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and told you what colours of clothing suited you best. They assigned everyone to a season. My mother said I was like her, a “winter”—pale skin, dark hair. She said I should stay away from earth tones, they’d make me look sick. Of course, colours can only do so much when you really are sick, the way she got sick.

    It wasn’t until I reached the gate that I looked back at the woman at the war monument. She was still there, half-hidden by a gravestone, camouflaged by autumn colours. But the pain in her face was so fresh that I could practically see her husband face down in a muddy trench, bleeding. I descended the steps from the cemetery two at a time and ran back toward town like there was a German fighter plane overhead, aiming its machine guns at my back. Trouble is, I see things sometimes, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
    I’m pretty sure that the woman in the cemetery wasn’t really there.

7
    T oday is October 21 , and that means moving day.
    For weeks I’ve been looking out my bedroom window into the backyard, hoping to see my mother. She hasn’t been there since the morning after Matthew died, more than a month ago. I can’t imagine her anywhere else but in that garden, so I need to see her one last time, before we’re gone for good.
Where are you? Don’t you realize we’re moving? Don’t you care?
    We finished packing last night. We lined the whole front hall with boxes, with Magic Marker labels like
Living Room
and
Kitchen
and
Ethan’s Room
. And the dining room was filled with dozens more, in piles three or four high. You could tell Jack’s boxes by how none of the tops closed flat. That’s because he has so much sports equipment that doesn’t quite fit—goalie pads and a couple of hockey and lacrosse sticks and a baseball bat. Jack inherited all the athletic ability in the family. He’s probably the best athlete in our entire school. He’s not too tall, but he’s all muscle—which is why his nickname’s “The Hulk.” Unfortunately for him, thathasn’t been enough to win Morgan over. I don’t know what it is. Maybe the broken nose that never healed quite right? Personally, I like Jack’s nose.
    In the kitchen, we’re down to essentials like cutlery and a can opener, a half-dozen dishes and a couple of pots. Everything else is packed. The walls are bare except for faint outlines of whatever used to hang there, spice racks or pictures or shelves, and little holes where nails and screws held them up.
    I sit on my mattress on the bedroom floor, waiting for the movers to show up. I have my jeans and toiletries and underwear in a suitcase at the foot of my bed. Everything else is in boxes. Everything I’ve saved from my childhood. Letters from friends I met at camp. Birthday cards from Mom. My old diaries—always good for a laugh—and a few notes from Matthew, saying things like “Know thyself” and “Do you have my red pencil?”
    A loud bang on the front door makes me jump. The movers are here.
    The next couple of hours are a sickening blur as all our belongings are carried out of our home for good. As the back door of the moving van is slammed shut and locked, I run to my bedroom one last time. She has to be there. She has to be!
Mom?
    I look out the window. She’s at the far corner of the backyard, standing in profile, looking at something. That’s different—I’ve never seen her standing before. She’s wearing her old wool cap, like she’s going somewhere.
Mom, can you hear me?
Her head lowers and she just stands there, still, like a statue.
For once, can you just look at me?
Nothing. Then her face slowly tilts up. As she turns toward my window, I raise a hand to the glass. I see her smile, nod slightly. But something has changed. Where is that feeling of concern that’salways flowed from her before? I just feel love. We hold each other with our eyes until mine blur over. I wipe the tears away but it’s too late. She’s gone.
    By nine p.m. we’re sitting