Copyright © 2013 by Priscilla Glenn

All rights reserved.

Cover Designer: Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations

Editor: Madison Seidler

Interior Designer: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Epilogue

A Note to Readers

Acknowledgments

Twelve years.

She had been doing this every year for the past twelve years, but somehow—even after all that time—it still managed to have the same effect on her.

She should have been numb to it by now, or at the very least, prepared for it. But the second Leah Marino turned onto the familiar little side street, her eyes began to sting with the threat of tears.

She took a deep breath, exhaling slowly as she took her foot off the gas pedal and allowed the car to coast unhurriedly down the narrow one-way road.

It always seemed so strange to her that something could be exactly the same and yet completely different all at once.

She’d seen these same houses—packed together like books on a shelf—and their tiny fenced-in yards countless times. She could vividly remember coming down this street in the back of her mother’s car, blowing her warm breath against the window and drawing little hearts in the fog that magically appeared there.

But that was years ago. Another lifetime.

The neighborhood seemed to get smaller every year, although she knew that wasn’t possible. The cars parked along the street were always different. Some of the houses changed color; some of the gardens were ripped up or the driveways refinished. But at its core, it was the same little world, one that was as comfortingly familiar to her as it was painfully remote.

Leah felt her heart quicken in her chest just before the house appeared on the right, and her shoulders dropped in relief as the unchanged yellow siding came into view, standing out against the whites and blues of the other houses. She was always afraid that one year, she’d drive down to discover the new owners had re-sided the odd-colored exterior, erasing the warm, pale yellow that always reminded her of sunlight on sand.

Her mother once told her that if happiness were a color, it would be yellow.

Leah jumped as the rude squawk of a horn burst into her consciousness, and her eyes flew to the rearview mirror. The large black pickup riding her tail was apparently in no mood to accommodate her sentimental pace, and if she had to guess, she’d say the three cars lined up behind him weren’t either.

She sat up straight as something like panic fluttered in her chest. She wasn’t ready to leave yet. She’d barely gotten a chance to see it. And she knew if she kept driving, she wouldn’t loop around and come back. The spell of this little street would be broken; reality and logic would set in, reminding her that this little yearly indulgence was as childish as it was inconvenient.

The horn blasted again, and this time, the burly man behind the wheel thrust his hand at the windshield, shouting something at her through the glass.

Her eyes scanned the road frantically, trying to find an open space on the cramped little street, but there was nothing. The cars were lined up bumper to bumper along the sidewalk, the only openings being the entryways for those houses that had garages. Not that it mattered. Even if there were an open space, there was no way she could pull off parallel parking on this narrow street, especially not while the kind gentleman behind her cheered her on by blaring his horn and shouting obscenities.

Without thinking, she pulled into the empty space in front of the house’s one-car garage. The black pickup sped by with another beep of its horn, this time accompanied by a middle finger pressed up against the passenger window.

“Merry Christmas to you too, sir,” Leah said, watching the other cars pick up speed again as they continued down the road.

When the last car had passed, she exhaled, turning to look through the passenger window at the little yellow one-story house. Although she’d been making this trip ever since she could drive, never once had she actually parked the car. It was always a slow crawl down the street, a few quick seconds to take it in, and then back to real life. But now that she was sitting there, so close she could practically reach out and touch it, she was completely overwhelmed by the desire to see it. Really see it.

Before she could talk herself out of it, Leah cut the engine and got out of the car, pulling her hands inside the sleeves of her coat as she wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the sharp December wind. She walked around to the passenger side and leaned against the car with a tiny sigh, allowing her eyes to drift over her childhood home.

Up close like this, it looked more modern than she remembered. The shutters—although the same brick color they always were—were brand new. In fact, the windows themselves were new too. The one she remembered to be in the kitchen was now a pretty bay window with a few small pots of daffodils lined up along the sill.

Leah’s eyes roved over the fence that led to the side yard. It had definitely been repainted recently, and there were newel posts on either side of it now. Even the short driveway leading into the garage had been repaved.

It was different. Someone was changing it.

She chewed on the corner of her lip, feeling like a bratty child as she tucked her chin into her scarf. What did she expect would happen? It had been fifteen years since she had lived in that house. Did she really think the owners would never make improvements? Never make it their own? She should have been happy that someone was taking good care of it.

The wind picked up again, and she closed her eyes, inhaling slowly through her nose. It still smelled the same—like bike rides and jump rope and hopscotch and barbecues.

And her mother.

That, at least, never changed.

With her eyes still closed, she could see them so clearly, all of them in the side yard: Leah and her brother coloring on the pavement with sidewalk chalk while her mother read a book in a fold-out beach lounger that took up half the yard; her mother showing Leah and her little sister how to tie a jump rope to the end of the fence so they could jump double Dutch even when it was just the two of them; the tiny garden in the corner of the paved yard that her mother used to water with the hose while Leah followed behind with a Fisher Price watering can, giving her enormous, imaginary flowers a summer drink.