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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?

If she was suicidal or even just good and lost emotionally, her adoption might be part of that emotional equation. Cameron was surrendered to the state just before her fourth birthday, a particularly tender age, though in my experience they all are. Whatever her life was like before she was given up—whether or not she consciously remembered any of it—that time would still be with her, I know all too well, embedded in her nervous system, knitted into her singular blueprint. So would the whiplash of displacement. In a single day, a car ride with a social worker, her old family was erased, blotted out, and new parents appeared from nowhere—one of them a household name, no less. That part I can only imagine, but it had to be confusing and difficult for Cameron, as she got older and became more aware of the larger world, that her new mother was a world-famous movie star. Almost as confusing as how she could lose her family in one moment, because of a decision someone else made for her, probably without even trying to explain. With the signing of some papers, her story had stopped and restarted. The girl she had been was deleted along with her birth name, and all the rest of it. Siblings, pets, neighborhoods, toys, memories—whole years just gone.

Since looking at her file is like seeing a version of my own story, I know that even if Cameron felt lucky to have landed with the Curtises, as I had with Hap and Eden, she wouldn’t necessarily be free of ghosts. No matter how resilient children can be, or how wanted, loved, and nurtured they are by their new parents, the original wounds of abandonment and rejection aren’t just magically healed. Grit and inner strength don’t altogether heal those wounds, either, because the parenting piece is primal.

Mothers and fathers are supposed to stay. That’s the original human story, in every culture, since the beginning of time. Mine hadn’t, and neither had Cameron’s. All the scars I still carry, she carries, too. Trust issues, attachment trouble, identity problems, feelings of emptiness, isolation, alienation, and despair—cracks in the soul that can’t be mended. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it. How anyone with a hole inside them will search on and on, sometimes all their lives, for ways to fill it.

(sixteen)