hadn’t bothered changing the Christmas station. She was too bewildered by what had gone down. Yes, she’d known Eileen drank, but this was a new low. Driving like that, with Claire in the car—did she have no respect? And then switching out with Claire on demand, only to shut up and sulk? Claire glanced at Eileen, who was glaring out at the road, head rammed against the passenger window. What was with her? Claire didn’t want to know. She focused instead on the music:
O tidings of comfort and joy
comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy
Those weren’t even close to the tidings Claire had received from Yale.
Suddenly, thoughts of Eileen were gone, the rejection back on Claire’s brain. How could it not be? For months Yale had been the only thing Claire thought about. She’d pictured her New Haven future, pumped with living color the way it had been in the admissions brochures. She’d envisioned it, done the work.
Where had she gone wrong?
Where had Ainsley St. John gone right?
And how could Claire ever respond to Ainsley’s text?
The pain was fresh, a knife twisted into a vital artery, so deep that Claire was afraid to move.
She took in the view in her periphery: wide open fields, dotted by grand firs. Her mind strayed, unexpectedly, to the subject of Murphy. Claire did feel bad, leaving her home alone without warning, or even a note. She couldn’t send a text, either, since Murphy didn’t have a phone. Then again, Murphy practically lived home alone, as it was. Claire barely saw her, too busy these days with Etsy and schoolwork. And God knew Eileen rarely emerged from her garage cave. Mom was almost always working a late shift. Tonight wouldn’t be unlike any other, would it?
Claire didn’t need to feel guilty. This was a six-, maybe seven-hour roundtrip. She wasn’t abandoning Murphy for a five-day Bahamian cruise, like Mom.
Mom.
Claire remembered nights when Mom hadn’t worked late, when she’d fixed them Hamburger Helper dinners in the Crock-Pot, and they’d eaten together and talked about their day. She remembered school field days when Mom had shown up and cheered Claire on in a three-legged race, afterward telling her what a good job she’d done over cups of lemonade.
Once, Mom had been Mom. The older Claire had grown, though, the more removed her mother had become—an untethered kite drifting higher, toward the sun. Claire knew, from TV shows and friends at school, that teenage girls weren’t exactly supposed to get along with their mothers. It wasn’t that Claire didn’t get on with Mom; it was that they didn’t get anywhere. They didn’t even fight, because Mom wasn’t around to do the fighting. The closest Claire had gotten to that had been two days ago, when Mom had left for her cruise, and Claire had yelled for her to just go.
Mom had tried hard to make this year’s Christmas special, but didn’t she get it? December twenty-first wasn’t Christmas. It was a difficult date, an open wound. Mom had given them presents like she cared, but didn’t she understand? The presents were a giveaway that she didn’t know her daughters anymore.
She’d given Claire a backpack for college, colored bright pink.
“Your favorite color,” she’d said brightly.
As though Claire were seven, not seventeen.
If Mom was a mom who knew her daughter, she would have asked Claire about early admission a week ago. Maybe Claire would have even told her about not getting into Yale, and Mom would’ve realized that a backpack for a nonexistent future was the worst possible gift.
She hadn’t known, though, and Claire had lost her calm—a very un-Exceller thing to do. She’d yelled at Mom.
The hard truth was, the Yale rejection was driving her mad. She was having a breakdown. Was that possible, at seventeen? What was this, a fifth-life crisis? She was acting way out of character, getting in this van without a plan.
All she could tell herself was, golden moment.
This was her golden moment. And maybe, when she arrived at the house she’d inherited, it’d all fall into place.
Claire had wedged her phone into the console cupholder after plugging 2270 Laramie Court into the GPS. Now, according to the app, her exit was coming up soon. The path that would take her to Uncle Patrick’s house.
Did that sound strange: Uncle Patrick. Uncle Anything.
An uncle she’d never known, who’d died and left an inheritance, like Claire was a Dickensian orphan.
This is your golden moment, Claire reminded herself. Riding in a junk van and enduring an endless