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  Dad suddenly noticed and cleared his throat. “Uh, Brittany?”

  But it was too late.

  Ginny called out to her, but she ignored the girl.

  She pretended not to notice Dad as she drew up to Randy’s right side as he shook hands. She didn’t want him to see it coming, just like he hadn’t wanted her mother to see what he’d planned for her, on Monday, May _____.

  “Hey, Randy,” she said, but to her surprise, her voice came out as a squeak. Her throat had closed. Well, better try again, eh?

  “Randy,” she said, and this time her voice sounded deeper and stronger, and the man talking to her step-father noticed her first, and gave her a friendly smile, but the smile faded as she glared at Randy and then, slowly, and by degrees, Randy apparently noticed something was wrong he slowly turned around and looked at her.

  “Brittany,” he said simply.

  And then, just like that, her nerve almost left her. What the hell was she doing? This awful man ran the town. What good would it do to scream at him? He held such influence over everyone, she did not doubt for one second, he could cause her great harm, but what could he possibly do to her, here, in a freaking funeral home? A twelve-year-old girl, and why did she feel the pressing need to confront Randy when it could remain a peaceful funeral?

  Well, it’d give me enormous satisfaction, how about that?

  Mommy had been a good girl her whole life, and look where it got her, dead and cold in a casket.

  She looked back at Ginny, drew strength from the other girl’s presence.

  Brittany turned back around and glared up at Randy. “You’re an asshole. You killed my mother. You’re a fucking asshole.”

  An inhaled hush of air told her she’d hit her mark. “Oh, my dear God,” a woman said to someone, “Agnes, she really went and said it.”

  “You killed my mother.” She pointed at Ginny. “This girl saw you stringing my mother up like a side of pork. You’re a fucking asshole.”

  Rage filled her up and she pummeled him with her fists and she expected him to fight back, to slap her face, the way he liked to slap her mother’s face, but his hands, his strong hands, held her and stopped her.

  “Let go of me, you asshole,” she screamed, and when he didn’t let go, she bit his arm, hard, and tasted blood in her mouth, and he yowled and released her and she kicked him in the shin and he hobbled out of her way and still he didn’t strike her or hit her, and that surprised her, but what surprised her even more, was her dad’s reaction.

  He grabbed her by the shoulder, whirled her around, and cried, “That’s enough, Brittany. Stop it.”

  “I don’t care. He killed my mother.”

  “He didn’t,” Dad said. “Your mommy committed suicide.”

  “No, she didn’t,” she said with vehemence.

  “Knock it off now, Brittany, or I’m taking you out of here.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” she flung at her father. “My mother is dead. I get to stay at this funeral. It’s my mother’s funeral.”

  “You’re making a spectacle of yourself, now stop it.”

  Tears streamed down her face. Oh, she hated her father even more than she hated her step-father in this moment.

  Dad clutched her shoulders. “Apologize to Randy.”

  “No.”

  “It’s okay, Fred,” Randy said. “It’s fine.”

  “She’s behaved terribly, I’m so sorry, Randy.”

  “It’s okay,” Randy said. “She’s overwrought.”

  “And you—” she wrenched herself free of her father’s hands “—how dare you dump my mommy when she got sick.”

  “Brittany, my love,” Daddy said.

  “You divorced her when you got sick and tired of putting up with her mental illness.”

  “What? No.”

  “You said as much to me, when you said she suffered from depression.”

  “Brittany,” Dad said, his face ashen.

  She rammed her finger into his solar plexus. “Because you divorced her, she had to go and marry this stupid-fucking asshole, and it’s your fault she’s dead. You should never have divorced my mother. I hope you rot in hell,” and then she screamed and ran up to the casket and, with tears streaming down her face, patted her mother’s face as if her mother had been the one weeping, and the pancake makeup they’d spackled onto her face began to run, and the bruises on her mother’s puffed-up cheeks re-emerged, like the beach with a receding tide reveals rocks and seaweed and crabs as the tide recedes, and Brittany lost herself in her grief.

  A few moments later.

  Her step-mother led her away from the casket and took her to the ladies’ restroom and let her cry some more, then took some paper towels, wet them, and applied them gently to Brittany’s face, and as she dabbed the tears from Brittany’s face, she spoke in a soft voice and she said soothing, kind words to Brittany; words filled with love and compassion for all she’d suffered, and Brittany slowly began to feel better and she sobbed out her last. “I’m sorry, Anne. For what I said to my dad.”

  Anne gazed at her for a long moment, then nodded. “You want to know something, honey, your dad has said as much to me, as well.”

  “He has? What did he say?”

  “Yes, he’s berated himself over the years for divorcing your mother when her depression set in. He and your mother were still newlyweds when you were born, and she must’ve suffered from post-partum depression, but perhaps it was even more worse than that, and he didn’t get her treatment . . . well, he got her treatment, but it came a little too late for her and for their marriage.”

  “Oh.”

  “He blames himself for the marriage failing, and he knew things were tough for you down in Shelbyville with your . . . step-father.”

  “Will Daddy divorce me?” Brittany asked.

  “What do you mean, sweetheart?”

  “I mean,” Brittany said, her voice cracking, “does Daddy hate me now, for what I said to him?”

  “No,” Anne said kindly. “Your father loves you, and he knows you’re going through a hard time right now. Your father will never abandon you.”

  “In the same way that he abandoned my mother?”

  “That’s right,” Anne said evenly. “In the same way, he abandoned your mother.”

  “How come?” Brittany asked.

  “Because,” Anne said, struggling to find the words, “because . . . well, it’s like this. Parents feel differently about their own children, than they do about their spouses.”

  “Oh.”

  “Can you understand what I’m trying to say, honey?”

  “Y-Y-Yes,” Brittany stammered. “I think so.”

  “Come on,” Anne said, standing up and holding out her hand. “Let’s go back, shall we?”

  “Does my dad still love me?” Brittany asked in a warbling voice.

  Anne smiled with tears in her eyes. “He’ll never stop.”

  31

  Thursday, March 21, 8:01 a.m.

  At school that morning, Ginny’s best friend, Jessie, approached her between classes.

  “Hey, did you know that Britany Delacourt is here today?”

  “Why’s that a big deal?” Ginny asked.

  “Duh, Ginny. Didn’t you know? She’s been gone all week long, and she’s back today, because she’s leaving.”

  “She’s already left but she’s leaving now?” Ginny asked.

  “She’s moving back to Chicago with her dad and she’s come back to school to get her things.”

  “She’ll never be here anymore?” Ginny asked.

  “Nope, she’s leaving.”

  Brittany was twelve to Ginny’s ten, and as a girl two grades higher than she, Brittany loomed large in Ginny’s life; all the twelve-year-old girls looked like goddesses to her, statues. She didn’t know the word Valkyrie—hadn’t learned it yet in vocabulary—but if she’d known this word, she would’ve used it to describe Brittany Delacourt, who had a dead mother, and who was tall and thin and bl
onde and perfect.

  “I wonder why she decided to leave so soon,” Jesse said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why didn’t she stay with her step-father and finish the year here, and then move to Chicago?”

  “Duh, Jesse,” Ginny said. “Her step-father killed her mother.”

  “He did?” Jesse said, turning around in a flash. “But I thought she killed herself?”

  Oh no, oh no, oh no.

  Ginny had committed a grievous error. She’d given herself away by saying it out loud. She wondered if she could fix it. “That’s what I mean,” Ginny said. “She got hanged.”

  “Yeah,” Jesse said, scrunching up her nose. “What a gross way to go, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Ginny agreed, watching as Brittany walked past them, surrounded by a coterie of friends. She longed to talk to Brittany, tell her what she knew, but how in the world would she ever get the chance to approach her if she was going to be surrounded by her friends all day long?

  An hour later

  But then an opportunity came.

  After language arts, came art class, and she loved art. As she walked into the classroom, she slowed down and stopped in surprise as Mrs. Friedlander hugged Brittany in a tight bear hug. “God, I’m going to miss you,” she said at last, pulling away and wiping tears from her eyes. “You’re one of my best students, and one of my favorite artists.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Friedlander,” Brittany said. She clutched a huge artist’s portfolio binder in front of her. Ginny, uncomfortable, but not wanting to miss an opportunity to talk to her, stood to one side as Mrs. Friedlander and Brittany used tissues to blow their noses and hug each other one last time.

  “Good bye, honey, I’m so going to miss you.”

  “I’m going to miss you too, Mrs. Friedlander.”

  “I hope you have a wonderful life.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Friedlander.”

  Brittany turned to go.

  Flushing with shame, Ginny stepped in front of her. “Hey, Brittany.”

  “Hi,” Brittany said, breezing right past her and out the door and into the hallway.

  “Good morning, Ginny,” Mrs. Friedlander said. “Are you ready to do some macramé today?”

  “Yes, I am, Mrs. Friedlander.” Ginny set her things down while looking over her shoulder at Brittany as she walked away.

  “All right, then,” Mrs. Friedlander said. She turned her back to walk to her art table, and because it wasn’t quite time for class to start, and because Mrs. Friedlander was distracted, Ginny slipped out of the classroom and ran after Brittany.

  This was her last chance.

  A few minutes later.

  Brittany walked down the hallway, her mind lost in a fog of memories and sadness. This change in her life was really happening. It was starting to sink in.

  Her mother had died.

  Somehow, weirdly, being here at school made it real to her in a way that hadn’t sunk into her heart before, and she knew why. Mommy had been a big part of school. Her mother served as a volunteer mom to her teachers, she served on the PTO, she attended every event, she went to every parent-teacher night, she worked on various sub-committees to organize events, like the Christmas party, the spring concert; throughout it all, throughout her entire school life, her mother’s sweet, smiling face, had always been there, in the middle of it all.

  And now, because of her mother’s absence, Brittany had to move away to live with her dad and her step-mother in Chicago, and yes, she did want to move away, but only because her mother was dead, and only because everything in Shelbyville reminded her, painfully, of her mother; and yet her life, for all the life she’d known since she was small, had been here.

  I was happy here. This town was my life.

  The loss of this life, here, with her mother, broke her heart. She’d never see her mother again. Her mother would never again be waiting for her when she got home from school, with a piping hot meal or snack for her, and her mother would never again sit down at the kitchen table and talk to her as she ate and tell her about her day, and then Brittany would tell her about her day.

  And Mommy listened.

  And Mommy was interested in everything Brittany did.

  And now her life was in Chicago.

  Focus, Brittany. Focus.

  She stopped still and tried to regain her focus. She stood outside the foreign languages lab and had no idea why. She’d just been wandering. She’d stopped in to say goodbye to Mrs. Friedlander, and she was thinking of where she wanted to go next, which teacher to see, when her ears pricked at the sound of someone calling her name.

  “Brittany, hey, Brittany,” the voice called out, and Brittany, sensing she knew the voice—she’d seen the girl out of the corner of her eye while Mrs. Friedlander hugged her—turned around and gazed down into the eyes of the little red-haired girl who’d hovered in the fringes of her vision, and who’d been watching while Brittany said goodbye to Mrs. Friedlander.

  The little girl reached her, panting, and stopped for a moment to catch her breath. “I need . . . I need . . . I need . . . to talk to you.”

  “You better hurry up, then.” Brittany nodded toward the art room door. “Mrs. Friedlander’s starting soon.”

  “Yeah, I know, but I gotta talk to you.”

  A niggling sensation struck Brittany, a sensation that she didn’t want to hear what this little girl wanted to say. “Okay, so we’re talking.”

  If she delayed this girl or pushed her off and persuaded her to leave her alone, then maybe, just maybe, this little girl would go away and leave her alone, and she wouldn’t get to say the awful thing Brittany suspected she was dying to tell her.

  “I want to tell you something.”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  This stopped her. She stared up at Brittany with wide-open, frightened eyes.

  “You’re gonna be late for class. Go on. Scoot.”

  If she was mean enough, maybe this kid would pick up a clue.

  “Go on, I mean it. Go. I don’t want to talk to you.”

  It’d been a hard day. A lot of random kids had approached her, all of them wanting to say how sad they were to see her leaving the school, sorry for her mother, oh, so sorry, they were so very sorry, and they heard it on the news, they read about it online, they knew it all, didn’t they, the jerks? But not one of the kids knew her or had ever bothered to spend a single minute with her before her mother died, so, they weren’t her friends, they just wanted to share in the great tragedy of it, they wanted to share in her magic right now, because she knew she had magic in her, magic by the bucketful.

  She had something nobody in school had.

  She wasn’t the new girl in school.

  She wasn’t even the most popular girl.

  No, she had even more cachet than that.

  No, she was the most glamorous girl in school right now, because she was the only girl in school with a dead mother.

  She was the girl with the dead mother.

  And that was ten times better than a Mom with cancer, because a Mom with cancer was still fucking alive, wasn’t she? But no, her mother was dead, and everyone was saying her mother had killed herself, when she knew all along who’d done it, but nobody listened to girls, did they?

  No, nobody listened to girls.

  She didn’t mind receiving words of grief from her friends, but from these random kids? No, she’d had it. Tired of being polite and taking the empty words of grief, she was done, she was finished.

  She’d had it.

  “I deliver the newspapers to your house,” the girl said, and Brittany stopped and looked at her. Okay, she did remember this girl. She’d seen her around the neighborhood, one of the little kids who liked to ride their bikes around. Okay, so she’d seen her around.

  “Well, anyway,” the girl said, “I used to deliver the newspapers to your house, and, I guess I’m still technically delivering papers to your house, but I’m not doing it anymore. My
grandpa’s doing it for me right now, but I want to quit.”

  “How come?”

  What the girl said next rocked Brittany to her knees.

  “I saw your mother getting killed,” the girl said, and then dropped her head and burst into tears.

  A few minutes later.

  Ginny almost wished Brittany hadn’t been so nice, so sweet about it. She tried putting herself in Brittany’s mind, and winced at how direct she’d been; how in the world would she have reacted if someone had walked up to her and told her she saw her mother getting killed? Well, if someone had done that to Ginny, she knew she would’ve fallen apart, but Brittany absorbed her words with a neutral expression. She didn’t even get mad.

  Then again, perhaps Brittany already knew, or sensed it.

  As Ginny wept, Brittany pressed some tissues into her hand and patted her on the shoulder.

  “It-It-It was awful,” Ginny sputtered out. “I saw him putting your mother up there—”

  “Okay, that’s enough,” Brittany said. “I don’t want to hear any more.”

  “But, wait, I’m not finished.”

  “My mother’s dead,” Brittany said flatly. “It doesn’t make any difference anymore.”

  “How can you mean that?”

  “Because it’s true. No matter what I do, or what the police do, my step-father’s an asshole, and he runs this town and there’s no way he’s gonna go to prison for what he did. He’s just gonna get away with it, and the sooner I get away from this horrible town, the better.”

  Her words came out in a rush and Ginny had trouble keeping up with her, but when the understanding flooded her senses, she gazed up at Brittany in shock.

  “But he killed her.”

  “I know.” Brittany’s bright blue eyes filled with tears. “But she’s dead, and nothing I do or you do or the police do will bring her back. So why bother?”

  The class bell rang.

  “You better get to your class,” Brittany said. “You don’t wanna get a demerit from Mrs. Friedlander.”

  “Brittany, I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, so am I. I loved my mother. She meant the world to me.”