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I nodded.

“Although I do blame myself for what’s happened to you.”

I looked up at him. “Why?”

“As I’ve been saying, I should devote more time to you. People think that when girls get to be your age, they don’t want much to do with anyone older than twenty-five, but I know you’re different. You’ve been matured by hardships, and as a consequence, you’re mentally older than most other girls your age.”

I didn’t say anything. He stood there, waiting for me to say something nice in return perhaps, but I wasn’t in the mood to hear compliments or say anything I didn’t wholeheartedly believe.

“You don’t think so now or believe it’s possible, I’m sure, but this will pass. You have a wonderful future ahead of you, Sasha.”

I sensed that my continued silence was making him uncomfortable. He fidgeted for a few moments, and then he walked over to the dock, checked something on one of the rowboats, and looked at me as if he had just thought of a brilliant solution to everything.

“How about I take you and Jordan out to dinner tonight? Nothing fancy. Maybe we take a short drive up the coast and have some seafood. Okay?”

“I don’t have much of an appetite.”

“Well, you might in a while.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “You two go.”

“I’m not worried about us,” he said a little sharply. “If you change your mind, let me know. I was hoping to do something for you before I left. I have a trip I must make,” he added, and started back to the house.

Was I being unreasonable, unfair? Should I give credence to the idea that after having been burnt so badly by Kiera’s actions, he was sort of parent-battle-fatigued a

nd justifiably overly concerned about what I did and whom I knew? If I were in his or Jordan’s shoes, would I be the same way?

I glanced back at the house and up at my room, Alena’s room. Considering their loss and the scars they bore because of it, as well as all of the embarrassing and nasty things Kiera had done, wasn’t it unreasonable to blame either of them for any of this? Was I the impulsive and foolish one, after all? If I hadn’t accepted Kiera’s invitation with an air of defiance and had simply waited out the restriction concerning Ryder Garfield, wouldn’t this all have turned out differently? In time, Jordan and Donald probably would have understood and become more sympathetic. Ryder might have come to trust them, and instead of plans being laid for his funeral, plans might have been made for our senior prom date.

The girls in my school, even most of the guys, looked for every possible excuse whenever they did anything wrong or failed at something. I supposed that in that way, they weren’t all that different from kids with far less. It was simply easier for them to get away with it. Their parents were more egocentric. They were all so worried about their image in the social community, so they were quicker to back up their children, to support their lame excuses and look for some other place, some other person or idea, on which to lay the blame.

The Garfields were already doing it in their first publicity attempts to explain their own family tragedy. Some chemicals in Ryder were unbalanced. How conveniently that would get them off the hook. So many other parents hid behind that socially acceptable excuse. Surely, there were some who had a legitimate claim to it, but I felt confident that this wasn’t the case with Ryder Garfield. How much clearer did it have to be made to me that his parents neglected both him and his sister when it came to promoting and pursuing their own show-business careers?

If they did lay such heavy guilt on him for his mother’s miscarriage in Italy, then shame on them for not realizing how deep and painful that would be for a child his age. I welcomed the anger I felt toward them. It helped me contain my sorrow.

Maybe I was no better than those I was criticizing, however. Maybe I was simply looking for something, someone else, to blame. Guilt and sorrow were too difficult to manage simultaneously.

These thoughts and feelings clung to me like leeches, sucking out my energy. When I turned to head back to the house, I plodded along like someone carrying twice her own weight on her shoulders. It shortened my breath and made me ache all over. People were working on the grounds as usual, but I heard nothing. It was as if I had gone deaf. When I raised my head, I saw Mrs. Duval waiting for me. She waved, but I didn’t respond. Drawing closer, I saw the look of terrible concern on her face.

“You have to eat more than you have, Sasha,” she said. “It’s why everyone everywhere serves food after funerals. It restores us. Please come to the kitchen. Mrs. Caro has made you a nice sandwich with poached chicken, just the way you like it. Come,” she urged.

She put her arm around my shoulders. Maybe it was the tender touch of someone who I knew sincerely cared about me. Or maybe it was my body fighting to survive and remain healthy and strong, but I let her lead me into the house and to the kitchen, where Mrs. Caro waited. She hugged me, too, and then put the sandwich on the kitchen nook table. Neither of them said anything. They were probably afraid that one syllable might set me back and I wouldn’t eat. Jordan realized that I was there, however, and came quickly.

“Oh, you got her to put something substantial in her stomach. That’s good, Mrs. Duval. Thank you, Mrs. Caro.”

From the look on her face when she sat at the table, I knew she had something to tell me. I waited, terrified of what else there might be.

“Dr. Steiner has arranged for every single student in your class to visit with a therapist this week,” she said. “In other schools, when someone young is . . . dies, they usually do the same thing. It’s much more difficult for young people to accept and understand.”

“That’s just a big publicity gimmick she’s doing,” I said, chewing harder and faster.

“What? No. I mean, why would you say such a thing?”

“Few, if any, students in my class got to know Ryder Garfield even well enough to say hello to him, Jordan. I doubt there’ll be an iota of emotional stress. Some of the girls who went gaga over him might moan dramatically about the great loss to their fantasies, but there will be little more than that, believe me. It will be like he came to our school one day and then transferred out, nothing more.”

“That’s so uncharacteristically cold of you, Sasha.”

“Not cold, just realistic, Jordan.”