“Do you?”

“No.” Cameryn could look at him now, at his blue-green eyes, a mix of water and grass, thickly fringed by lashes her mammaw said were wasted on a man. Inside, she felt strangely calm. She liked him, that was true, but she couldn’t abide the way he saw through her. No one else, not even Lyric, had been able to perceive her soul like Justin. In a way she felt naked. Somewhere deep inside, she was afraid of what else Justin might see. It was wrong to think she could escape from her troubles with him. He wouldn’t let her pretend.

Throughout dinner she deflected him with small talk about the winter fair and bits of gossip from town. Try as he might, he couldn’t penetrate her armor. When he finally dropped her off in front of her house, he said, “Baby Doe’s brain will be hard by Monday. You and I can go together.”

“I think I’m going to skip it,” Cameryn told him. “I’ve got school.”

“I can take you after, when school lets out. I think this is really important.” He reached out and put his hand on her arm. She felt that small jolt of electricity connecting them, thin as a wire.

“Okay. We’ll go together.”

“Cammie,” he said in a thickened voice. “I don’t know what happened back there at Francisco’s-I was just trying to help. There was more I wanted to say, but-”

“I know. And you did help. Thanks for the dinner. I really needed a break.” She reached for the door handle, avoiding his eyes. “See ya,” she said, hurriedly getting out of his car.

Her father was already home. She could see his head through the front window, bobbing gently in sleep as he sat in his favorite reading chair. When she opened the kitchen door she heard Justin’s engine gun in reverse.

“You’re finally back,” her mammaw called from her bedroom. “Would you like to come in for a chat, girl?”

“Tomorrow,” Cameryn called back. “I need to go to bed. I’m wiped.”

“Tomorrow, then.”

“Yeah. G’night.”

Cameryn climbed the stairs to her bedroom, which was still adorned with pink wallpaper she longed to get rid of. Stuffed animals lay scattered on her bed, and she picked up her favorite, a floppy-eared dog named Rags. The brown eyes stared back, blank bits of glass set above a plastic nose. But Rags was fake, like everything in Cameryn’s life. Fake, fake, fake! Fishing her BlackBerry from her purse, she punched her thumb into the keypad. Lyric-she needed to talk to Lyric.

“Hey, sorry I missed your call. Leave a message-peace!” Too tired to leave a voice mail, Cameryn hung up. She went to her window and stared out at the stars that hung from the sky, bright now as Christmas lights. A sky that Benjamin Baker and Mariah couldn’t see.

Downstairs she could hear her father’s old Simon and Garfunkel song that ended with the words, “an island never cries.”

That was what she needed to be, an island, and yet the tears welled into her eyes. There were too many pressures, too many problems. Justin had reached out to her and she hadn’t let him. Fear about her mother choked her heart. She wanted to escape but there was no place to go-her problems were inside and therefore traveled with her.

It was then she heard the tiny ping coming from her laptop computer. She’d left it on that morning, and the screensaver had gone to black. Plucking a tissue, she blew her nose, then sat down on her chair and flicked her mouse. An e-mail had just arrived.

I’m in the office working late. I have just received an e-mail concerning the Kyle O’Neil case you were involved with. I have some questions. Please e-mail me at your earliest convenience. Jo Ann Whittaker.

Cameryn stared at the blinking cursor. The black vertical line appeared and disappeared from the screen, like a tiny, beating heart. Her finger hovered an entire minute before she hit “Shut Down.” She watched her computer go through the motions until her screen returned to black. Jo Ann Whittaker could wait. They all could. The problems would still be there in the morning.

“GOOD, YOU’RE DRESSED. I made banoffee, so here’s a slice to go with your coffee-you need to eat fast, but mind, don’t gulp it down. Your father’s already gone to Ouray. Mass starts in thirty minutes, so there’s still time for you to eat.”

Her grandmother bustled through the kitchen in a pair of black knit pants topped by a red sweater embroidered with a Christmas wreath. Mammaw’s close-cropped white hair had been tamed with a curling iron, and she’d put on lipstick, a bright cherry to match her sweater. Earrings shaped like snowmen dangled from her lobes, swaying as she set the Irish pie on a quilted place mat. As she dropped a fork beside the plate, she said, “Hurry now. Eat! ”

Cameryn walked across the kitchen to slide into the chair. “Thanks, Mammaw. That’s my favorite.”

“Pure cream and a dash of coffee. The Irish know how to cook,” Mammaw answered, looking pleased. “You need to eat, child. You’re as thin as a traithnin.”

“What’s a traithnin?”

“A blade of grass.”

Although her grandmother had emigrated from Dublin sixty years earlier, her soul had remained rooted in the green hills of Ireland. Her dream was to take Cameryn there, to the stone cottage in Dunshaughlin where Mammaw had been born. An Irish lilt still buoyed her words, brightening the syllables, and yet it was the only thing soft about her. A thick-bodied woman accustomed to hard work, and a fierce Catholic as well, Mammaw could fire up like no one else. Which would make what Cameryn was about to say that much harder.

Taking a sip of coffee, Cameryn said, “I, um… I think I’m going to skip church this morning.”

“And why would you be doing that?” Two tight lines appeared at the corners of her grandmother’s mouth. With her mug in hand, she sat down on a chair opposite. “Are you feeling sick?”

“No.”

“That’s the only reason you can miss Mass without it being a sin.”

Bracing herself, she said, “I need to see Hannah.”

Mammaw raised her chin. Her eyes, pale as Mariah’s, flashed. “And why would that be? You were with that woman yesterday, and now you’re wanting to play hooky with her today as well? I need time with you, too, Cammie. And so does God.”

Cameryn couldn’t possibly tell her grandmother all the reasons, so she kept quiet, slowly eating her banoffee so she wouldn’t have to speak. The kitchen, a small room brimming with Christmas decorations, smelled like coffee and winterberry, the latter from the candles her grandmother loved to light. Cameryn could hear herself chew as the clock on the wall marked time, every sound amplified in the silence. The swallow, the slurp of coffee, the clink of her fork on her plate-Cameryn ate and drank, all the while avoiding her grandmother’s eyes. Finally, she did look up. But the condemnation she’d been expecting wasn’t there.

"Mammaw? ”

“I’ve raised you since you were small,” her mammaw murmured in a distant voice. “All that time I’ve fought against that woman and… we, me and Patrick, we’ve been doing our best. It may not have been good enough, but it has been our best. Cammie, we’re scared for you.”

“Don’t be. I know all about Hannah. She explained the accident with Jayne and I told her I understood. We should forgive-that’s what Father John would tell you to do.”

The lines around Mammaw’s mouth seemed even deeper this morning. "Typical. Hannah gave you a cleaned-up version of reality. Smoke and mirrors is what that woman does best.”

“But, Mammaw-”

“Listen to me, girl.” She took Cameryn’s hands in hers. Sunshine poured through the window, the light shadowing the blue veins that snaked across the back of her grandmother’s strong hands. “You know about your mother’s illness?”

Cameryn nodded.

“Then you understand the woman has always been… weak.”

Was Mammaw reading her mind? Earlier that morning, when she’d slipped out of bed to look out her window, Cameryn had noticed the way the night wind had smoothed the top layer of snow into a delicate, shimmering crust. From experience she knew that crust would crumble beneath the smallest bit of pressure. As she’d pulled her blanket up under her chin she’d sat, staring out that window, thinking of Justin, her father, her mammaw, Lyric. They all had one thing in common: they were strong. Each of their souls was tenacious enough to stand without help. But Hannah seemed different, needier than anyone Cameryn had ever known. Like that crust of snow-beautiful, yet delicate. It was impossible to walk away from that fragility.