Little Broken Things

by Nicole Baart

  “It means he likes to make a big deal out of things.”

  “It means he likes to exaggerate,” Liz added.

  “You like to exaggerate!” Everlee pointed at Liz, her eyes sparkling with the magic of a private joke.

  “I do not.”

  “Do too!”

  “Do not,” Liz huffed.

  “You said that my math flashcards were so boring you could die.”

  Liz flapped her hands at Everlee in an attempt to hush the child.

  “That bad?” Nora laughed. “I didn’t realize second grade was so strenuous.”

  “It’s every night,” Liz told them. “We have to go through the stack. Every. Single. Night. And then there’s spelling words and reading—”

  “Don’t forget Handwriting Without Tears!” Everlee enthused.

  “How could I forget?” But even as Liz complained, she shot Everlee a playful wink.

  “Good thing she’s so smart.” Quinn turned Everlee’s hand so the girl had no choice but to twirl. She pirouetted awkwardly at first, her corduroy dress and striped leggings swishing and catching as she tried to spin. But then she got the hang of it and whirled faster and faster beneath Quinn’s careful hand, a rainbow blur of giggles until she collapsed onto the bed of leaves beneath her feet. Ethan kicked more on her, burying her beneath a sort of autumn confetti. Everlee didn’t mind. She only laughed harder.

  The late October sun was slanting across the water, glinting off the cold blue surface and casting diamonds across their shoulders. It was unseasonably gorgeous, the air crisp and tart, scented with wood smoke and earth. Quinn had forgotten how much she loved fall, the brisk, hopeful mornings and the long twilights that made the world seem golden. Key Lake felt like a well-worn picture book after a hot, frantic summer. It was comforting to lose herself in the quiet pages, soft from use and just a little tattered. But familiar, lovely. Home.

  “Remind me what we’re waiting for, Q?” Nora dangled the bottle of champagne in front of Quinn.

  “The right light.”

  “The right light? Are you serious?”

  “Yes.” Quinn grinned at her sister. “Sounds crazy, I know, but Walker’s a genius.”

  “That’s debatable. Have you seen it?”

  Quinn’s eyes flashed proud and eager. “Not yet.”

  Nora sniffed. “You two are nauseating.”

  “Adorable,” Ethan corrected. Deliberately changing the subject, he asked: “How’s the Pumpkin Patch these days?”

  “Great.” Quinn couldn’t help the way her smile widened. The preschool director had called her a week before classes began and offered her a job. Not as a teacher’s assistant or paraprofessional, but as one of the four-year-old preschool full-time teachers. It wasn’t her degree, but she had been an education major and they were desperate. So was Quinn. What started as a temporary position and a place to hang her heart for a season had become a passion she didn’t expect. “I think I’m really getting the hang of it. Speaking of school …” She trailed off and arched one eyebrow at Nora.

  “It’s not school. Well, not technically.” Nora sounded exasperated, but there was a spark of something fierce in her eyes. Something confident.

  “It is too,” Ethan cut in. “Online courses are totally legitimate. Nora’s going to get a few core classes out of the way, transfer to a four-year college, ace the LSAT …”

  “Please, I’m way too old for that.” She rolled her eyes, but it was all for show.

  Quinn couldn’t have possibly been more pleased.

  Nora and Ethan had traveled to Key Lake for the weekend partly to witness Walker’s grand unveiling, but mostly to spend time with Everlee. The child was coming around slowly, learning to trust and feel safe. She saw a counselor twice a week and attended school part-time. The rest of her days were filled with Liz’s—often harebrained—schemes. They took calligraphy classes in the basement of the library and swimming lessons at the indoor pool. Once they attended a French cooking seminar and made ratatouille for a small dinner party that consisted of Walker and Quinn. Liz even let Everlee have free rein with her oil paints and watercolors, and more than one fabric now bore the tiny swirling E that signified an original Everlee design.

  Nora and Quinn were astounded to discover that their mother was the perfect place for Everlee to land—if not forever, for a season. A sweet, sunny season that could only be classified as fumbling toward happy. There were still many late-night phone calls and texts, desperate pleas for help as Liz all but sobbed into the phone. But Liz and Everlee were healing together—more than that, they seemed to be healing each other.

  It was a group effort. After Donovan’s accident and Tiffany’s disappearance, Nora took a leave of absence from the Grind. She and Everlee moved in with Liz to begin the difficult process of learning to live in a new normal. It was supposed to be temporary, but something clicked between the six-year-old and her would-be stepmother. The arrangement was as miraculous as it was mysterious, and when Nora went back to Rochester, it was a relatively easy transition. But she and Ethan made the trip to Key Lake often.

  “Can we go in now?” Everlee dug herself out of the small pile of leaves and stood to brush off her dress.

  Quinn bent over and helped her out, plucking leaves from the clingy corduroy and the unruly mop of Everlee’s hair. The red had dulled to a strawberry blond that almost seemed intentional—ombre coloring was all the rage. Still, they were eager for that last physical trace of what had happened to disappear entirely. Everlee’s other scars were indelible. But fading. Growing faint and fine as silver.

  “Good question,” Liz piped up. “I think Walker’s changed his mind. I think today might not be ‘the day.’ ”

  “Oh, it’s the day, all right.” Walker emerged from behind the black sheet and slipped his arms around his wife’s narrow hips.

  Quinn straightened up and swiveled to brush a kiss against his cheek. “We’re a very patient bunch,” she teased.

  “Clearly.”

  “So,” Liz broke in. “Are you ready? Do we finally get to see it?”

  Walker shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “If you want to.” He turned to squint at the angle of the sun. “It should be perfect just about now.”

  In spite of their earlier prickliness, a wave of excitement rippled through the entire group. The past three months had been some of the hardest of their lives. Quinn came to grips with the fact that she wasn’t pregnant—and might not ever be. Nora grieved the loss of her best friend and the years she had spent living a lie. Liz began the slow process of forgiving her husband—and learning to be a mother again. But no one had suffered as much as Everlee, and Quinn expected Walker to reach for her hand and lead her through the door of the boathouse first.

  He didn’t. Walker stepped away from his wife and stuck out his arm for Liz.

  “Me?” She fluttered her fingers to her chest, surprised at being singled out, and was just a little hesitant.

  “I want you to be the first to see it.”

  “Why me?”

  Walker didn’t answer her question; he just stood with his elbow out and waited for his motherin-law to take it.

  “Oh, fine, fine.” Liz tried to come off gruff, but she sounded like she was going to cry, and that made her more than a little flustered. “Everlee, honey, take Walker’s other arm.” And because no one questioned Liz Sanford, Everlee did as she was told.

  Quinn hurried ahead of them and pulled back the sheet, swinging it wide so they could enter the boathouse unhindered.

  “Thank you,” Walker said.

  And then they were inside.

  It was blinding white, and Liz blinked against the onslaught of light. She dropped Walker’s arm to shield her eyes, but she couldn’t stop herself from whirling around, from trying to take it all in.

  Suspended from a frame high above her, a thousand pieces of glass (thousands?) shimmered in the sun. Dusk poured in through the high windows on the west side of the tall boathouse and
illuminated each spinning shard of glass so that it reflected light like water. As Liz tried to absorb what she was seeing, she realized that the glass hung from silver wires so slender they were almost invisible. They were all arranged in progressing layers so that they seemed to swell and heave.

  Waves. Wind. Sails.

  “Walker,” Nora whispered from somewhere behind her, and Liz was struck with the desire to catch her daughter’s hand and hold it tight. “What have you done?”

  “It’s the ship,” Quinn breathed. “The Queen Elizabeth.”

  They all looked at Walker as he nodded. “I’ve never seen sea glass in a lake,” he said. “But the little bowl of it in the cabin and the story of the steamboat made me realize there must be tons of it at the bottom of Key Lake. I dove for it all summer.”

  “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen,” Ethan said. “What is it called?”

  Walker put one hand behind his neck and rubbed the tender skin beneath his ponytail. He looked sheepish, almost afraid when he said: “Elizabeth Undone.”

  It was dazzling, resplendent, the face of the sun. And the depths of the ocean when the world was filled with light. Hope and despair, for how could this have happened, how could it be undone if it had not at first been done? Making and remaking in a constant round, and as Liz spun beneath the twinkling light, the glittering, gleaming, otherworldly bright, she felt something inside of her shatter free.

  Elizabeth undone, indeed.

  They drank champagne beneath the upside-down ship. It was the world upended, a beautiful disaster. Worthy of a second bottle of champagne and music. Everlee danced abandoned, throwing her hands up and laughing so hard she fell down clutching her sides and howling.

  At one point, Liz found herself face-to-face with her daughters, the first, the second, the unlikely third in her arms with her head on Liz’s shoulder. How can this be? Liz thought. But it was, and it would be.

  They talked of insignificant things. Funny stories and small-town gossip, a new recipe and plans for Christmas. And then, when Everlee was heavy and quiet in Liz’s arms, drowsy with something that drew very near to joy, Liz told her girls: “I’m going to find her. Someday.”

  Neither Nora nor Quinn had to ask her what she meant. They had a scarf, a name, an antique Egyptian box with the remains of a woman who was as much a mother as any of them. Lorelei belonged with Tiffany and in some way Everlee did, too. With all of them, actually.

  And the Sanford girls were fierce and determined, tenacious and brave. The sort of women who refused to give up. Who knew that all the loveliest things were broken.

  And in all the broken places they were strong.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  IN DECEMBER OF 2013, my husband and I stepped off a plane in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with the newest member of our family. We had known our daughter for years, but the catastrophic event that precipitated her adoption was just beginning to rewrite our personal story. At the time, we knew just a few things: she was sick, she needed our help, and we desperately loved her. In the weeks that followed her arrival on US soil, we became increasingly aware that the trauma she had endured would shape our lives forever. This beautiful girl was wary, watchful. She didn’t speak much and she held her emotions tight to her chest. We often wondered what she was thinking and feeling, because she certainly wasn’t going to share those thoughts and emotions with us. I spent my days loving her and reaching for her, trying to bridge the gap between us and earn the title that the Liberian and US governments had already given me: Mom.

  Little Broken Things grew out of that time. In a quiet moment as I held her in my arms and we both cried, I knew I wanted to write a story about a girl searching for home—and a woman becoming a mother in a broken but beautiful way.

  My heartfelt gratitude and forever love to Eve for making me the mother of a daughter. I am so glad that you are ours and I will spend the rest of my life trying to be a good, good mother to you.

  To Isaac, Judah, and Matthias: thank you. My boys have my heart and always will. I am the luckiest because I get to call you mine.

  Aaron, I love you to the moon and back and I am forever grateful that we get to live this crazy adventure together. You are my favorite.

  I am indebted to Emmanuel and Fatu Bimba for so many reasons, but none so much as this: you shared your lives with us. You are more than friends, you are family, and even more so because we get to walk the road of parenthood together. I thank God for you.

  A small army of people have surrounded our family and shown us unconditional love and support through surgeries and trials and hardships we could have never predicted. For bringing meals and making us laugh and giving me time to continue to pursue my own dreams and write books, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

  To Danielle Egan-Miller, my agent and friend, thank you for all that you do and for the many ways that you continue to fight for me. I could not ask for a better advocate in my corner. And thank you to Daniella Wexler for taking on a new author and believing in this project.

  I’m a new member of the incredible group called the Tall Poppy Writers, and I find myself continually inspired and encouraged by this selfless, enthusiastic bunch of women. Thank you so much for your confidence in me and for welcoming me into your fold.

  And finally to Joseph, who is not yet in my arms but already in my heart, thank you for saying “yes.” I still can’t believe that you are going to be our son. You are the best, most unexpected of gifts. I love you more than you will ever know.

  Thank you, thank you for reading.

  xoxo,

  Nicole

  Little Broken Things

  NICOLE BAART

  A Readers Club Guide

  THIS READERS CLUB GUIDE for Little Broken Things includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

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  Introduction

  From author Nicole Baart, whose writing has been called “gorgeously composed” (Publishers Weekly), “taut and engrossing” (Booklist), and “evocative and beautiful” (RT Book Reviews), Little Broken Things is an absorbing and suspenseful story about two estranged sisters reunited by the unexpected arrival of an endangered young girl.

  I have something for you.

  Quinn Cruz and her older sister, Nora, have never been close, and in recent years their relationship has consisted mostly of infrequent, awkward phone calls and occasional emails. But when Quinn receives a cryptic text message from Nora one summer night, a chain reaction is put into motion that will change both of their lives forever.

  Hours after sending the mysterious message, a haunted Nora shows up in provincial Key Lake, Minnesota, and her “something” is more shocking than Quinn could have ever imagined: a little girl. Nora hands her over to Quinn with instructions to keep her safe and to not utter a word about the child to anyone—especially not to their buttoned-up mother, Liz. But before Quinn can ask even a single question, Nora leaves, and Quinn finds herself the unlikely caretaker of a girl introduced simply as “Lucy.”

  It’s obvious that Nora has gotten involved in something way over her head—but what? As Quinn struggles to honor her sister’s desperate request and protect a terrified child from the unknown, Nora must face matters head-on in a life-or-death struggle that demonstrates the lengths a woman will go to protect those she loves.

  Topics and Questions for Discussion

  1. Little Broken Things explores motherhood in all its many forms. Tiffany and Liz are official parents, but Nora and Quinn also take on mothering roles in the book. What makes a good mother? Would you consider these women good mothers?

  2. Liz is unlike the other characters in the novel. She’s old-fashioned, patriarchal, and even a little racist. How does she change throughout the book? What do you think p
rompts this change?

  3. In the novel, Nora sacrifices a great deal for Tiffany and Everlee. Why do you think she does that? Would you have done the same in her position?

  4. Remembering her late husband, Liz muses: “Jack Sanford had not been a good man. True, he was steady and levelheaded and hardworking. He had made a way for himself in a world that favored the lucky, the people who were born with privilege and a place at the table. Jack Sr. had none of those things. But he took a small farmer’s inheritance and made something of it, built a legacy for his wife and kids and fought for it every day of his life. If he argued the validity of a bootstraps philosophy, it was only because he pulled himself up by them. A success story.” Do you feel that Jack’s challenges and determination in any way justify his actions?

  5. Tiffany’s story is one of heartbreak and loss. She leaves because she believes her daughter will be better off without her. Is this act sacrificial or selfish? Do you agree with her decision?

  6. Nora thinks of her sister as “perfect little Quinn.” In what ways does Quinn live up to that reputation? In what ways does she defy her sister’s expectations?

  7. Why do you think Tiffany named her daughter Everlee?

  8. Although Liz is loath to admit that she and Walker have something in common, they are indeed both artists. Throughout the novel, what are some ways these two characters’ art influences their worldviews?

  9. Who is your favorite character in Little Broken Things? Why? Is there a character you don’t like or don’t understand? Explain.

  10. Why do you think Liz’s relationship with her daughters is so strained, and who—if anyone—is to blame? Do you have hope for them at the end of the book?

  11. Throughout the novel, Everlee’s paternity is in question. How does the revelation of her real father affect your reading of the novel? Does it change your perspective of certain characters?

  12. Toward the end of the novel, Liz tells Macy: “I think I have a God complex.” Do you agree that this affliction could apply to multiple characters in Little Broken Things? If so, which ones?