She wished her mother were with her. Gianna was following on the snowmobile with no apparent problems. Violet wished she’d asked to ride behind her mother. Riding on the snowmobile might be colder, but no doubt it was smoother.

A deep lurch in the snow flung Violet against the door.

“Geez,” she muttered. Chris hadn’t flinched, his concentration on the road . . . actually the lack of road.

Chris wasn’t nervous; he was focused with a laser-beam intensity that Violet found both reassuring and slightly terrifying. Their journey rested on his skills. There was nothing Violet could do to help their situation.

No wonder my stomach’s in knots.

She’d spent too much time feeling out of control over the last few months. First her grandmother’s death and then her mother’s announcement that they were moving. All the way across the United States to some city that didn’t even have a subway system. She’d never been to Portland before, and she’d never seen so many beards in her life. And the beards were on guys barely older than herself. They weren’t old men; these were guys who discussed the IBUs of their beer and spent hours wandering through a used bookstore that occupied a full city block. And bikes—the nonmotorized kind—were everywhere on the roads. Several times her mother had nearly hit one, before she learned to check her right mirror before making a right turn.

Violet missed her friends, her school, and their skinny, tall house with the kind neighbors. But most of all she missed her grandmother. It was a soul-deep lonely ache. For the last six months, each time Violet had walked by Nana’s bedroom it’d felt startlingly empty. She’d begun avoiding that part of the house.

Nana had died in her sleep. A heart attack, her mother said. One day she’d been fine and the next she’d been gone. Each day after school last spring, Violet had stepped into their home and opened her mouth to greet Nana, only to realize the house was empty. Her mother was at work most days, but she had cut back her work schedule after Nana’s death.

She missed Nana with every ounce of her being. No more scents of dinner cooking or the welcome sight of her kind smile after a boring school day. She’d always wanted the gossip about Violet’s girlfriends and asked what boy she was interested in. Her mother never mentioned those things. Her mother asked about grades and homework. It wasn’t until Violet had missed a curfew last summer that her mother took an interest in her friends. Too close an interest. She’d discovered Sean had been arrested for possession and cracked down on Violet’s time with him.

Violet had already figured out Sean was a loser, but when Gianna had ordered her not to see him anymore, it’d made her bitter. Nana would have asked her what Sean did to make her life better and how he made her feel. Gianna saw a one-time drug arrest and put her foot down, claiming that she knew where drug users ended up: her table.

Violet’s eye-roll during that conversation had gotten her phone confiscated for two days.

I didn’t deserve that.

She was honor roll. She didn’t do drugs. Sure, she’d tried cigarettes; hadn’t everyone?

I’m a good kid. Why does she treat me like the losers at school?

Now she sat in the cab of a truck with a stranger, worrying that someone had tried to hurt them. Why us? She’d listened while Chris questioned her mother about people who might be angry with her. She’d waited for Gianna to mention her ex, Owen, but it’d never happened. Even Violet knew that relationship hadn’t ended well. Her mother kept her dating life extremely private. She wouldn’t introduce Violet to a man unless they’d been dating for a few months. Over the past ten years, Violet had met two men. There’d been more, but Gianna hadn’t brought them home. Owen had been the second man, and Violet had met him in the days after her grandmother’s death.

He’d introduced himself at Nana’s funeral. Violet had stared at him, trying to place the familiar name, but her mind hadn’t been functioning right. Her grief over Nana and being exposed to her first funeral had created dark curtains that concealed many corners of her memory.

“I’m a friend of your mother’s. I never knew your grandmother, but I know how important she was to you.” Owen had held his hand out and Violet automatically shook it. She’d never shaken so many hands or been hugged by so many people she didn’t know. She looked up into Owen’s face, but he was staring across the room at her mother, admiration in his eyes as her mother consoled a white-haired woman.

It clicked.

This is Mom’s current guy.

“Pleased to meet you,” she recited. “Thank you for coming.” She’d heard her mom repeat the line a dozen times and had adopted it as her own. She didn’t have the energy to personalize each interaction. The constant pity in everyone’s eyes had worn her down. Their well-meaning but grating comments made her want to scream.

“You must miss her so much.”

“She’s in a much better place.”

Fuck you! she wanted to scream. Yes, I miss her! I don’t care that she’s in a better place; I need her here! My heart is breaking and I have to stand here and smile at all of you!

“Your mother said you were very close to your grandmother. That she’d practically raised you while your mother went to school and work,” said Owen, still watching her mother.

“Yes.” Behind one of the hazy curtains in her brain, the curious daughter in her emerged to size up Owen Thomas. Tall. Not too bad looking for an older guy. The hand holding a cup of coffee had dirt under two of the fingernails, and he’d missed a spot on the side of his neck while shaving.