together on mismatched hangers. For some reason, Lily could never seem to keep her closet organized.
Stupid of her to mention Evan, to remind her mother that she’d once had three children. Born two years after Lily and a year after Violet, Evan was the youngest child. He had died, an event they never spoke of but one that had defined her entire family for all the years that followed.
“People don’t wear black so much anymore,” Sharon said, inspecting Lily’s clothes, none of which were black. “I think any color is fine so long as it’s respectful.”
Cameron sat in his mom’s station wagon, which was parked in its usual spot in the driveway, as though his mom was inside talking on the phone and filing her nails. The car had just been delivered to the house, the battery recharged, all ready to be driven again. His mother had golf team driving duty this week. There was a tournament in Hood River, and she’d signed up to drive both ways. Of course. She always did, ever since he was in eighth grade.
Hell, now he could quit the team altogether. It was what he’d been wanting to do, anyway—to quit, walk away, forget that whole part of his life. Yet even now that they were gone, he felt the weight of their expectations. Cameron’s golf was important to each of his parents, each for wildly different reasons.
He wished both his parents hadn’t been so important to him. That’s what pissed him off, more than anything.
The car smelled very faintly of stale cigarette smoke—his mom’s secret vice. In the ashtray was a half-smoked Virginia Slims, stubbed out and broken. The console was littered with spare change, rubber bands and a pad of Post-it notes with a shopping list in his mother’s slanty handwriting. It was weird, seeing something in her writing, and the list seemed so ordinary—Kleenex, baking soda, Tab, paper towels, spaghetti sauce.
Where the hell was the Mennen deodorant? he wondered in annoyance. He’d told her he was out and needed more. What the hell was wrong with her?
Maybe she’d left her cigarettes behind. He leaned over and looked in the glove box, but found only the insurance card and registration, maps and other junk. He checked under the visor, finding a pair of sunglasses, a book of matches and a crumpled pink receipt. He started to put it back when the heading caught his eye—Riverside Medical Laboratories. It was a verification of Ashley’s blood type.
Cameron’s gut turned as cold and hard as a block of ice. Sean was appointed guardian because it was assumed he was their closest blood relative. What would happen to her if the truth came out, that he wasn’t related to Ashley at all? Cameron crumpled the report in his fist and stuffed it in his jacket pocket. Then he changed his mind and took it out again. He opened the car door and used a match to light the paper on fire, letting it drift to the ground and burn to a brown autumn leaf. For good measure, he ground it out with the heel of his shoe.
Scowling, he extracted his wallet from the rear pocket of his jeans. He took out the learner’s permit he’d earned only days after turning fifteen and a half, and got back in the car. He was due to get his license in just a few weeks and wasn’t supposed to drive unsupervised until then, but what the hell. It’s not like his parents would worry themselves to death if he drove away.
What were they doing, disappearing like that? Why? Didn’t they give a shit that people needed them? What could be so bad between them that they’d drive off together and wreck the car?
He knew what. He knew. He wasn’t supposed to know but he did.
“Screw it,” he said, putting his hand on the key in the ignition. But before he turned the key, something weird happened. His right hand froze like a block of ice, and needles of pain pulsed in his fingertips. His heart tried to hammer its way out of his chest and suddenly his face was bathed in sweat. His underarms, too, and since he was out of Mennen, there was no stopping it. He tried to breathe but couldn’t inhale deep enough to feed air to his lungs.
A heart attack. He was having a freaking heart attack. He was going to die right here at the wheel of a car, thus carrying on the newest