Sherri waited for her friend outside of the family store on the town square, shivering, her stomach in knots, her ears tuned for the sound of approaching cars. Under her parka she wore her favorite Junior House outfit, which she’d purchased on clearance at Waal’s Department Store in Walworth, a burgundy velour skirt with a pink tie and a matching pink blouse. She’d loved it when she first bought it, but that morning she worried that her clothing made her look like a priss, and the heavy fabric felt stained from sadness because she’d worn it to her mother’s funeral the week before.

In her bag she carried a pair of narrow shoes with smart heels that she wore when she played the organ, and a red string bikini that wasn’t exactly stolen, but borrowed. She’d slipped it out of her friend Jeanne’s sister’s drawer and into the front pocket of her pants when nobody was looking, as inconspicuous as a wad of Kleenex. Claire was bustier than Sherri, and the fabric was stretched thin across the chest and rear, but where else could Sherri find a string bikini in January in the middle of Wisconsin?

She hated wearing a hood, but she pulled hers over her head because she was freezing, and she’d spent hours trying to tame her crazy, curly hair, deciding finally to pull it back into a ponytail the size of a small hedge. She checked her makeup for the hundredth time in her reflection in the store window. If Roberta didn’t arrive soon, the light mist of sleet would make her foundation and mascara run, and ruin the cerulean eyeshadow that she’d swabbed all the way to her eyebrows; she’d read in Tiger Beat magazine that light blue was the best color for hazel eyes like hers. Her lips were smeared with Cover Girl’s Shimmering Shell, an opalescent nude shade she thought was more sophisticated than coral or pink. She hoped the sparkles would make her look iridescent, like she’d emerged from a gauzy dream instead of a small town that was notable for its rich soil. It felt strange—wrong, even—to wear so much makeup in East Troy on a cold, gray Tuesday morning.

She could have waited inside, but the apartment she’d shared with her mother had grown claustrophobic. Sherri felt so drained from taking care of Muriel while also holding herself together that she had nothing more to give. She looked beyond her reflection into the abandoned wreckage of her late father’s watch repair shop below the family’s apartment and felt another pang of sorrow. Losing her mother was a body blow, and the loss of her father three years earlier still managed to shock her system with grief, like a cracked tooth exposed to cold.