his is the worst Christmas ever. We went to church but I guess all that talk about forgiveness and faith is a bunch of shit. I mean, hardly anyone in town will talk to Aunt Winona and all she’s trying to do is tell people that maybe they were wrong about my dad.

He’s not helping either because he STILL WON’T SEE ME. Aunt Winona says he doesn’t want me to see him in handcuffs and behind bars but that is so lame. I know all this would be easier if I could just hear him say he didn’t kill that woman.

I tried to talk to Cissy about all of it but even that isn’t working like it used to. We talk at school and stuff, only people are watching us now, pointing and whispering. At the winter break assembly I couldn’t find her anywhere. I know she was hiding so she didn’t have to be seen with me. The worst part is I get it. I know how mad her dad is at Aunt Winona. And Cissy says her grandma just cries all the time. It totally pisses me off. Why does everyone care so much about my dad being a murderer? It’s like just the IDEA of him being innocent makes everyone crazy. Aunt Winona says It’s because people need to believe in the law and the cops and we’re scaring them, but that’s totally bogus.

I tried to talk to my mom about it on Christmas night, after we got home from Grandpa’s. I could tell she was sad and she’s doing what she always does when something bugs her, she gets all quiet and stares out the window as if she’s waiting for something. But she has a chance to believe in my dad again, maybe even to hope that he can come back to us and she acts like Aunt Winona is ruining our lives for even trying.

So tonight I asked her. I said why don’t you want Dad to come home to us?

And she DIDN’T EVEN ANSWER ME. She just walked into the kitchen like I was invisible. So I went into my room and slammed the door shut behind me.

What an excellent Christmas.

P.S. And Aunt Winona lost the election by a landslide. Rumor is that only Aunt Aurora and Mom voted for her.

Vivi Ann heard Noah’s bedroom door slam shut. She bowed her head, releasing the breath she’d been holding.

This couldn’t go on any longer.

Straightening her spine, trying to simulate a strength lost long ago, she went into the hallway and walked down to his room. Even as she knocked and heard his irritated, “Come in. I can’t stop you,” she wondered what exactly she would say. Opening the door, she went inside, pretending to study the posters and pictures tacked up onto the walls. “You asked me why I don’t want Dallas to come back.”

“And you stared out the window.”

She turned to him finally. “Yes. Can I sit by you?”

“I don’t know. Can you?”

She went over to his bed, said, “Move over,” and then sat down beside him. “Remember when you were little, before the electricity was done in your room? I used to sit here with you and read by flashlight. You loved The Dark Is Rising, remember?”

“Just answer the question, Mom.”

She leaned back against the wobbly headboard and sighed. “I never should have let you hang out with Win. You’ve learned her Doberman techniques.”

“Don’t say anything bad about her. She’s the only one in this stinking family who cares about my dad.”

“Believe me, Noah. I care about your father.”

“Coulda fooled me. You never talk about him. There aren’t any pictures of him in the house. Yeah, you really care. You’re not even hoping he’ll get out of prison.”

“You’re young, Noah, so hope seems shiny to you, and I’m glad of that. I really am. But I’ve learned differently over the years. It can be dark, too.”

“So? You don’t just give up on someone.”

Vivi Ann closed her eyes in pain. “That’s an easy thing to say, Noah. You have no idea what we lived through, Dallas and I.”

“Did you ever ask him if he did it?”

“No,” she said quietly. “I believed in him. I believed and believed and believed... then his last appeal was denied and he stopped coming out to see me. By then I was a mess. You remember that day we got in the car accident?”

“Yeah.”

“Waiting for him to come home almost killed me. I don’t want you to go through what I did.”

“I have to believe, Mom,” he said.

“A son should. And the man I married, the one I loved, is worth everything you’re feeling. That’s the man who is your father, not the killer you’ve heard about all your life. But try to... understand why I can’t stand beside you on this. I’m just not strong enough. I am ashamed of that.”

Noah reached over and held her hand. “You were alone, though. I have you.”

Winona stood at the window of her beach house, watching the road above. It was the ninth of January, a cold and blustery day that hinted at a coming rainstorm. The low gray sky matched her mood, made everything outside look faded and soggy. An inauspicious start to the new year.

The school bus came into view above the trees, stopping for a few minutes at the top of Mark’s driveway. When it drove off again, she stood there, still staring out at the bare, wintry backyard, feeling a rush of loneliness on this Monday morning.

Last night she’d lain in her lonely bed for hours, trying to figure out how best to proceed with Mark. She’d given him time to come to his senses, assuming he’d walk over here one night and say he was sorry, but it hadn’t happened. November had rolled into December, and then into a new year, and still he hadn’t walked from his house to hers. She made sure to be here a lot, to keep her lights on late into the night, and still, nothing.

Last night, for the first time, she’d wondered if he was waiting for her. She was the one who’d made the mistake (she hadn’t told him about the petition; she should have; she saw that now), so maybe he was waiting for her apology.

The more she thought about it, the more likely it felt.

Dressing carefully, she bundled up in her wool coat and headed next door. With only a moment’s hesitation, she went up the flagstone steps and rang the doorbell.

He answered quickly, coming to the door in his slippers and robe, with his hair still wet from the shower. “Hey,” she said, smiling uncertainly. “I thought maybe you were waiting for me to say I’m sorry.”

The smile she needed so desperately didn’t arrive. “Winona,” he said in an impatient tone, “we’ve had this discussion before. Too often.”

“I know you love me,” she said.

“No, I don’t.”

“But—”

“Did you even speak to my mother? Did you warn her that this firestorm was coming down? Reporters call her every day. She barely leaves the house anymore, she’s so upset.”

“I never said Myrtle was lying on the stand.”

“Oh, really?”

“Eyewitness mistakes are common. I’ve been doing research—”

“Either way you’re saying it’s her fault, and everyone in town knows it.”

“You don’t understand.”

“You don’t understand. You’re hurting everyone with this crusade. Do you really expect us to just accept it?”

“I thought you would, Mark. You know me. I wouldn’t be doing all this for no reason. It’s the right thing. I should have done it a long time ago.”

“That’s the thing: I don’t know you. Obviously I never did. Goodbye.” He stepped back and closed the door.

All the way back to her house, in her car, and into town, Winona replayed his words: No, I don’t. She wasn’t sure which hurt more: the idea that he didn’t love her now or the unsettling truth that he never had. For the first time in years, she longed to talk to Luke, to sit down with him as they had when they were kids, and ask him what was wrong with her, why she was so easy to discard and so difficult to love, but in the years of his absence, their friendship had faded. He called once or twice a year and they talked mostly about his children and her career.

In town, she pulled into her garage and walked around the side of the house and through the front door.

Lisa was at her desk, typing at her computer. “Your father is in the sunroom. He was here at eight when I got in. Sitting on the porch.”

“Thanks.” Winona took off her coat and went back toward the sunroom.

He sat stiff-backed in the antique white wicker chair by the French doors, with his boots firmly planted on the floor. His gnarled, bony fingers lay splayed on his jean-clad thighs; there was the telltale tremble in his hand. His white hair was thin and unkempt-looking beneath his brown, sweat-stained cowboy hat, and even in profile she could see the tension in his jaw.

“Hello, Dad,” she said, coming forward.

He pulled his hat off and set it on his lap, pushing a hand through his hair. “You got to stop this, Winona.”

She sat down on the plush sofa opposite him and knew this was her chance to make him understand. “What if we were wrong?”

“We ain’t.”

“Maybe we were.”

“Drop it, Winona. People are talking.”

Winona got to her feet. “That would be what you care about. The great Grey family and our precious reputation. You’d rather have an innocent man rot in prison than admit to making a mistake. You don’t care about anyone but yourself. You never have.”

He got to his feet in the gradual, rickety way that had become normal for him, but there was nothing frail in his eyes. The look he gave her was cold and dark. “Don’t you talk to me that way.”

“No. Don’t you talk to me that way.” She almost laughed, but was afraid it would sound hysterical. “Do you know how long I’ve waited to hear you say you were proud of me?” Her voice trembled on that, caught on the sharp point of a need that began a lifetime ago, almost before she could remember. “But that’s never going to happen, is it? And you know what? I don’t care anymore. I’m doing the right thing with Dallas, and if I discover I’m wrong, I’ll live with it, but I won’t spend the rest of my life thinking I made a mistake that mattered.”

On that, she turned and walked out of her sunroom and went upstairs to her bedroom. There, she went to the window and stared out, watching her father make his slow, shuffling way out to the sidewalk toward his truck. Without even a backward glance, he drove away.