by Justina Chen
She goes outside to call the Bookster moms and leaves messages with each one. And because she is afraid to leave her mother alone for too long, she texts her own friends. Then, her boyfriend.
She ignores the barricade of boxes in the living room that need to be put away.
She listens to the eerie silence after her mom stops crying. The silence is worse than the crying.
She falls apart on her own.
Half an hour later, her mom’s friends haven’t called back. Or her own.
So she calls her grandfather, the one her father has ironically called unreliable. She leaves a garbled message. The words are unclear, but the intent is not: SOS. Your daughter needs you.
Because he does not answer, she rings her grandmother, the one she hasn’t seen in two years, maybe three. She doesn’t leave a message, because what words can bridge the gap of silence between them?
And then, because she has no one else to call, she phones a neighbor.
A neighbor her mom bribed at Starbucks to be her friend. A neighbor she’s met three times.
A neighbor whose last name she’s forgotten or perhaps has yet to learn.
The neighbor flies into her house a mere five minutes later.
The neighbor takes one look at her and says, Lie down, honey. I’ll take care of this.
The neighbor sprints upstairs to her mom’s bedroom. And opens the door. And says, “Oh, Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth? Since when had her mom started going by her full name?
The girl asks herself what else about her parents doesn’t she know?
But then the neighbor tells her mom that Thom is a jerk. That all men lose their brains in their forties.
The neighbor says go meet him. Figure out what’s really happening.
The neighbor picks the place to meet—a private bar in a hotel not far from here.
The neighbor says, You won’t know anyone there.
The neighbor says, I’ll drive you and wait in the parking lot. However long it takes.
The neighbor says, Pull yourself together. You are strong. You must be strong for your kids.
The neighbor leads her mom downstairs and puts her cell phone in her hand. The neighbor says, Call him. The neighbor opens the front door.
The neighbor says, Fight.
Also by Justina Chen Headley
Nothing but the Truth (and a few white lies)
North of Beautiful
Return to Me
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Contents
Welcome
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Acknowledgments
About Justina Chen Headley
Preview of Return to Me
Also by Justina Chen Headley
Newsletters
Copyright
Copyright
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2007 by Justina Yi-Yen Headley
Text © Justina Chen Headley
Excerpt from Return to Me Copyright © 2013 by Justina Yi-Yen Headley
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Little, Brown and Company
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First e-book edition: January 2008
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ISBN 978-0-316-02838-7