Alice didn’t respond because she was afraid if she did, she might cry. They drove the last mile in silence. Out of the corner of her eye, Alice looked at her stepfather, at his handsome, inscrutable face and his steel-gray hair, at the muscle twitching in his clenched jaw. What was his problem? What was so different about her joining a group that rallied against the overprivileged and Camilla’s volunteering her time at the YMCA to help the underprivileged? Why did he care so much about her political views? If she believed the influence of corporate money was too powerful and needed to be checked? Did he feel she was attacking him by going to Occupy Boston? That attending the protest was her way of protesting him? He definitely seemed to be taking this whole excursion extremely personally. (He didn’t even work in the financial sector.) He was so much more easygoing with Charlie.

Alice had thought for a while that his preference for her sister was all in her head, but now she was sure it wasn’t. Was it because Charlie was naturally livelier and higher-spirited, like their mom? Was it because she fit so seamlessly into Serenity Point, already indispensable to her circle of friends? Or was it because she, Alice, recalled Camilla in all the wrong ways? A similar—though lesser—version of his dead daughter, simultaneously too much like her and not enough? Reminding him of Camilla, only to remind him of all he’d lost when she died?

At last, they reached town. As soon as Richard parked the car, Alice got out of it, sick of the silent comparisons: Why can’t you look more like Camilla? Act more like Camilla? Be more like Camilla. “See you at home,” she said.

He called her name a couple of times, but she didn’t turn around. Just kept walking, the tears she’d managed to hold back now streaming out of her eyes, practically blinding her.

Chapter Eleven

Chapter

• ELEVEN •

Charlie had Tess of the d’Urbervilles open in her hands, but she wasn’t reading a word. She was too distracted to concentrate, was too distracted to do anything but kick the heel of the leg thrown over the arm of the wicker deck chair she was sprawled across. She was waiting to hear from Cybill. Cybill and Jude should’ve been back from New York hours ago. But so far, not a word. Not a single, solitary peep. And then, a peep. Or, more accurately, a beep: Charlie’s new iPhone, the one Richard had just bought her, telling her she had a new text message. It was from Cybill.

Hey u. At beach with Jude. Trying to sweat out last night’s booze. Sweat out other stuff too. Join us???