www.dianechamberlain.co.uk

      In memory of Kay Eleanor Howe

      2000–2010

      PART ONE

      NOELLE

      1

       Noelle

       Wilmington, North Carolina September 2010

      She sat on the top step of the front porch of her Sunset Park bungalow, leaning against the post, her eyes on the full moon. She would miss all this. The night sky. Spanish moss hanging from the live oaks. September air that felt like satin against her skin. She resisted the pull of her bedroom. The pills. Not yet. She had time. She could sit here all night if she wanted.

      Lifting her arm, she outlined the circle of the moon with her fingertip. Felt her eyes burn. “I love you, world,” she whispered.

      The weight of the secret pressed down on her suddenly, and she dropped her hand to her lap, heavy as a stone. When she’d awakened this morning, she’d had no idea that this would be the day she could no longer carry that weight. As recently as this evening, she’d hummed as she chopped celery and cucumbers and tomatoes for her salad, thinking of the fair-haired preemie born the day before—a fragile little life who needed her help. But when she sat down with her salad in front of the computer, it was as though two beefy, muscular arms reached out from her monitor and pressed their hands down hard on her head, her shoulders, compressing her lungs so that she couldn’t pull in a full breath.

      The very shape of the letters on her screen clawed at her brain and she knew it was time. She felt no fear—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. Stupid, stupid. I wanted her to talk to me and then I critiqued what she said. “Never mind,” I said. “What does she want you and Jenny to do?”

      “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