Elizabeth didn’t respond. She thought about her sleepless nights and about her mom—how she stares into space, how they can’t have a real conversation. Her stomach clenched, like it did every time her father called the house. Tommy was right. No one died, but something else did that day.
“I’m not going to play ‘compare the tragedy,’ ” she said as she buried the pictures in the box. “I know people are worse off. Still …”
Elizabeth stood, sniffed hard, and wiped a tear before it fell. She grabbed her bag and headed for the front door.
Tommy stood and followed her.
“Elizabeth, wait. I’m sorry. I was just …”
Elizabeth pulled open the door and raced down the steps. She raised a hand, flashing the peace sign to Tommy without looking back.
Tommy stopped on the porch. He knew better than to chase her. “Okay, then, I’ll text you later,” he called out, his words bouncing off Elizabeth’s back.
Elizabeth alternately jogged and walked until she reached Rogers Park. As she crossed the empty baseball diamond, she unclenched her fists and opened and closed her jaw to relieve the tension. She took a few deep breaths and then let a stream of lukewarm water from an outdoor fountain splash her in the face. She used the bottom of her T-shirt to dry her face, not caring that she was exposing her stomach to anyone who might be looking at her.
Elizabeth removed the camera from her bag and its case and slipped the strap around her neck. As she walked, she paused to take pictures. A child on a swing being pushed by his mother. A babysitter texting on her phone, the little girl she’s supposed to be watching pouring a bucket of sand over her head. A lone boy shooting free throws over and over. Elizabeth felt her breath return to normal.
When she reached the town green, Elizabeth cut through the cemetery instead of walking along the sidewalks—a habit that started soon after she moved to town five years ago.
Two months into the sixth grade, she had been playing Frisbee with her dad when she saw Tommy and a woman in the nearby cemetery. Although they went to school together, they hadn’t talked much. New to town, Elizabeth wasn’t friends with anyone yet. She had left her dad to talk to Tommy.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Tommy’s cheeks reddened and he moved the yellow flowers from hand to hand, like he didn’t know what to do with them, like he wished they—and he—didn’t exist just then.
“I’m helping my mom. We’re putting marigolds on the graves, you know, for El Día de los Muertos. She does this every year. We have an altar at home for my abuela, but she says we need to honor others, too, even if we didn’t know them personally. It shows respect for them and for death. Like, they’re gone, but not forgotten.”
Elizabeth nodded but didn’t say anything. Tommy looked everywhere but at Elizabeth.
“It’s kind of weird, I know,” he said finally.
“No, it’s not. She’s keeping them alive in spirit. They’ll live forever in a way.”
“Yeah,” Tommy said. He looked deep into her green eyes and smiled.
Elizabeth had walked over to Mrs. Bowles and said, “Hi. I’m Elizabeth. I’m kinda friends with Tommy, I guess. I’ll help.”
“Nice to meet you, Elizabeth. Gracias.”
“De nada,” Elizabeth said, pronouncing the words “Day nah-dah.”
Mrs. Bowles had smiled wide and handed her a bunch of flowers. She added, “Dios te bendiga.”
“Okay,” Elizabeth had said with a laugh and skipped away.
Since then, Elizabeth and Tommy were best friends and regular visitors to the graveyard. They’d pick up any obvious litter and leave pieces of candy on the square marble slabs. Sometimes they’d read the tombstones and create lives for the dead. All they had were names and dates of birth and death. They filled in the rest.
“Mrs. Lynette Humphrey, a wife and mother to a baby girl who died after a short illness,” Elizabeth had said once. “She didn’t want any more kids, but she was blessed with three. They all married and made her a grandmother of twelve. She died an old woman, surrounded by her family. She was mostly happy, but her heart was still a little bit broken.”
“Mr. John Edward Walters survived the Civil War only to be murdered by Captain Mustard in the Conservatory with the candlestick,” said Tommy. “And over here, we have Mrs. John Edward Walters-Mustard who died five years later. Her loving new husband slipped a jar of Grey Poupon into her casket as a reminder of him and their everlasting love.”
“Sure, go ahead and make fun of them,” Elizabeth said with a smile. “They’ll only haunt you as payback. Good luck with that.”
One day, while leaving dandelions and Tootsie Rolls on grave sites, they had seen a funeral procession and recognized Sebastiano from school. They didn’t know who was in the coffin, but they knew the person must be someone Sebby loved. Tommy and Elizabeth held hands under a weeping willow and observed the ceremony in silence. Shivers shot through Tommy when an older woman’s wail pierced the quiet.
“I’m going home,” he said. He squeezed her hand, then walked away.
Elizabeth didn’t follow him. She lowered herself to the ground and watched the rest of the service. When the mourners left, she placed a dandelion and a Tootsie Roll on the newly dug earth and whispered, “You won’t be forgotten.”
Unlike Tommy, Elizabeth kept cutting through the graveyard and wondering about its tenants, how they lived and died, but never again in a jokey way.
Elizabeth walked along the grassy rows that separated the tombstones. She stopped at one to straighten an American flag. At another, she lay on her stomach to take a picture of the slim vase with a single long-stem rose.
When she reached the oldest section of the cemetery, she sat cross-legged in front of a weathered gray stone she hadn’t noticed before. Her fingertips traced the large letters that told her this was Sophia Holland’s final resting place.
BORN ON JUNE 14, 1828
CALLED BACK ON APRIL 29, 1844
“Nice to meet you, Sophia,” she said quietly. “You were almost sixteen, just like me.”
Her hands shook as she raised the camera to her face.
Chapter 4
“The ones that disappeared are back”
AUGUST
Emily had an hour before her best friends came over, which meant she had exactly sixty minutes to clean up and erase her summer. Hiding her journal was number one on her list of things to do. Abby and Sarah would say keeping a journal was childish, and then they’d want to read it. She shoved the notebook with the marble-design cover between the mattress and bedspring, and just in case they got their hands on her phone, she deleted certain pictures and texts. She did the same with her e-mail on the computer.
After she wiped down her dresser, she stopped and studied herself in the mirror. Would they know? Even with the evidence gone? Would they still be able to tell? Emily stood straighter and pulled her shoulders back. She circled a piece of hair around her ear and smiled without showing any teeth. This was her polite smile, the one she had learned from her mom. When Emily was younger, she clopped around in her mom’s high heels as her mom made up her face, put jewelry on, and smiled in the mirror. That smile told the world everything was all right, even when it wasn’t.
Before heading downstairs, Emily straightened the corkboard on her wall filled with pictures of her, Sarah, and Abby. She touched the edges of her favorite photograph. They were younger, maybe ten. Emily stood between them, her arms wrapped around their shoulders. Abby flashed a peace sign and Sarah leaned her head against Emily’s. They all had big smiles, the kind that make your cheeks hurt. She could have told them anything then, back when secrets were fiercely guarded.
Emily hated keeping things from her friends, but she had no choice. The news wouldn’t stay here, in her room, shared by only the three of them. A few keystrokes and a “send” button, and everyone would know. And “everyone” would eventually include Emily’s dad. When that happened, she’d probably be shipped
off to an all-girls private school.
A successful attorney and the town council chairman, Edwin Delgado, lived in the public spotlight, and so did the rest of his family, like it or not. Last year, Emily learned what he meant by “Any slipups will have consequences.” The slipup? Emily was featured on the Internet for all the wrong reasons. The consequences? A carefully written formal apology and mandatory volunteer hours at the community health center. She halfheartedly preached about the dangers of teen drinking to delinquents required to be there. Afterward her father warned, “Don’t embarrass me again.”
“Pop?” Emily called to her dad. He sat in his office, facing the computer, his back to her. He maneuvered the mouse with one hand and held his cell phone to his ear with the other.
He turned the phone away from his mouth and responded, “Yes?,” but didn’t turn to face her.
“My friends are coming for a sleepover. Necesito dinero.” She wasn’t sure why she was whispering. It’s not like speaking softly would somehow interrupt him less.
He pinned the phone between his ear and shoulder and used his free hand to point to his wallet on a nearby table. She snagged a twenty and returned to the doorway. She wanted to thank him but didn’t want to disturb his conversation again. She was about to leave without saying anything.
“Hold on, Luís,” her dad said. He put the phone on his desk and swiveled his chair to face her. “I don’t recall your asking permission about this. Did you ask your mother?”
“Yes.”
“Está bien,” he said. “You’re staying in the house all night.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Sí, señor,” Emily confirmed.
“No boys or drinking or sneaking out.”
“Please, Pop. Do you honestly think we’d do that with both you and Mamá home?” With a smile, she added, “I mean, we might try those things if only Mom were home.”
“That’s not funny,” he snapped. “We’re responsible for those girls when they’re under our roof.”
“Okay, okay. Calm down, Judge Judy.”
Her dad smiled a bit. “I’m just saying, sometimes you kids don’t think. It’s that frontal lobe issue. Did you know your brain’s not fully developed, which is why teens are so impulsive?”
“Gracias, Dr. Phil. I’ll work out my frontal lobe in my spare time; make it nice and developed—buffed, even.”
He couldn’t help but flash his contagious million-watt smile, the one that helped him to win local elections.
Emily smiled, too.
“Judge Judy and Dr. Phil?” he asked. “You couldn’t think of cooler people?”
“They make serious money, Pop. Don’t hate.”
“Okay then, a television job is now on my bucket list,” he said with a laugh. In a stern tone, he added, “Your room should be spotless if you’re having company.”
“It is,” she said and backed out of his office.
On her way to the kitchen, Emily found her mom napping on the sectional in the family room. She snickered because Dr. Phil was on. Emily turned off the TV and put the prescription bottles on the end table into a drawer. Before leaving, she dragged a light cover over her mom and whispered, “Sweet dreams, Mamá.”
When the doorbell rang, Emily sprinted to answer it but stopped when she reached the door. Before she let Sarah and Abby back into her life after weeks at camp and vacation abroad, she pulled her shoulders back, circled a piece of hair around her ear, and smiled politely.
Chapter 5
“I haven’t told my garden yet –”
Hours later, the girls lounged in Emily’s room, their bellies full.
“I didn’t think both of your parents would be home,” said Sarah.
“They won’t bother us, though. My dad’s working and my mom’s sleeping.”
“She’s sleeping?” asked Abby. “Is she sick?”
“Kind of.”
Emily’s mom saw a bunch of specialists and had lots of tests done. She swallowed a handful of pills every day. For what? Who knows? The medication made her feel better, but Emily didn’t think it was curing anything.
Sarah grabbed Emily’s hand and said, “You are in desperate need of a manicure.” She retrieved her oversize makeup bag and dug out a hot-pink polish. As Sarah tended to Emily’s nails, Abby modeled some of the clothes she bought in Europe. She waved her freshly polished fingers at her friends and said, “I went with my mom yesterday.”
“That’s nice,” Emily said, and she meant it, thinking about her mom passed out on the sofa.
Abby buttoned a pair of red short-shorts and slipped a black shirt with winglike sleeves over her head. “She can be so embarrassing, though. She actually told me she was glad I went to Italy with my aunt, so that she and my dad could have some ‘alone time.’ ” Abby stuck a finger into her mouth like she was forcing herself to vomit.
Sarah laughed but agreed, “That’s gross.”
Emily’s parents never acted like they wanted “alone time.”
“And she’s always asking me about boys, like I’d ever tell her,” Abby continued. She slipped on a pair of black heels. “And speaking of boys. In Italy, they are …” She gathered her fingers to her lips, kissed them, and opened them as if she were throwing the kiss into the air “… bellissimo.”
Abby was the first of them to discover boys. Of course, boys had noticed Abby since grade school. She had long brown hair with caramel highlights, blue eyes, and long, lean-muscled legs she showed off whenever she got the chance. When Abby decided in middle school that boys weren’t gross anymore, the girls entered a strange new world—ready or not. Sarah was ready. Emily was not.
It’s not that she didn’t notice boys. She had crushes and flirted. In eighth grade, she even dated a few guys, but she broke up with each of them pretty quickly. Whenever Sarah or Abby nudged her to take the next step, she panicked and ended it, saying he was too short, too tall, too geeky, or too dumb. Really, she was scared.
She didn’t want to be publicly dumped like Nicole Taylor was in the seventh grade. Anthony Ramos walked the entire length of the cafeteria one day and announced that Kent Miller was done with her. Nicole tried to act nonchalant, but she started to cry when Kent high-fived Anthony. No thanks. Getting dumped after opening your heart was bad enough, but then she’d have to relive the experience over and over once people posted and shared the pictures or videos, adding comments along the way.
And all of that would sooner or later be seen by Luís the tech-geek college student hired to answer phones, make copies, and scour the Internet for any mention of the Delgados, in particular her dad’s cases and local politics. That’s how she got into trouble last year.
Emily tried to stay on the romantic sidelines and cheer her friends on, but they always pulled her into the game.
“Remember when we tried hooking you up with Ben last year?” asked Sarah.
“Yeah, what a disaster,” said Emily.
“It didn’t have to be. He called you every day,” said Abby.
“And I didn’t know what to say. He talked a lot. I listened. He asked questions. I answered.”
“Awk-ward,” sang Sarah.
“Exactly.”
Emily wanted Ben to leave her alone, but when he did, she was surprised. When two days passed without a call or text, she played it off like she was relieved. She never admitted to her friends how conflicted she was.
“I still don’t know what the problem was,” Abby said. “Ben really liked you.”
“I guess, but he wasn’t ‘The One.’ ”
“Why did he have to be ‘The One’? And anyway, how do you know? You didn’t even give him a chance. He could have been your Romeo.”
“I don’t want a Romeo,” said Emily.
“Every girl wants a Romeo,” Abby snapped.
“Romeo was in love with someone else and forgot all about her when he saw Juliet.”
“That other girl should have tried harder. You should have tried harder.”
They were all quiet for a minute. A conversation with Abby was often like living through a minor earthquake. It was too small to register on the Richter scale, but it definitely caused some damage.
“She tried with Kevin,” offered Sarah, who always tried to salvage whatever cracked during the tremor.
Abby smiled and put on a pair of large sunglasses. Emily giggled. If Abby tried to walk in heels and sunglasses, she’d probably land on her face. Emily secretly hoped it would happen.
“Yeah, so what about Kevin?” asked Abby. “Did you hear from him this summer?”
Abby pulled her sunglasses down her nose to get a good look at Emily.
“No.”
Abby held Emily’s gaze for a moment, then pushed up her glasses and said, “That’s too bad.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Emily focused on Sarah as she applied another coat of polish, but her mind was on that party in June, the last big one before freshman year ended.
Sarah and Abby had pulled Emily into this group-dance thing that was more like drunken swaying. Abby had kept nudging her toward Kevin. When Emily was close enough, he had wrapped his arms around her waist.
Emily glanced over her shoulder, where Abby smiled and gave her the thumbs-up sign. Emily looked down and shifted from side to side. She focused on the music and tried to ignore Kevin’s hand stroking the center of her back.
Dizzy from the beer and the hot air in the cramped basement and the fact that his body was pressed up against hers, Emily had tried to pull it together. She clutched his shoulders to steady herself, and Kevin responded by tightening his grip around her waist. His hips moved against hers. She followed his lead. Emily buried her flushed face in his shoulder, and he slowly steered them away from the group to an open spot by a wall.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m just hot,” she said and fanned herself with both hands.
“Don’t move.” While he was gone, she remembered to breathe. He returned with a cup of beer. She drank half of it in a few swallows. He smiled and leaned into her, his mouth next to her ear. She inhaled sharply and then let the breath out steadily when her lungs started to burn.
When Reason Breaks Page 2
