“Maybe I’ll like her. You can’t say something will upset me if I don’t know anything about it.” The bravery had returned. Just a little. “You can’t use me as an excuse,” she told him.

“Life is opera, isn’t it? If you look at it a particular way, in a certain light.” He sounded like a book, as he often did. “Well, then,” he said, backing out of the room. “Here we are. I guess that’s that.”

Nothing was resolved. There was a vagueness to their discussion, and yet, Amelia felt relieved. There’d been a heaviness in her chest and it was gone for now.

Here we are, she thought. Here we are.

Where exactly?

She wasn’t sure.

27 • Sweeping

“What happened?” asked Amelia.

“There’s been a little accident,” said Louise.

The floor of the studio was littered with pieces of clay.

“Is that Casey’s Eiffel Tower?” asked Amelia.

“Was,” said Louise. “Yes.”

“What happened?” Amelia asked again.

“Careful,” said Louise, avoiding the question. “Watch your step.” She was sweeping the pieces into a pile.

“Can I help?” asked Amelia.

“Sure. Grab the dustpan.”

They worked together—Louise sweeping from one side of the room to the other, Amelia holding the dustpan and then dumping the clay pieces into the garbage can.

Among the fragments of the Eiffel Tower, Amelia saw pieces of Casey’s heart. She guessed that neither of them—the tower nor the heart—had been dropped. They looked as if they’d been deliberately smashed, broken to bits.

“Where’s Casey?” asked Amelia. She held her breath.

Louise stared at the broom, looking thoughtful for a second. “He said he was going to walk around the block. He should be back any minute. He needed to cool off.”

“Is he okay?”

“I hope so.”

They worked silently. After a few minutes, Louise leaned the broom against the wall. “I’m going to see if I can find him. I’ll be right back.”

Amelia grabbed the broom and finished sweeping the floor. She noticed a piece of clay in the far corner that was bigger than most of the others. It was from Casey’s heart, and it had her initial carved into it—a slightly crooked capital A. She picked it up and shoved it into her pocket.

She was still processing her talk with her father, and now she had this to think about. She’d come to the clay studio eager to make more rabbits and to tell Casey about Epiphany aka Hannah Barnes.

She’d wondered what Casey would think about the new information, what he would say. Now she wondered what had happened to the Eiffel Tower and to his heart and to him.

Life, she thought, just keeps coming at you, one big shapeless surprise after the other. Again. Again.

When, minutes later, Louise and Casey came through the front door, Amelia could tell that Casey had been crying. His eyes were red and his cheeks looked raw as if they’d been scratched or scribbled on with a crayon.