Two police cars were parked in the driveway behind her mother’s Mustang when Ivy rounded the corner of O’Reilly Street a few minutes later. She stopped short. She wanted to go straight back to Quail Middle School. She even turned halfway around to do it. Maybe Ms. Mackenzie would still be there, and Ivy could—

Ivy could what? Go home with her and pretend her real life wasn’t happening? That wouldn’t do any good.

She took a deep breath and began walking forward. One thing she’d decided a while ago—well, when Aunt Connie got sick and died so fast, before they had time to believe it was really going to happen—was that, no matter what, she would be brave and face things. It was going to be her claim to fame, even if no one but her ever knew about it. It was a private promise she’d made to herself and to Aunt Connie.

She walked past the blue house with white trim. Past the brick duplex. Past old Mrs. Phillips from next door, who knelt on a folded-up sweater pulling weeds from her flower beds. The beds were so close to the sidewalk that Ivy could’ve reached out and touched Mrs. Phillips’s shoulder. Mrs. Phillips gave her a sympathetic look. Ivy met her gaze and pulled her mouth into a worried smile, then lifted her chin and kept going.

Two policemen stood in front of the front door with Ivy’s mother, and two sat in the second car. The two in the car turned their heads toward Ivy when she walked up. The window rolled down. “Where are you going, young lady?” the man in the driver’s seat asked. His face was chiseled and square; his hair was buzzed short. If you grabbed a stock policeman out of a lineup at a movie audition, he’d be it.

Ivy nodded at the house. “I live here.” She took a step forward.

“We’ll go with you.” The window rolled up again.

Ivy stood with her shoulders slumped. This was her own house. A rental, maybe, and nothing special, but her own. The place she came back to with her pencils and sketchbook, the place she slept and dressed and ate in, the place where she kept the stones she picked up on Skytop, the overlook on the mountain near the Everses’ farmhouse, whenever she and Prairie hiked there. She didn’t want to wait for someone else to tell her she could walk up to it. She did wait, however. It seemed like she had to.

Both men climbed out of the car and shifted their feet to straighten the creases of their pants legs. The three of them walked toward the door and Ivy’s mom’s eyes locked onto Ivy.

“My daughter’s home, you have to go,” she told the officers. “I don’t want her getting upset.” She reached an arm out.

Ivy went to her and her mom pulled her close. Ivy let herself sink back and remembered being curled into her mother’s chest when she was small. Her mom’s chest was bony now; it was like leaning onto rocky ground. Familiar ground, though.

“This is just a matter of following up on a complaint,” the nearest man said. “Mr. Gillman says that last week his garbage cans were spread all over the street. Then somebody ran his mailbox over. And now his car’s got a brand-new dent in the fender. He’s thinking it’s you. And he says you’ve been calling late at night and hanging up when he answers.”

Her mom’s grip tightened. “Well, boo hoo for him, and tell him to prove it. There’s a lot of people got a lot worse problems than a broken mailbox and a ringing telephone.”

“So you did run his mailbox down, is that what you’re saying? You have been calling?”

“I’m not saying anything. I had my fill of George Gillman a while ago. I left in April and I haven’t seen him since.”

“But you have seen his mailbox? And his car?”

Her mom’s arms went tighter around Ivy than ever. Her breath was a desert wind in Ivy’s ear.

The nearest policeman smiled sympathetically, though maybe that was an act. “Listen, I know how it is. A relationship goes south, things are said, your feelings get worked up, maybe you want to leave him a message, something to remember you by. But it’s not worth it. Especially not to a woman like you. You’ve got a history—”

“Hey, that was ruled justifiable, you can’t go bringing it up. I’ll get a lawyer and sue for harassment if you—”

“You need to leave your ex alone,” the man broke in. “Don’t make us come out here again. Like you said, you have your daughter to think of.”

All the officers’ gazes shifted to Ivy. Their eyes were all different: brown, blue, wide-set, narrow, but Ivy saw that to each of them, she was a zero. At worst, she was just like her mom. At best, she was innocent but doomed.

“I didn’t make you come out here. George Gillman did that, and he better knock it off. I’m living in a whole different town, minding my own business, and he sets the cops on me. I won’t stand for it—”

Her mom said more, but Ivy tuned it out. She turned herself into a block of wood that hadn’t been carved yet. She hadn’t been carved, there was still time, she could become something beautiful and good.