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“What?” I said. Somehow we had avoided talking about Michelle during the entire visit.

“Michelle’s in a dark place right now, dealing with some heavy things. I know she’s gone cold on you, but don’t turn your back on her. She’s a soul friend, and you don’t meet many of them in a lifetime.”

I nodded, holding back tears and wondering whether Michelle’s dark place was as lonely as mine.

C
HAPTER
12

I
lost my mother and stopped believing in Santa Claus in the same year. Needless to say, Christmas had not been my favorite holiday for a long time. This Christmas in particular, my family seemed painfully aware of the people who were missing in our lives, and we tried desperately to compensate. Barbara was pulling trays of burnt cookies out of the oven like her life depended on it, Grandma was setting a new world record for old-fashioneds consumed in one night, and my dad had gone on a decorating binge the likes of which I hadn’t seen in ten years.

I wore my hair in a stubby ponytail for the first few days I was home, afraid of what everyone would say about my red streak. I’d gotten a few catty comments about it at school, but nothing so far to make me regret doing it. But my father was a traditionalist; New England practicality was in his bones. Anything newfangled or nonconformist smacked of trouble and rebellion, traits that didn’t fly well in our stodgy blue-collar town.

On Christmas morning, I wore one of the six Santa hats my father had bought at the Dollar Store while we exchanged presents. For church, I swapped my Santa hat for a knit beret that I didn’t take off for the rest of the day. When I came downstairs to help prepare for dinner, Barbara was manning the stove, my dad was washing lettuce at the sink, and my grandma was getting a head start on her drinking. I tried to be helpful and unobtrusive by setting the table, but as soon as I came into the kitchen, Barbara asked me to remove my beret for dinner.

“But I’ll have hat hair,” I said.

“It’s only family,” Barbara said. “No one will mind.”

My grandma, who seemed to have a sixth sense about these things, said, “Let her wear it. That rule about hats at the dinner table is outdated. Besides, it makes her look Parisian.”

“Speaking of which,” I said, trying to change the subject, “I’ve applied for a scholarship to our sister school in Paris. If I’m accepted, I’ll get to spend my senior year in Paris. The scholarship would pay for everything—airfare, room and board, tuition.”

“Paris?” my dad said. “Why would you want to go to Paris for your last year of high school?”

My grandmother and I looked at my dad as if he’d just announced he was a robot. Which I sometimes suspected he was. Even Barbara said, “John, what girl wouldn’t want to go to Paris?”

“I only meant, don’t you want to stay and graduate with your friends?”

“I’d be back by May, in time to graduate with everyone else.”

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Barbara said, “but dinner’s almost ready. And, Emma, dear, I really would appreciate it if you’d take off the hat.”

Resigned, I slid the beret off my head and shook out my hair. My father and Barbara gasped, and Grandma raised an eyebrow.

“Emma, what have you done?” Barbara asked. As if I’d shaved my head bald.

“It’s only temporary,” I said.

My dad sighed. “You mean, for Christmas?” he said. “It’ll wash out?”

“It’ll grow out,” I said.

He shook his head at me like he no longer knew who I was. Grandma was trying to squelch a grin, so she slung back the rest of her drink, possibly a diversionary tactic. “Emma, would you do me the honors?” she said, shaking her glass back and forth so the ice clinked up the sides.

“Elspeth, you’ve had enough whiskey for three people,” Barbara said.

“And you wear enough hair spray for ten, but you don’t hear me complaining.”
Uh-oh.
The night was quickly getting away from us, a runaway train with a cargo of dysfunction.

Barbara’s face went rigid. “Everybody, go into the dining room,” she said in her pretending-everything’s-fine voice. “I’m going to bring dinner in. And I hope it’s not cold.”

It would not have mattered if dinner was scalding, lukewarm, or frozen; we were all choking on bitterness anyway.

“What about your college applications?” my dad said, launching right back into our debate. Christmas cheer, be damned. “How are you going to take care of those?”

“They do have a postal service in France,” I said, my sarcastic streak activated. “And most applications are online these days.”

“But what’s the point? You’re trying to get into a good college. Paris can only distract you.”

“Dad, it’ll look good on my transcript. Only one girl from my school will be chosen. And I’m thinking about majoring in French in college.”

“French?” my father said, as if I’d told him I was majoring in badminton or palm reading.

Then I thought of another tactic. “I’ve looked into the curriculum. It focuses on French literature, but we have all these choices of electives, too. Opera, Gothic architecture, even French cooking. Jacques Pepin did a special seminar last year.”

“Jacques Pepin!” Barbara said.

“Before I even think about letting you go,” my dad said, ignoring the undeniable draw of Jacques Pepin, “we need to address another issue. I didn’t want to bring this up, especially on Christmas, but . . . your PSAT scores arrived.”

Oh God.
“Yeah,” I said. “About that. I had a really bad day.”

“It seems you’ve been having a lot of those,” he said. “Dr. Overbrook called and said you’ve been skipping an excessive number of classes, too.”

My stomach dropped. “I wouldn’t say excessive,” I said. I could feel myself losing the battle, so I began putting up the defensive shield I wore when I didn’t want to face things head-on.

“Cutting classes? Bombing tests? What’s going on with you, Emma?”

“I don’t know!” I said. “Maybe I’m going crazy like Mom. Maybe your worst fears are coming true.” The words came spilling out of me before I had time to consider their impact. My mouth was like a defective grenade launcher.

No one said anything until the weight of our silence grew too unbearable. “I probably won’t get the scholarship anyway,” I said in a whisper, backtracking like a spineless worm. My father looked across at me, his eyes full of disappointment and regret. “May I be excused? I’m not hungry.”

Barbara threw up her hands and sighed, and my father nodded stoically like his head bore the weight of the world.

I got up and went out the front door, then let the tears come. I felt so alone. I missed my mother. Somehow I felt like she would understand me. She would be excited for me. Dropping my head into my hands, I squeezed my temples hard.

I walked around my neighborhood for about an hour, trying to shake off my blues. When I got back to the house, the Christmas tree lights were still on, twinkling through the window and casting everything in a warm yellow light. It looked so warm and cozy, like I was staring into someone else’s house. Because lately I felt like a stranger in my own home.

All was quiet when I went inside. My dad and Barbara must have gone to bed early. I wandered into the den and found my grandmother camped out on the sofa, watching
It’s a Wonderful Life
. I sat down beside her, turning to give her a hangdog frown.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“For what?”

“For ruining Christmas.”

“Don’t take all the credit,” she said, giving me a sly smile.

“God, Grandma, I’m such a mess. My boyfriend dumped me. My best friend hates me. And my dad thinks I’m a disappointment.”

“No, he doesn’t, Emma. He just doesn’t remember what it’s like to grow up. He’s been an old man since he was a teenager.”

“What do you mean?”

She pulled her afghan up around her shoulders, shivering a little. “Since the time your mother brought him home to meet me, I knew he was too serious for his own good. His father died when he was very young, so he always felt the need to be the responsible one. He practically raised his sister and he had to work at the docks as a teenager to help pay the bills. He never really had an adolescence.”

I’d heard the stories about my dad’s childhood, but I’d never understood the implications. I’d been too busy feeling sorry for myself.

“I know I’ve been a jerk to him,” I said. “And to Barbara. I don’t know what’s going on with me. I feel so angry all the time. Like something’s eating away at me, trying to gnaw its way out. I get scared sometimes, thinking I might be getting sick like Mom. Because I feel like I’m being split into two, and one part is the real me, the person I am deep inside, and the other is, like, the ghost of the old me, the one everyone else still wants me to be. Does that make me sound bipolar?”

She laughed. “That doesn’t make you sound bipolar, honey. That makes you sound human. It means you’re growing up, and that’s not such a bad thing. It scares your dad because he still wants to see you as his little girl, but he’ll come around eventually. Just give him time. And give yourself time, too. Don’t be so desperate to grow up that you forget to have fun. Take risks. Make mistakes.”

I grabbed her hand and smiled. “Don’t worry, Grandma,” I said. “I’m making plenty of those.”

By New Year’s Eve, things had quieted down in the Townsend residence. My dad was taking Barbara to a fancy event at a Boston hotel, where they were spending the night. Jess and Flynn were going to some raucous party in Jamaica Plain, and in my current mood, I just couldn’t deal with that.

I was a little surprised when Owen opted to spend New Year’s with me and my grandma instead of going to the party. Hull’s Cove wasn’t exactly a hotbed of holiday excitement. We were lucky to score a couple of noisemakers and some champagne from my grandmother. We hung out early in the evening and ordered takeout Chinese, then watched some terrible musical performances on a countdown show. By eleven o’clock, we shut off the TV and turned on the stereo, blasting oldies as loud as my grandma could take it. Owen was entertaining us with sing-alongs of Sam Cooke and Otis Redding, Elvis and Nancy Sinatra, the last accompanied by a cheesy sixties dance complete with Austin Powers mojo.

My grandma laughed harder than she had in a while, and by midnight, we were all feeling giddy and celebratory. We flipped the TV back on momentarily to watch the ball descend, then grabbed some pots and pans and whatever other acoustic household items we could find and went outside to shake up our sleepy little town. My grandmother stood on the front stoop smoking a cigarette—she wasn’t really a smoker, but holidays were an exception.

Afterward, Owen said he should probably head home to avoid the post-party traffic.

“Why don’t you stay the night?” my grandma said. “There will be some crazy drivers out there tonight, and I hate to think of you driving all the way home so late.”

Owen looked at me for approval. “It’s fine by me,” I said, “if you think Dad won’t kill us.”

“I’ll take the heat,” Grandma said. “I’ll tell him it was my idea.”

We both gave her a kiss on each cheek, and Grandma just laughed and headed inside.

Owen and I strolled up to the beach to see if anything was going on there. A few kids were setting off homemade fireworks, and in the distance we could see a larger display exploding from a pier somewhere off the coast.

It was a clear night, very cold. We hadn’t thought to grab jackets before running out, so Owen wrapped an arm around me as we walked up the beach toward the fireworks.

Even though my back was to it, I could see the lighthouse beam in my peripheral vision, could feel its presence looming over me, reminding me of who wasn’t here. A stab of pain pierced through me, so unexpected and unwelcome that I stopped moving. I pulled out of Owen’s arm.

“Are you okay?” he said.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

I tucked my hair behind my ears, but the wind kept lifting it up again and into my face. Owen moved to stand in front of me and smoothed my hair over my ears and held it there. “There. Now I can see your face. And I can tell you’re not fine.”

I tried to smile. Here stood Owen, so sweet and patient and endearing that I wanted to grab him and pull him close. But not in the way he wanted me to. In fact, I felt guilty for even thinking it.

“You miss Gray,” he said, reading my mind.

I nodded guiltily. “It drives me crazy that I do. I mean, he broke up with me, like, two months ago and I’m still pining away like some pathetic loser.”

“You know what would help you get over him?” he said.

“What?”

“Kissing me.” My mouth dropped, and Owen released my hair and laughed. “You know I’m only joking,” he said. “But you did kind of throw yourself at me the night of the cast party.”

“I did not!” I said, with mock indignation.

“It’s okay, I don’t mind. But admit it,” he said. “You wanted me. If only for a second.”

I laughed and met his eyes, surprised by the boldness I saw there. “Where did this come from?” I said. “This cocky, surfer-boy attitude?”

“Why? Do you like it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

His stared at me, eyes questioning, lips partially open like he was about to say something. Something serious that might change everything. But then
they
appeared—the secret weapons that always disarmed me—two dimples and a smile that lit up his face like the fireworks behind his head.

“Come on,” he said, laughing. “Let’s get you back to the house. You’re freezing.”

We walked briskly, trying to keep the blood flowing, but my mind was stuck on that moment on the beach.

Why couldn’t I like Owen? He was the most loyal friend I had, and I knew how he felt about me. He was adorable, funny, even sexy in a goofy way. And I
had
kissed him that night. But that was right after Gray had broken up with me when I was an emotional train wreck. The kiss had been an accident, a moment of weakness.

We got back to the house to find my grandmother asleep on the sofa in the living room. I didn’t want to wake her, so I covered her with a blanket and led Owen upstairs to my parents’ bedroom. I made the bed and laid out some towels for him. It was strange to think about him sleeping just a room away from me.