In high school, there’d been Leroy, the dropout; in college Stan, the biker and pool hustler; followed by Davie Chang, the MMA fighter who had wiped out Sade’s checking account to move to Thailand, learn Muy Thai, and screw Asian girls. But the worst, by far, was Michael. Michael, the fake art-dealer whose real business was drugs. Michael, who had decided that since he and Sade were dating he owned every part of her life. Michael, whose answer to the restraining order was to send two of his boys to snatch her out of a club. She’d only managed to get away because Bill, the bouncer, had seen what was happening and stepped in. Michael was why Sade had packed her bags and driven nearly fifty miles to hide out in her Nana’s old house. With luck, she’d be able to live here for a few months until Michael was arrested or found another distraction, and then she’d be able to go back to her life. Such as it was. Sade hadn’t set foot in Nana’s house since she was eight years old, and Nana had had her ‘breakdown.’ It was summer now -- a greener, cooler summer than around Sade’s apartment in West Philadelphia -- and as she pulled up into the driveway of the sprawling Quakertown farmhouse, the memories of the three childhood summers she’d spent here with her Nana and younger brother Charles came back with a vengeance.
