BooksBarbecue
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?

That Christmas when I was eight, my mom stayed gone. I was afraid, of course. Worried that she’d gotten into trouble somehow and couldn’t call me. I tried not to think about how many ways she might have become stuck out in the world on her own while the kids and I piled into her bed to sleep together, giving Freddy his very own pillow. At some point during the day, the kids had finally stopped asking about Santa altogether, which felt like a small victory. As I dropped off to sleep, I had one hand on Amy’s silky hair, and the other on Jason’s T-shirt, and that helped quiet my mind somehow.

The next morning I let the kids watch TV while I raided the Folgers can in the kitchen and walked to the drugstore for bread and milk and eggs and peanut butter, since the grocery stores were closed. I passed Phyllis and Bernard on the way back, and she made a face at me like she knew what was what.

“Where’s your mom today?” she asked pointedly.

“Sleeping,” I said again, the first thing that had flown to my mind.

“Again?”

“Yeah.” I hated her, suddenly, and her dog, too. “Hope you had a good Christmas,” I said with false brightness. “See you later.”

—

Even though Phyllis had rattled me, once I got home and shut the door, we had a great day. In fact, it was one of the nicest we’d ever had. There weren’t any presents, but there was food and all the TV we wanted. We built a fort out of sheets and blankets in the living room and kept it up all day. When it grew dark, we turned off all the lights except for the tree and lay down on the carpet beneath it, looking up through the splayed branches as the rainbow bulbs blinked on and off, almost dreamlike. Then I got the kids into the bathtub and made sure they washed their hair and said their prayers. By the time we went to sleep that night, I was starting to believe we could just go on this way forever, even if my mom never came home. I knew how to take care of Jason and Amy. I could do it. We would be okay—or more than okay. We would be happy.

Very early the next morning, though, I woke up tired. Jason had wet the bed and we all got soaked. I had to put towels down on the bed after that but kept accidentally rolling onto the wet spot and waking up again. I was still worried about Phyllis, too, and wondering if we would run into her again, or if she would start making phone calls, even, to see where my mother really was. I was pretty sure she hadn’t believed me.