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Chapters (47)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Dedication
  4. Epigraphs
  5. Prologue
  6. Part One
  7. ONE
  8. TWO
  9. THREE
  10. FOUR
  11. FIVE
  12. SIX
  13. SEVEN
  14. EIGHT
  15. NINE
  16. TEN
  17. ELEVEN
  18. TWELVE
  19. THIRTEEN
  20. FOURTEEN
  21. FIFTEEN
  22. SIXTEEN
  23. SEVENTEEN
  24. Part Two
  25. EIGHTEEN
  26. NINETEEN
  27. TWENTY
  28. TWENTY-ONE
  29. TWENTY-TWO
  30. TWENTY-THREE
  31. TWENTY-FOUR
  32. TWENTY-FIVE
  33. TWENTY-SIX
  34. TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. TWENTY-NINE
  37. THIRTY
  38. THIRTY-ONE
  39. THIRTY-TWO
  40. THIRTY-THREE
  41. THIRTY-FOUR
  42. THIRTY-FIVE
  43. THIRTY-SIX
  44. THIRTY-SEVEN
  45. Acknowledgments
  46. About the Author
  47. Newsletter Sign-up

But something was wrong. He knew it. They never got rid of anything. But say they did? It was just like them to leave their crap by the side of the road for someone to take instead of throwing it away.

And then there was the handwriting on the cardboard sign. Ed and Connie didn’t use exclamation points, and they didn’t get excited over material possessions, free or not. That sign could only mean one thing: the girls, one or both of them, were back. But why now, before summer? He could think of little else. He waited impatiently for Jason to bring his truck back so he could snag the couch before someone else did.

When Jason finally showed up, Michael lied and said Avery was sick, and he needed to pick her up from school early. They made good partners; Jason was on top of the accounts, taxes, and paperwork, while Michael had a keen sense of timing. He knew exactly when to plant from the smell in the air and the direction of the wind.

“Nothing dies on your watch,” Jason said to him. “You should work in a hospice instead of a nursery.” It was about as close to a compliment as a salty New Englander like Jason could muster, and Michael’s dismissive shrug was about as close as he could come to thanking him.

But that damn couch got to him. It put him in a restless funk. He was a mess over an old piece of furniture. Who put it out there? Why did they want to get rid of it? He was almost afraid to touch it.

TWENTY-THREE

Poppy

The Milwaukee house had become a time capsule, especially in winter, sealed up from the elements. Everything was just as her parents had left it, from the tattered throw blankets on the armrests to the plants on the windowsills. The basement smelled like old cardboard. They were the kind of people who’d kept all the boxes that once held the things they’d bought: an old fan, a vacuum, a computer, a changing table.

Poppy wandered the house, restless. She finally mustered up the courage to enter her parents’ room and lie down on their bed, feeling the dents in the mattress where their bodies left their impressions, smelling their pillows, crying her heart out.

Her own bedroom was just as she’d left it, although her tie-dyed curtains had been bleached by the sun. A poster of surfer Greg Cipes standing shirtless on the beach still hung above her bed, and a pile of faded surf magazines sat on her dresser, gathering dust. Even her one-hitter was still hidden in the back of her top drawer.