Prologue

AVERY ELIZABETH DELANEY’S MOTHER WAS A FRICKIN’ maniac.

Fortunately her mother, Jilly, left for parts unknown just three days after Avery was born.

Avery was raised by her grandmother Lola and her aunt Carrie. The three generations of females lived quietly and modestly in a two-story frame house on Barnett Street just two blocks from the city square in Sheldon Beach, Florida. The atmosphere on Barnett Street was vastly different after Jilly left home. The household, which had once been in a constant uproar, was now peaceful. Carrie even learned to laugh again, and for five wonderful years, life was very nearly idyllic.

The previous years with Jilly had taken their toll on Grandma Lola, however. She hadn’t become a mother until she was almost old enough to begin the change of life, and she was an old, tired woman now. The day Avery turned five, Lola began having chest pains. She could barely get the icing on the child’s birthday cake without having to sit down and rest a spell.

Lola didn’t tell anyone about her problem, and she didn’t see her regular doctor in Sheldon Beach because she didn’t trust him to keep quiet about his findings. He might just take it upon himself to tell Carrie about her illness. She made an appointment with a cardiologist in Savannah and drove all the way there to see him. After giving her a complete physical, his diagnosis was grim. He prescribed medication that would ease the pain and help her heart, told her she had to slow down, and also, as gently as he could, suggested that she get her affairs in order.

Lola disregarded his advice. What did that quack of a doctor know about anything? She may have one foot in the grave but, by God, she was going to keep the other firmly planted on the ground. She had a granddaughter to raise, and she wasn’t going anywhere until she got the job done.

Lola was an expert at pretending everything was fine. She’d perfected the art during the turbulent years trying to control Jilly. By the time she got home from Savannah, she had convinced herself that she was as healthy as an ox.

And that was that.

Grandma Lola refused to talk about Jilly, but Avery wanted to know everything she could about the woman. Whenever she asked a question about her mother, her grandmother would pucker her lips and always answer the same way. “We wish her well. We wish her well away.” Then, before Avery could try again, her grandmother would change the subject. And that, of course, wasn’t a satisfactory answer, especially for a curious five-year-old.

The only way Avery could find out anything about her mother was to ask her aunt. Carrie loved to talk about Jilly, and she never forgot a single one of the bad things her sister had ever done, which, as it turned out, added up to a considerable number.

Avery idolized her aunt. She thought she was the most beautiful woman in the whole world, and she wished more than anything that she looked like her instead of her no-good mama. Carrie had hair the exact color of Grandma’s homemade peach jam and eyes more gray than blue, like the furry white cat Avery had seen colored pictures of in one of her storybooks. Carrie was constantly on a diet to lose twenty pounds, but Avery thought she was perfect just the way she was. At five feet six inches, Carrie was tall and glamorous, and when she put on one of her glittery barrettes to keep her hair out of her eyes while she was studying or working around the house, she looked just like a princess. Avery loved the way her aunt smelled too, like gardenias. Carrie told Avery it was her signature fragrance, which Avery knew had to be special. When Carrie was away from home and Avery was feeling lonely, she would sneak into her bedroom and squirt some of the special perfume on her arms and legs and pretend her aunt was there in the next room.

What Avery loved most about Carrie, though, was that she talked to her like she was a big person. She didn’t treat her like a baby the way Grandma Lola did. When Carrie spoke about Avery’s no-good mama, Jilly, she always began by saying in her no-nonsense tone of voice, “I’m not going to sugarcoat the truth just because you’re little. You’ve got a right to know.”

One week before Carrie moved to California, Avery went into her bedroom to help her pack. She kept getting in the way, and when Carrie had had enough, she sat her niece down at her vanity table and placed a shoe box filled with cheap costume jewelry in front of her. She’d collected the baubles at neighborhood garage sales as a present to give to Avery before she left. The little girl was thrilled with the sparkling treasures and immediately began to primp in front of the oval mirror.

“How come you got to go all the way to California, Carrie? You’re supposed to stay home with Grandma and me.”

Carrie laughed. “I’m ‘supposed to’?”

“That’s what Peyton says her mama says. Peyton says her mama says you already went to college and now you’re supposed to stay home and help take care of me ’cause I’m a handful.”

Peyton was Avery’s best friend, and because she was a year older, Avery believed everything she said. In Carrie’s opinion, Peyton’s mother, Harriet, was a busybody, but she was nice to Avery, and so Carrie put up with her occasionally butting into family business.

After folding her favorite, baby blue, angora sweater and placing it inside the suitcase, Carrie once again tried to explain why she was leaving.

“I’ve gotten that grant, remember? I’m going to get my master’s, and I know I already explained at least five times why the extra schooling is important. I have to go, Avery. It’s a wonderful opportunity for me, and after I’ve started my own company and I’ve become rich and famous, then you and Grandma will come and live with me. We’ll have a big house in Beverly Hills with servants and a swimming pool.”

“But then I can’t take my piano lessons, and Mrs. Burns says I have to ’cause I’ve got ears.”

Since her niece sounded so serious, Carrie didn’t dare laugh. “She said you’ve got the ear, and that means that if you practice, you could be good, but you can take piano lessons in California. You could take karate lessons there too.”

“But I like taking karate here. Sammy says I’m getting stronger with my kicking, but you know what, Carrie? I heard Grandma tell Peyton’s mama she doesn’t like me taking karate. She says it isn’t ladylike.”

“Too bad,” Carrie said. “I’m paying for the lessons, and I want you to grow up knowing how to defend yourself.”

“But how come?” Avery asked. “Peyton’s mama asked Grandma how come too.”

“Because I don’t want anyone to be able to push you around the way Jilly used to push me,” she said. “You’re not going to grow up being afraid. And I’m sure there are wonderful self-defense schools in California with teachers just as nice as Sammy.”

“Peyton’s mama says that Grandma said Jilly went away to be a movie star. Do you want to be a movie star too, Carrie?”

“No, I want to build a company and make tons of money. I’ll make other people stars.”

Avery turned back to the mirror and clipped on a pair of fat green rhinestone earrings. Then she untangled the matching necklace and put it around her neck. “You know what else Peyton said?” She didn’t wait for a reply. “She says her mama says when Jilly had me, she was old enough to know better.”

“That’s right,” Carrie answered. She pulled out her sock drawer, dumped the contents on the bed, and began to match the pairs. “Jilly was eighteen.”

“But what did Petyon’s mama mean? How come she should know better?”

“She meant that Jilly should have taken precautions.”

The drawer fell on the floor. Carrie picked it up and slid it into the dresser, then went back to the chore of sorting through the pile of socks.

“But what does that mean?” Avery asked. She was making faces at herself in the mirror as she put on the second necklace.

Carrie ignored the question. She didn’t want to get into a long-winded discussion about sex and birth control. Avery was too young to hear about all that now. Hoping to turn her niece’s attention, she said, “You know, you’re very lucky.”

“’Cause I have you and Grandma to look after me ’cause I’m a handful?”

“That’s right,” she agreed. “But you’re also lucky because Jilly wasn’t drinking like a fish or taking feel-good pills by the fistful when she was carrying you. If she had put all that garbage inside her, you would have been born with serious problems.”

“Peyton says her mama says I’m lucky I got borned at all.”

Exasperated, Carrie said, “Peyton’s mother sure likes to talk about Jilly, doesn’t she?”

“Uh-huh,” she said. “Are ‘feel-good pills’ bad?”

“Yes, they are,” Carrie said. “They’ll kill you.”

“Then how come people take them?”

“Because they’re stupid. Put that jewelry away and come sit on this suitcase so I can get it closed.”

Avery carefully put the earrings and the necklaces back in the shoe box. She climbed up on the canopy bed.

“Can I have this?” she asked as she picked up a small book with a blue vinyl cover.

“No, you can’t. That’s my diary,” Carrie answered. She snatched the book from Avery’s hand and tucked it into one of the side pockets. She closed the suitcase and Avery scooted on top. Leaning on it with all her weight, Carrie finally got the latches to lock.

She was helping Avery off the bed when her niece asked, “How come you’re packing now and not next week? Grandma says you’re doing it backwards.”

“Packing before I paint the room for you isn’t backwards. This way, my things will be out of the way, and we can get you all set up in your new room before I leave. Tomorrow, you and I will go to the paint store and pick out the color.”

“I know. You already told me I could pick the color. Carrie?”

“Yes?” she asked as she set the suitcase by the door.

“Did my no-good mama hate me when she saw me?”

Carrie turned around, saw the worry in Avery’s eyes, and was instantly furious. Even though Jilly wasn’t there, she was still causing pain. Would it never end?

Carrie remembered, as though it had happened yesterday, the night she found out her sister was going to have a baby.

Jilly had graduated from high school on a balmy Friday evening in May. She then came home and ruined the celebration by announcing that she was almost six months pregnant. She was just barely showing.

Reeling from the shock, Lola at first thought about the embarrassment and shame the family would have to endure, then came to her senses. “We’re a family,” she said. “We’ll work this out. We’ll figure a way to get through this. Isn’t that right, Carrie?”

Standing at the dining room table, Carrie picked up the knife and cut herself a piece of the sheet cake Lola had spent all morning decorating. “In this day and age you’ve got to be really dumb to get pregnant. Haven’t you ever heard of birth control, Jilly, or are you a complete moron?”

Jilly was leaning against the wall, her arms folded, glaring at Carrie. Lola, hoping to avoid a screaming match between the two daughters, hastily interjected, “There isn’t any need to be snide, Carrie. We don’t want to get Jilly upset.”

“You mean you don’t want to get her upset,” Carrie corrected.

“Carrie, you will not take that tone with me.”

Contrite, she bowed her head and scooped the piece of cake onto a plate. “Yes, ma’am.”

“I did think about birth control,” Jilly snapped. “I went to the doctor over in Jacksonville to get rid of it, but he refused to do it because he said I was too far along.”

Lola slumped into a chair and covered her face with one hand. “You went to a doctor . . .”

Jilly had already lost interest in the subject. She went into the living room, plopped down on the sofa, grabbed the channel changer, and turned on the television.

“She causes the trauma and then she walks away,” Carrie muttered. “Leaving us to clean up the mess. How typical.”

“Don’t start, Carrie,” Lola pleaded. She rubbed her brow as though to ease a headache and then said, “Jilly just doesn’t always take the time to think things through.”

“Why should she? She has you to clean up her mistakes. You’ve let her get away with everything but murder just because you can’t stand her fits. I think you’re afraid of her.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Lola blustered. She got up from the table and went into the kitchen to do the dishes. “We’re a family and we’re going to get through this,” she called out. “And you’re going to help, Carrie. Your sister needs our moral support.”

Carrie clenched her fists in frustration. What was it going to take to get her mother to open her eyes and see the selfish bitch she’d raised? Why wouldn’t she see the truth?

The rest of that summer was an awful memory. Jilly was her usual demanding nightmare, and their mother was run ragged waiting on her hand and foot. Fortunately, Carrie had a summer job at Sammy’s Bar and Grille, and she did her best to get as much overtime as possible so she wouldn’t have to go home.

Jilly went into labor at the end of August. After she gave birth in the county hospital, she took one look at the squirming, blotchy-faced infant who had caused her so much pain and decided that she didn’t want to be a mother. Not now, not ever. If the doctors had agreed, she would have had her uterus yanked out or her tubes tied that very day.

Lola dragged Carrie to the hospital to see her sister. They hadn’t even walked into the room before Jilly announced that she was too young and pretty to be saddled with a baby. There was a big world outside of Sheldon Beach, Florida, just waiting to pay her some attention, but no man with any money would ever notice her if she was lugging a baby around on her hip. No, motherhood wasn’t for her. Besides, she had her heart set on becoming a famous movie star. She would get her start by being crowned Miss America. She had it all figured out, she told them. Boasting that she was much prettier than those cows she had seen on television last year marching around the stage in their swimsuits, she was positive that, as soon as the judges got a good look at her, they would give her the crown.

“God, you’re ignorant,” Carrie muttered. “They don’t give the crown to girls who have had babies.”

“You’re the ignorant one, Carrie.”

“Hush, you two,” Lola ordered. “Do you want the nurses to hear you?”