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didn’t want one.
    The door to Mom and Dad’s room was ajar, and from the hall she could see the empty crib. She stopped for a minute, suddenly feeling the way she had that early morning last summer when she’d walked in on Mom and Dad kissing and giggling, their shoulders naked above the sheets while Harley snored softly in the crib right next to their bed. A flush of heat crept up her neck at the remembrance.
    But Mom was gone. Something made her stop and listen harder. Her breath caught. It wasn’t Harley making that awful sound. Her little sister had stopped crying.
    Trembling, she peeked around the corner. Dad was sitting in the rocking chair with Harley on his lap. She was cuddled up against his chest, sucking her thumb like she did when she was about to go to sleep.
    The sound, the terrible sound, was Dad. He was crying. Sobbing and moaning—like the noise Frisky had made when he got hit by a truck out on the highway. They’d had to put the puppy to sleep after that.
    Kayeleigh’s heart was beating so fast she was afraid she was dying. In all of her eleven years, she’d never seen Daddy cry. She wanted to fall into his arms and cry herself. But her legs wouldn’t work right.
    She stumbled backward. Would Dad be mad if he knew she’d seen him? Breathing hard, she stood there, frozen to the spot, terrified he’d see her, and yet, wanting him to see her—wanting him to stop .
    But he stayed, clutching Harley to his chest, his sobs coming like hard hiccoughs.
    “Dad?” she whispered.
    He didn’t seem to hear her.
    She choked out his name again.
    This time he stopped crying, lifted his head, and stared out into the hallway. Even in the dim yellow glow of Harley’s night-light, she could see that his eyes were red and puffy. But he looked past her, and she somehow knew he didn’t see her. Something in his face frightened her.
    She slunk farther into the shadows of the hallway, trying to figure out what to do.
    Everything was quiet in the house now. Kayeleigh stood in the darkness, her shoulder blades pressed against the cold doorframe, knees locked. She waited. For what, she wasn’t sure. To hear Dad put Harley back to bed? To hear him crawl back into his and Mom’s bed?
    But the only sounds now were the baby’s ragged breathing and the creak of the rocking chair. Back and forth. Back and forth.
    Finally, careful to avoid the creaky boards again, she crept back up the stairs and crawled into the empty bed. But sleep never came, and she lay there until the sun rose, red and bright, over the top of the white eyelet curtains Mom had sewn for their room.
    She knew then that nothing would ever be the same.
    There was something exciting about the start of a brand-new year. But the tragic events of the holiday season tempered her enthusiasm this morning.
    Chapter Five
    M ickey scurried around the classroom, taking down the last of the Christmas decorations and watering the jungle of plants on the sunny windowsill that spanned the width of the room. She’d neglected them over the Christmas break, but a little water and some fertilizer and they’d bounce back.
    There was something exciting about the start of a brand-new year. But the tragic events of the holiday season tempered her enthusiasm this morning. Keeping one eye on the window to the street, she put away the watering can and laid out paper and supplies for a finger-painting project.
    The DeVore kids would be back today, and she was nervous about how to help them adjust. She hadn’t talked to Doug DeVore since before the funeral, although he’d left a brief message on theanswering machine at the daycare, asking her to hold the kids’ spots.
    Mary Harms, the librarian, told Mickey that Doug had pulled the kids out of school for the whole month of December, and Kaye’s mother had not gone to Florida, where she wintered, so she could stay with them.
    What a sad Christmas it must have been at the DeVore house. And today, while everyone jumped into the new