Especially here. I’d avoid this place for the rest of my life, if I could. Really, there’s only one reason to come back. One reason…and one particular time of year. My father died just two days after his birthday. He’d been born sixty-two years ago, in this little village north of Boston. I was born here too, and up until the summer I turned eighteen, this had been home. Then, if you’d asked if I’d ever planned to leave, make my home somewhere else, I would have laughed. There had been no other home. This place had been it, the only home I’d ever known, the only one I’d ever wanted to know. Then it was just ripped out from under me. Coming back here when there was nothing to come back to just hurt. Huddled on the bed in the bland, nondescript hotel, staring at the digital readout on the clock, I tried to force myself to stay awake. My eyelids were heavy and my eyes were gritty. Little wonder. I hadn’t slept last night, but I couldn’t avoid it anymore. Not that I wouldn’t try.
