“Well, don’t walk home again,” Pops said in that scolding voice. Scolding, and worried. Over the past few days, his comb-over had lost a few valiant soldier-strands desperately holding on to his scalp. Because of me? “I’m not trying to— What do teenagers say nowadays?” he asked my grandmother.

“Get all up in her biznez,” Nana said. Without cracking a smile.

“That’s right,” he replied. “We’re not trying to get all up in your biznez, Ali.”

Oh, wow. Okay. They were trying to relate to me right now. Had probably watched a news program about how to communicate with a teenager or something, and I’d bet they’d later spent hours in front of a computer screen, studying urban slang, muttering together as they deciphered words and discussed the best way to use them.

How…sweet.

Dang it! Their sweetness made me feel all kinds of guilty.

“Those woods are dangerous,” Pops continued. “Predators of the four-legged variety roam freely, and animal carcasses are found all the time.”

I recalled the Bride and Groom of Gore I’d seen. Or might not have seen. Whatever. They were predators of the two-legged variety, definitely, and I never wanted an up-close-and-personal meet and greet with them without my baseball bat firmly in hand.

“I’m sorry,” I said after another sneeze. “I really am.”

Nana muttered something else about pneumonia.

“I missed my bus,” I added, “and I didn’t want to bother you.” Another stretched truth. “It won’t happen again. I promise.” And that was the God’s honest truth, with no evasion. I’d never put them through a worry-wringer again.

“You aren’t a bother.” Nana reached over and patted my hand. “We love you and just want—” By then her chin was quivering too much for her to continue. Tears filled her eyes, but she swiftly wiped them away with the back of her hand. She cleared her throat. “Now, then.” Sniff, sniff. “You asked about your mother. Once she started dating your father, she stayed in most nights. And if they went out, he always had her home before dark. We were always so impressed by that and failed to realize… Well, never mind.”

Did they know why? Had Mom? Or had Dad waited to tell her until after he’d bagged and tagged her?

Oh, gross. Thinking of my parents that way…ick, just ick.

“Did Mom ever mention a friend whose last name was Holland?” I asked, recalling what Cole had said to me. Or had tried to say to me.

Nana’s lips pursed as she pondered my question. “Holland…Holland…no, that name doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Your mom was terribly shy. Didn’t make friends easily, truth be told. Didn’t date much, either,” Pops said, after swallowing a bite of roast. “In fact, your dad was the first boyfriend she ever had.”

My mom? Shy? To me, she’d always been effervescent, full of life. Just like Emma.

“Your dad made her laugh and was always convincing her to do such silly things,” Nana said with a soft smile. “One day, they dressed in the most hideous outfits I’d ever seen and went out to lunch. I’m sure people stared, but when they came back, they were laughing so hard your dad actually threw up.”

I could not imagine it. To me, he’d always been serious, a little too driven, even in his drunkenness.

We finished our dinner in silence, then I trudged to my bedroom. It was the only room on the second floor, and I had a bathroom of my own. My mom had spent her teenage years up here. How had she decorated the place? I wondered. After she’d moved out, Nana had boxed up her things and turned the space into first a playroom, then a sewing room and now a guest room.

Me, I hadn’t done any decorating at all. The walls were as bare as when I’d first moved in. I’d stashed the boxes of family pictures Nana had given me in my closet. I hadn’t opened them, hadn’t hung a single frame. Heck, I hadn’t even glanced at them. The most I’d done was go through my mom’s old things, and only because Nana had dug them out. I think she’d been trying to reconnect with the child she’d lost.

Reconnect. Something I’d never truly tried, the sadness that came with such an attempt overwhelming me, stopping me. But I should push through that sadness, shouldn’t I? Otherwise, I would forever be a bad daughter and a terrible sister. I mean, I’d built my new life around the concept that my mom, dad and sister had never existed, yet they so deserved better. At the very least, they deserved recognition, a place of honor.

Time to pull on those big-girl panties.

I flopped in front of the closet, and with blind eyes and hands no longer operating under my control I burrowed through the box closest to the door. As I withdrew a stack of frames, dust wafted and had me sneezing all over again. But no, I did not have pneumonia or even a cold. And okay, yes, my body grew warmer with every second that passed, as if I was indeed developing a fever, but that stemmed from emotion not a virus.

Tears I hadn’t realized had formed trickled down my cheeks, and my vision finally cleared. And there was my mother, looking adorable in a metallic gold dress with her hair teased into what could only be called the Rat’s Nest look. But what a lovely, glowing smile she had. And there was my dad, cute and lanky in a black tux, with a spray-painted-gold flower hooked to his lapel, his arm wrapped around Mom’s waist. He had a fierce, get me out of here frown.

They were so young. Was this prom? If so, that would mean my dad had gone out at night. No wonder he was frowning. But then, Nana had said he’d never taken my mom out after dark. So…maybe he’d refused to take her to prom but had taken her somewhere else, during the day, to make up for his failure.

Why had I never asked them about their teenage years? Now, it was far too late.

I continued searching and at last found a picture of Emma. That mass of dark hair hung in silky waves because I’d spent hours curling each individual lock, all because she’d “always wanted hair that looks like yours, Alice.” Somehow she’d convinced my mother to buy her a flower girl dress—when she wasn’t a flower girl. The monstrosity was fluffy, white and belled at the waist, with more lace, ruffles and ribbons than could usually be found under a Christmas tree. But then, Emma could sell the devil a vacation stay in the fiery tropic of Hades.

Smiling, I traced my fingertip over the glass. I miss you so much, Em. My vision blurred a second time, new teardrops trickling down and landing on the bow at her waist.

So badly I wanted her to appear. Just one more time. “I met this boy,” I told her photo. “I even talked to him a little without sounding completely idiotic. He’s beautiful and tough and…and I kind of…imagined kissing him.”

I knew she would have said something like: Oh, gross. Did he slip you the tongue?

And I would have laughed and told her that yes, he had, and that I’d liked it way more than a lot, and she would have said, Double gross! And I would have laughed again.

Now she would never experience her own first kiss. Would never go on a date. Would never drive a car. Never ask me about sex. I’d never get to lecture her the way Mom had lectured me. Make sure you pick someone really special. Someone you love, who loves you in return. Your virginity is a gift, and you can’t give it away twice. And, sweetheart, make sure you wait until you’re absolutely ready, and not just because you’re curious or because the boy will leave you for someone else if you don’t. Here’s a newsflash. If he’ll leave you over something like that, he’s using you and he’ll eventually leave you anyway.

In the next box, I found a journal, bound by scratched black leather. There wasn’t any writing on the outside, but I knew it had belonged to my mother because her perfume wafted from it. Were her secrets hidden on the inside? Reverently I cracked open the binding and read over the first page.