they could do, the best way they knew how. She’d also told Allison not to look a gift horse in the mouth—some months her paintings sold and some months they didn’t, so she should be thankful for Nancy and Bill’s benevolent contributions.

“Mom, the tablecloth?” Allison looked up to find her mother balancing thick chunks of juicy red tomatoes on top of a precarious heap of shaved turkey, paper-thin Swiss cheese, and crisp Romaine lettuce. “Hungry much?” She stood and walked over to the counter.

“You need to eat something.” Her mother didn’t make eye contact.

“I told you I have no appetite, Mom.” Allison sat down on a barstool.

“Voilà!” Her mother added a slather of mustard and a second hearty slice of sourdough bread to her masterpiece and reached for a knife to cut the sandwich in half. “Here you go.” Allison’s mother nudged the plate toward her. “You need sustenance.”

“But I’m really not—”

“Eh-eh.” Her mom wagged her index finger. “I don’t want to hear it. You’re already skin and bones. And I don’t want what happened last time to happen again.”

Last time. There were so many different ways her family and friends referred to it now. Besides actually saying it outright. Last time was a common one. As in We don’t want you to get frail and dehydrated like last time. Other euphemisms came in the form of You know what? Let’s not talk about you know what in front of Logan. And her all-time favorite: Since the accident. How’s Allison doing since the accident? Popular among her parents’ acquaintances.

No one liked to think about the fathers who would never again throw a baseball in Central Park with their sons. Or walk their daughters down the aisle. The mothers who would never again hold their newborn babies or toddlers or teenagers so close to their hearts they could feel the rise and fall of their chests. The children, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends who’d done nothing more than decide to go on an innocent company-wide ski trip only to have their futures, and the countless milestones inherent in those futures, annihilated. It was heavy stuff. Too heavy for someone who was just trying to be polite.

“I promise you I’ll eat something when I’m hungry.” Allison smiled, rubbing her mom’s arm affectionately and pecking her on the cheek. “In the meantime, looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you.” She motioned to the sandwich on steroids.

“One bite?”

Allison shook her head.

“Fine, I’ll wrap it up for Logan.” Her mom grimaced. “Now, where did I put the aluminum foil?”

“Second drawer to the right of the stove.” Allison sat back down on the hardwood floor to continue folding napkins. “It feels good to be home.”

“I’m so glad to hear you say that, sweetheart.” Her mom walked into the pantry. “Cup of tea?”

“Sure.” Allison got back on her feet and reached for two blue mugs so big they resembled soup bowls. She’d bought them because they were the exact same color as Logan’s room in their New York City apartment. “It’s amazing how much has remained unchanged in Wincourt.”

“Like what?” Her mother dropped a tea bag into each mug and took one at a time from Allison, filling them from the instant-hot-water tap.

“All the stores in town. The school, at least from the outside.” Over the last decade, Allison had barely been home. She’d seen her parents at least once a week, but typically they’d been the ones to come to her. Making things easier on Allison had become their life’s mission, and that included not asking her to travel outside her comfort zone any more than was absolutely necessary.

“There are so many new things too. Wincourt has flourished in your absence, my dear.” Her mom tasted her tea and sat down for what seemed like, at least to Allison, the first time in days.

It was hard to ignore the visible proof that Jack’s death had aged her mother. But until recently, Allison had been unable to consider the fact that the ramifications of her unthinkable loss had set off a domino effect extending well beyond her and Logan. Not that anyone had dared to mention their pain. Certainly not to the grieving widow and newly minted single mom of a child with no father.

Allison’s mother had been breathtakingly beautiful in her day, with a glossy mane of sumptuous blond hair cascading midway down her back, which in her mid-forties she’d cropped into a stylish shoulder-length bob. For as long as Allison could remember, her mother’s skin had been implausibly luminescent, she swore from nothing more than bargain-brand soap and Oil of Olay. Much to Allison’s delight, her mother’s most striking feature—her pale gray eyes—had been passed down to her, along with her long blond hair. Though the one thing Allison had not inherited was her mother’s straight and slender nose. Instead she’d been the hapless recipient of her dad’s crooked honker, which—as luck would have it—actually suited her face.

Jack had adored her mom. They’d been like partners in crime. Sometimes Allison would come home late from the art gallery where she’d been working at the time and the two of them would be on a movie date without her. Her mother was easily lured by the prospect of swinging into the city for an “artistic flick,” and her father always appreciated Jack’s willingness to sit through subtitled French films with his wife, refusing to endure the “chore,” as he referred to it. In fact, to this day, he still said the same thing whenever her mother asked him to see a foreign film: “If I wanted to read, I’d stay home with the paper.”

“Is that so?” Allison couldn’t help but laugh. Wincourt was barely as big as a Manhattan neighborhood. “It’s a cultural mecca now, huh?”

“Very funny. You’ll see.” Her mom furrowed her brow. “Is Logan excited for tomorrow?”

“Are you kidding? He can’t wait. All he can talk about, outside of being with you and Dad, is making new friends and meeting his teachers and what sports he can get involved with.” Jack had been the athletic one. The type who, at twenty years old, having never skied before, had taken the chairlift directly to the top of an intermediate slope and found his way to the bottom as gracefully as someone who’d been at it for at least a few months. In turn, Allison—who’d been skiing upward of a dozen times—had found her way to the bottom on her rear end. Of the two of them, who would have guessed that a ski trip would have been the cause of his demise?

“It’s remarkable.” Allison’s mom nodded definitively. “He is remarkable.”

“I know.” Allison swallowed a lump in her throat. “He’s amazing. I can’t believe how well he’s handling all this.”

“Thanks to you.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You should give yourself more credit, Ali.”

“Maybe.” She scrunched her nose.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“I know that look.”

“It’s stupid.”

“Get on with it.” Her mother waved her hand.

“What if I don’t make any friends? You know? What if I don’t fit in with the suburban mommies?”

“Like me?”

“They don’t make ’em like you anymore, Mom.”

“I can’t see that happening, Ali. You were always very popular in school. And at summer camp. Weren’t you team captain or something?”

“Red Team.” Allison smiled wistfully. It was a big deal to be a team captain. Only four seniors got picked. And everyone knew Red Team was the best. Jack had been one of her lieutenants.

“Betty Miller’s daughter still lives on Oak Drive. I could introduce you.”

“Mom, I went to school with Sara Miller.”

“Reintroduce you, whatever. She’s a lovely girl.”

“She’s a nun.”

“So? What do you have against nuns?”

“What could we possibly have in common?”

“You both like to wear black and white.” She smirked.

“Very funny.” Allison rolled her eyes. “I think I’ll take my chances with the moms at Logan’s school first.”

“Up to you.”

“I bet it’s really cliquey.”