Out of nowhere Sherri was angry. The rage came upon her so quickly that it carried with it its own personal heat, like a sudden sunburn. She was angry at Bobby, and she was angry at the adjustment counselor, with her pantsuits and her work pumps and her gentle smile and her freaking advice. She was angry at the cheap cotton comforter on Katie’s twin bed, and she was angry at this town, where she and Katie, who had been somebodys where they came from, now had to prove themselves worthy, like college girls pledging a sorority. She was angry at her stupid ugly shirt and her sensible shoes and her hair color and her short, ugly nails. She pulled at the thing that was sticking out from under Katie, and Katie said, “Mom! Don’t!” Katie grabbed part of the comforter in each hand and pressed her back down, trying not to surrender her treasure. But Sherri was motivated, and she was stronger, and she pulled and pulled until she had it in her hands.

It was a notebook, one of those black-and-white composition books sometimes required for school.

Sherri hadn’t bought this notebook for her daughter.

She started to open it and Katie reared up, grabbing the notebook out of Sherri’s hands. “Don’t,” she hissed. (Katie never hissed. They were not hissing people, just as they were not closed-door people.) “It’s mine,” Katie said. “It’s private.” She held the book close to her chest, wrapping her arms around it.

“What is it?” Sherri demanded.

“It’s just a notebook.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Morgan gave it to me.”

“Morgan? Why was Morgan giving you a notebook?”

“No reason,” said Katie. “She has like ten of them. It was never even used.” Morgan had told Katie that her mom kept buying her the notebooks for her to write about her feelings after her dad died.

Katie stuck out her bottom lip in a way that reminded Sherri of what she’d been like as a little girl—breezy and self-possessed, until you crossed her—and Sherri’s rage left her as quickly as it had come. None of it was Katie’s fault, not Bobby or Madison or any of the rest of it, not the cheap bedding or Sherri’s ugly nails. She sat on the edge of the bed, nearly panting with the exertion of having been so angry and of trying to hide it. “I’m sorry, Katie-kins,” she said. “I overreacted.”