“I don’t know why you came home. You obviously can’t stand it here. Not if you’re running off to see your father, whom I forbade you from having any contact with.”

“He said I might not see him again for years.”

“That’s a bad thing?”

“I thought it was. Now I know … I never want to see him again. I’m sorry. Nothing happened—”

“Save it. No matter how much I care you go off and you do whatever you want with whomever you want anyway. So I’m going to stop caring. I’m not even going to punish you. That’s how little I care right now.”

“No, Mom, don’t be like that. Please don’t …” Tears burst from her eyes. “Don’t give up on me, too.”

“Too? Who else is giving up on you?”

“I did something stupid, and now Father Stearns isn’t even going to monitor my community service anymore.”

“Then he’s smart. You’d run right over him and his feelings like you do with everyone else who tries to care about you and help you.”

“Mom …” Eleanor took a step forward but her mother stepped back and away from her.

Her mother stared straight into her eyes.

“When you were little, you always called me Momma. And you smiled when you said it. Now it’s Mom. And you never smile at me.”

“Please …” Eleanor didn’t even know what she was begging for.

“Go to bed,” her mother said, sounding tired. “Or not. Do whatever you want. You will anyway.”

Her mother turned her back on Eleanor and flipped the light off as if Eleanor weren’t still standing there in the middle of the kitchen.

She merely stood there in shock and sorrow, not sure what to do. She’d lost her priest, her father and her mother all in the same night. Who did she even have left? Anyone? Anything?

In the dark she found her way to her bed and without taking her clothes off, she slid under her covers. She pulled the blanket up to her chin and closed her eyes.

“Are You up there?” she whispered to God and waited, hoping, praying that someone somewhere was out there who hadn’t given up on her.

But God didn’t answer.

16

Nora

“WHAT VINTAGE OF TEAR IS THIS?” NICO ASKED, touching her wet face. “A 1993? Or something more recent?”

Nora smiled shyly at him.

“You’re the vintner. What do you think?”

Nico brought his wet fingertip to his mouth and licked it.

“Whatever vintage this is, I can taste that it was a hard year.”

“It was a hard year,” she agreed. “Like this week. A lot of second-guessing myself, wondering if I could have prevented it. A lot of begging God to undo what happened. Even now I feel that same awful desperation—that, ‘God, I would give anything, trade anything, to feel something other than this pain.’”

She closed her eyes and breathed deep again. God help her, she would do anything to not have to spread those ashes tomorrow.

“But,” she continued, coming back to the present, “even that night alone in my bed, I knew I’d brought it on myself. And maybe knowing that was the one sign of hope for me.”

“How long did he punish you for seeing your father?” Nico asked.

“A long time.” Nora sat up while Nico rolled onto his back. She still had her gown on but Nico lay naked in bed, the sheets pulled up to his hips, his chest bare and inviting. “When you’re a teenager, every day without getting what you want feels like an eternity. Your heart’s under a magnifying glass at that age—everything is blown out of proportion.”

“How long before you and he spoke after that night?”

Nora cast her mind to that awful time. She remembered it as a particularly dark, cold and snowy winter. Streets turned gray with slush and treacherous with ice. But there, in her box of black memories, lay one shining star.

“Christmas,” she said. “A few weeks later I went to midnight Mass, and Søren and I declared a Christmas truce for an hour. I think my mother had told him my father had been sentenced—fifteen years hard time. He knew I needed something to help me get through it. We talked. He gave me a Christmas gift.”

“What did he give you?”

“A St. Louise medal,” Nora said, smiling at the memory. “My middle name is Louise. And her Feast Day is March 15th—my birthday.”

“A good gift.”

“He let me cry on his shoulder a little. That was an even better gift. After that it was March before we spoke again.”

“What happened in March?”

“Nothing,” Nora said. “And everything. I skipped school and went for a walk. For some reason my wandering feet led me right to Sacred Heart. I didn’t think I’d see Søren that day, but there he was at the rectory … in his backyard … planting trees … and wearing jeans and a white T-shirt.”

“You remember his clothes from that day?”

“I remember everything. I’d never seen Søren in anything but his clerics and collar before. I had convinced myself he even slept in his clerics. But damn …” She smiled down at Nico. “He had dirt under his nails. Like you did the day we met.”

“I’d been working that day. I work every day.”

“I liked it. I like a man who’s not afraid to get his hands dirty.”