Cassie turned quickly to see her mother in the doorway. “Mom! I didn't know you were off the phone.” When her mother continued to look at her inquiringly, she added, “I was just thinking out loud. I was saying that we'll be going home next week.”
An odd expression crossed her mother's face, like a flash of repressed pain. Her large black eyes had dark circles under them and wandered nervously around the room.
“Mom, what's wrong?” said Cassie.
“I was just talking with your grandmother. You remember how I was planning for us to drive up and see her sometime next week?”
Cassie remembered very well. She'd told Portia she and her mother were going to drive up the coast, and Portia had snapped that it wasn't called the coast here. From Boston down to the Cape it was the south shore, and from Boston up to New Hampshire it was the north shore, and if you were going to Maine it was down east, and anyway, where did her grandmother live? And Cassie hadn't been able to answer because her mother had never told her the name of the town.
“Yes,” she said. “I remember.”
“I just got off the phone with her. She's old, Cassie, and she's not doing very well. It's worse than I realized.”
“Oh, Mom. I'm sorry.” Cassie had never met her grandmother, never even seen a picture of her, but she still felt awful. Her mother and grandmother had been estranged for years, since Cassie had been born. It was something about her mother leaving home, but that was all her mother would ever say about it. In the past few years, though, there had been some letters exchanged, and Cassie thought that underneath they still loved each other. She hoped they did, anyway, and she'd been looking forward to seeing her grandmother for the first time. “I'm really sorry, Mom,” she said now. “Is she going to be okay?”
“I don't know. She's all by herself in that big house and she's lonely… and now with this phlebitis it's hard for her to get around some days.” The sunshine fell in strips of light and shadow across her mother's face. She spoke quietly but almost stiltedly, as if she were holding some strong emotion back with difficulty.
“Cassie, your grandmother and I have had our problems, but we're still family, and she hasn't got anyone else. It's time we buried our differences.”
Her mother had never spoken so freely about the estrangement before. “What was it all about, Mom?”
“It doesn't matter now. She wanted me to-follow a path I didn't want to follow. She thought she was doing the right thing… and now she's all alone and she needs help.”
Dismay whispered through Cassie. Concern for the grandmother she'd never met-and something else. A trickle of alarm started by the look on her mother's face, which was that of someone about to deliver bad news and having a hard time finding the words.
“Cassie, I've thought a lot about this, and there's only one thing for us to do. And I'm sorry, because it will mean such a disruption of your life, and it will be so hard on you… but you're young. You'll adapt. I know you will.”
A twinge of panic shot through Cassie. “Mom, it's all right,” she said quickly. “You stay here and do what you need to. I can get ready for school by myself. It'll be easy; Beth and Mrs. Freeman will help me-“ Cassie's mother was shaking her head, and suddenly Cassie felt she had to go on, to cover everything in a rush of words. “I don't need that many new school clothes…”
“Cassie, I'm so sorry. I need you to try and understand, sweetheart, and to be adult about this. I know you'll miss your friends. But we've both got to try to make the best of things.” Her mother's eyes were fixed on the window, as if she couldn't bear to look at Cassie.
Cassie went very still. “Mom, what are you trying to say?”
“I'm saying we're not going home, or at least not back to Reseda. We're going to my home, to move in with your grandmother. She needs us. We're going to stay here.”
Cassie felt nothing but a dazed numbness. She could only say stupidly, as if this were what mattered, “Where's 'here'? Where does Grandma live?”
For the first time her mother turned from the window. Her eyes seemed bigger and darker than Cassie had ever seen them before.
“New Salem,” she said quietly. “The town is called New Salem.”
Hours later, Cassie was still sitting by the window, staring blankly. Her mind was running in helpless, useless circles.
To stay here… to stay in New England…
An electric shock ran through her. Him. I knew we'd see him again, something inside her proclaimed, and it was glad. But it was only one voice and there were many others, all speaking at once.
To stay. Not going home. And what difference does it make if the guy is here in Massachusetts somewhere? You don't know his name or where he lives. You'll never find him again.
But there's a chance, she thought desperately. And the voice deepest inside, the one that had been glad before, whispered: More than a chance. It's your fate.
Fate! the other voices scoffed. Don't be ridiculous! It's your fate to spend your junior year in New England, that's all. Where you don't know anyone. Where you'll be alone.
Alone, alone, alone, all the other voices agreed.
The deep voice was crushed and disappeared. Cassie felt any hope of seeing the red-haired boy again slip away from her. What she was left with was despair.
I won't even get to say good-bye to my friends at home, she thought. She'd begged her mother for the chance to go back, just to say good-bye. But Mrs. Blake had said there was no money and no time. Their airline tickets would be cashed in. All their things would be shipped to Cassie's grandmother's house by a friend of her mother's.