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Back When the Stars Go Dark Save as PDF
Chapters (83)
  1. Epigraph
  2. Maps
  3. (prologue)
  4. Part 1: Signs and Vapors
  5. (one)
  6. (two)
  7. (three)
  8. (four)
  9. (five)
  10. (six)
  11. (seven)
  12. (eight)
  13. (nine)
  14. (ten)
  15. (eleven)
  16. (twelve)
  17. Part 2: Secret Things
  18. (thirteen)
  19. (fourteen)
  20. (fifteen)
  21. (sixteen)
  22. (seventeen)
  23. (eighteen)
  24. (nineteen)
  25. (twenty)
  26. (twenty-one)
  27. (twenty-two)
  28. (twenty-three)
  29. (twenty-four)
  30. (twenty-five)
  31. (twenty-six)
  32. (twenty-seven)
  33. (twenty-eight)
  34. (twenty-nine)
  35. (thirty)
  36. (thirty-one)
  37. (thirty-two)
  38. (thirty-three)
  39. (thirty-four)
  40. (thirty-five)
  41. (thirty-six)
  42. (thirty-seven)
  43. (thirty-eight)
  44. (thirty-nine)
  45. Part 3: Time and the Maiden
  46. (forty)
  47. (forty-one)
  48. (forty-two)
  49. (forty-three)
  50. (forty-four)
  51. (forty-five)
  52. (forty-six)
  53. (forty-seven)
  54. (forty-eight)
  55. (forty-nine)
  56. (fifty)
  57. (fifty-one)
  58. (fifty-two)
  59. (fifty-three)
  60. Part 4: The Bent Grove
  61. (fifty-four)
  62. (fifty-five)
  63. (fifty-six)
  64. (fifty-seven)
  65. (fifty-eight)
  66. (fifty-nine)
  67. (sixty)
  68. (sixty-one)
  69. (sixty-two)
  70. (sixty-three)
  71. (sixty-four)
  72. (sixty-five)
  73. (sixty-six)
  74. (sixty-seven)
  75. (sixty-eight)
  76. (sixty-nine)
  77. (seventy)
  78. Dedication
  79. (acknowledgments)
  80. (author’s note)
  81. BY PAULA MCLAIN
  82. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  83. What’s next onyour reading list?

“I see it this way. Your biological parents give you their genes, the map of your physical self. But whoever raises you makes you who you are, for better or for worse. Family dynamics are acted out, not built in, though someday scientists might prove otherwise.”

“The tension with Troy,” Emily says. “I wish I had been able to keep that from her.”

“Maybe that would have helped. Or maybe Cameron needed the opposite…more talking through things, not less. Who knows, really? When she comes home, you can ask her.”

Emily’s face contorts, her eyes shining. “If I can just have one more day with her—” She can’t finish the sentence.

Emily and I are different women with entirely different stories—but I need to see the thread between us. How we’ve been to the same war.

I’ve spent time faulting her for not keeping Cameron safe enough, not protecting her when she couldn’t protect herself. But what does it all add up to? What is all the suffering for if not so we can see how alike we are, and not alone? Where will the mercy come from, if not from us?

Part 3: Time and the Maiden

3 Time and the Maiden

(forty)

Will makes good on his promise and soon we have a warrant to open Cameron’s adoption file. He offers to send Leon Jentz to Catholic Family Charities in Sacramento, but I can’t let anyone else go. I don’t want to see a fax or copy. Whatever I might find, this is personal—and I’m okay with that. Maybe too involved is exactly the way to find Cameron. Maybe the moment I decided to come back to Mendocino, this was always going to happen. All of this, just the way it’s unfolding.

The drive to Sacramento takes four hours, long enough to feel grateful that Cricket is a model traveler. I stop near Clearlake to give her a bathroom break, and then we set off again on Interstate 5, past a checkerboard of parched-looking farms and fields, the median thick with white oleander. Once we reach the patched asphalt parking lot, I don’t feel great about leaving her in the car, but she’s not an official service dog—not yet. So I park in the shade and crack the window to give her plenty of fresh air.

“I’ll be back in half an hour,” I tell her while her ears tip forward, listening. And then I hear myself and have to smile in disbelief. In forty-eight hours I’ve become someone who thinks dogs can tell time?