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Never Look Back

Alison Gaylin
Chapters (51)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-One
  24. Twenty-Two
  25. Twenty-Three
  26. Twenty-Four
  27. Twenty-Five
  28. Twenty-Six
  29. Twenty-Seven
  30. Twenty-Eight
  31. Twenty-Nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Thirty-One
  34. Thirty-Two
  35. Thirty-Three
  36. Thirty-Four
  37. Thirty-Five
  38. Thirty-Six
  39. Thirty-Seven
  40. Thirty-Eight
  41. Thirty-Nine
  42. Forty
  43. Forty-One
  44. Forty-Two
  45. Forty-Three
  46. Acknowledgments
  47. P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
  48. About the Author
  49. About the Book
  50. Also by Alison Gaylin
  51. About the Publisher

Cover

image

Dedication

For Myrna Lebov, in loving memory

One

June 10, 1976

1:00 A.M.

Written Assignment for Ninth-Grade

Social Studies Class (Mrs. Brixton)

A Letter to My Future Child

By April Cooper

Dear Aurora Grace,

It is 1976, the year of our nation’s bicentennial. I turned fifteen three months ago. Like many young people my age, I am concerned about some of the issues affecting our country and the planet. The hole in the ozone layer is something that I worry about. The passage of the Equal Rights Amendment could provide equal pay for both you and me. These issues, just like you, are part of a future I can’t see from where I am. I try to imagine the world you may be living in: flying cars; picture phones; pills that can make you beautiful forever. I try to imagine you—what you might look like, the clothes you might wear, the sound of your laugh. I try to imagine who your father might be, and I’m hoping with my whole heart that he’s someone I will meet many years from now, when everything is better.

I don’t know a lot. I’m only a freshman, and my grades are just okay. I don’t play any musical instruments and I’m not on a sports team. I’ve never traveled to a foreign country except for the one time my mom and I went to Mexico, and I was only five years old then, so all I remember is the hotel swimming pool.

But there are things I’ve seen now. There are things I know.

I heard the gunshots when I got home from school. I was walking up the driveway and there were three loud blasts. Fireworks for the bicentennial, I thought. I told myself the blasts were coming from the park up the block, from someone else’s backyard, from my own imagination. But part of me knew that something horrible had happened.

When I opened the door to my house, the lights were off and the shades were drawn, and so the first thing I noticed was the smell. Like sawdust and smoke and something else—something coppery and dark that made my stomach turn.

I felt hands on my back, someone gripping my neck and spinning me to look at him. “I didn’t mean to,” Gabriel said. “I was just so angry at your stepfather. I know you only broke up with me because he made you. I love you so much, April.”

I could smell his sweat. I felt it slick and cold on his hands and on my skin. When Gabriel turned the light on and I got a good look at him, I noticed the spray of tiny red drops across his face.

Papa Pete was on the floor. Blood spreading beneath him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone or anything as absolutely still as his body.