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Extrait : PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF HOLLY ROBINSONWritten by today’s freshest new talents and selected by New American Library, NAL Accent novels touch on subjects close to a woman’s heart, from friendship to family to finding our place in the world. The Conversation Guides included in each book are intended to enrich the individual reading experience, as well as encourage us to explore these topics together—because books, and life, are meant for sharing.Visit us online at penguin.com.ALSO BY HOLLY ROBINSONFor my husband, Dan, the keeper of my heart. And for our children, Drew, Blaise, Taylor, Maya, and Aidan: you make everything I do matter more.CHAPTER ONEHer cell phone buzzed, angry as a wasp in her pocket. Sydney debated whether to answer it. She’d forgotten her headset and Route 1 was crawling with cops. Still, what if it was something urgent?She’d scheduled only two appointments on Wednesday, because the first was a school visit in Quincy and she knew she’d hit a nightmare of snarled traffic through Boston in both directions. It had been a good visit—the teacher was creative, even compassionate toward Sydney’s third-grade client—but now her nerves were on edge. She hated missing calls. You never knew when a client was going to be in crisis.The phone stopped, but just as Sydney’s shoulders relaxed, it started vibrating again. That did it. She pulled into the parking lot of the Agawam Diner and glanced at the incoming number. Dylan’s school. Various scenarios played out in her mind: sixteen-year-old Dylan mouthing off in class, an unpaid tuition bill, Dylan throwing up in the nurse’s office.She wasn’t Dylan’s stepmother yet, but she and Gary had been seeing each other for two years and planned to marry in October. She’d grown fond of Dylan, trying to spend time with him without pushing too hard. Since Gary was a surgeon and couldn’t take calls in the OR, she was listed as Dylan’s alternate emergency contact.Outside, the May morning was chilly and the gray sky was spitting raindrops that pelted her windshield, making Sydney wince even though she wasn’t getting wet. “Hello, this is Dr. Bishop.”“Ah, Dr. Bishop,” Gloria said. “I’m just calling to check on Dylan.”“Yes? What’s the problem?” Sydney had met the school secretary a few times. She’d hate to be on the woman’s bad side. Gloria had a gladiator’s shoulders and an accountant’s passion for details. Every school should be lucky enough to have someone like that in the front office.“I don’t know.” Gloria sounded peevish. “That’s why I’m calling. Is Dylan sick again? Is that why he went home after first period? You do realize, I hope, that this is his seventh absence in a month. It’s his junior year and he’s in two AP classes. He can’t afford more absences.”Sydney was confused. “Wait a second. I dropped Dylan off myself this morning. Are you saying he’s not in school? He left?”“Yes. No one has seen him since first period and he never signed out. I did try to call his father,” Gloria added. “Dr. Katz is extremely difficult to reach.”Sydney felt her face burn at the rebuke. “I’m sorry. Gary’s probably in surgery.” She hated feeling so defensive, but she was new at this parenting thing and, despite her profession as an educational psychologist, always felt like she was getting it wrong. “I’m sure Dylan’s at home. Let me check. Did you try his cell phone?”“We don’t keep student cell phone numbers on record,” Gloria said. “Students aren’t allowed to use cell phones during the school day.”Right, Sydney thought, thinking of every kid who came into her office texting with the urgency of bomb technicians defusing explosives. “I’m sure that’s a very good policy on paper,” she said before she could stop herself, then rang off.Dylan’s cell phone went straight to voice mail, so Sydney called the house. No answer. She tried Gary’s cell next; of course it went straight to voice mail, too.What if something was really wrong with Dylan? She left a message and decided to wait a few minutes to see if Gary would return the call. That would at least give her a chance to grab some lunch in the diner to go; her hands were shaking, though whether from nerves or hunger, she couldn’t tell.Her office was in a historic brick mill building on the Merrimack River that had once housed a family of famous New England silversmiths and was now a beehive of medical specialists. There were five practitioners with Sydney in the Children’s Mental Health practice—a psychiatrist, two other psychologists, and two social workers. And Ella, of course, the secretary who mothered them all. Right now, for instance, Ella was tirelessly helping Sydney plan her wedding.At her desk, Sydney wolfed down the turkey club, chips, cookie, and soda she’d hastily picked up at the Agawam—bad, bad girl, inhaling carbs and sweets instead of slimming with salads—then paced her office. Five more minutes. Then she’d phone Gary’s secretary and ask her to page him in the OR.From the window of her second-floor office, the Merrimack River looked oddly flattened out, like a sheet of metal beneath the heavy gray sky. She loved working here because the view made her remember the history of this area, and how manufactured goods had once been transported from factories in Lowell and Haverhill up this river to Newburyport. Everything from combs to carriages had then sailed across the ocean to Europe on clipper ships built right here.The magnolia trees along the riverbank were in bloom. The pink blossoms reminded Sydney of how her mother once convinced her as a child that fairies used them as teacups. This wasn’t an entirely happy memory, so Sydney shook it off as tension pushed like a fist against the back of her neck. She was having trouble taking a full breath.Sydney recognized the onset of a panic attack and began talking herself down from the proverbial ledge. She’d learned to do this in therapy years ago: You’re happy, she reminded herself. What’s past is past. You’re beyond all that now.This positive self-talk helped ease her breathing, but Sydney couldn’t banish her immediate worries. Why had Dylan left school without telling anyone? Some of the other kids at school had cars, licenses. What if he’d gone off in somebody’s car, and even now the car was nose-first in a tree?Another possibility: Dylan could really be sick. Feverish. Even unconscious. There had been a meningitis outbreak at one of the universities recently.A more likely explanation: Dylan was just ditching classes. But that idea led her down a dark mental corridor to her fear that Dylan’s increasing disinterest in school, his lack of engagement in anything beyond computer games, was related to Gary marrying her.She had a client coming at two o’clock. It was nearly one now. Did she have time to drive home to check on Dylan?Whatever she did, she’d better let Gary know what was going on. Maybe he’d take charge. Dylan was his son, after all. That’s the way it should be. Sydney had vowed she wasn’t going to be one of those stepmothers who took over. She’d seen too many of those in her practice.She phoned Gary’s office again. To her relief, the receptionist said Gary was out of the OR and put him on the phone.“Hey, sweetie. I was just about to call you back,” Gary said. “What’s up?”The sound of his deep voice, slow and with a hint of Virginia, calmed her. Gary would know what to do. She heard him chewing and smiled. Probably wolfing down one of his cardboard-tasting fiber bars for lunch. There was a reason Gary still weighed the same at forty-six that he had in college.Sydney wished she could say the same, but no. She was ten years younger than he was, but her curves kept getting curvier. “Sorry to bother you,” she said, “but Dylan’s school called and he’s not there. Have you heard anything from him?”“I don’t think so. Hang on.” Gary put her on hold, then came back on the line. “Nope. No missed calls on my cell, and Amber says he hasn’t tried the office. When did he leave school?”“After first period. He’s not picking up his phone. I think one of us should go home and look for him.”“He’s probably just playing hooky. It’s a perfect rainy day for computer games, right?”“I don’t know. It does seem like he’s been sick a lot lately. And you know he’s not eating enough.”“Yeah, well, if he’d play sports and get off the damn computer, he’d have a better appetite and a healthier immune system.”An old argument. Gary could be right. At the same time, Sydney secretly sympathized with Dylan, who was clearly irritated whenever his father brought up his own stellar sports records. Gary had been a Division I pitcher and had a trophy case in the den to prove it. He’d been drafted by a major-league team senior year, but had chosen to go to medical school instead.“Do you want to check on him, or should I?” she asked.Sydney could hear Gary tapping something into his computer, probably checking his schedule. He was the king of multitasking. She admired this quality, though less when she was only one of his many tasks.“I hate to ask, but could you possibly do it?” he said. “I’ve got two more surgeries this afternoon and the patients are already prepped and waiting.”“Sure, no problem.”They exchanged a quick note about dinner—salmon, Gary’s turn to cook, thank God—and hung up. Sydney glanced at her watch. She’d drive home, have a quick word with Dylan, then call the school on her way back to the office, reassuring them that everything was under control.Tonight, though, they’d have to sit down for a family meeting, find out what was really going on. Gloria was right: this was junior year. Dylan couldn’t afford to blow his final exams.She went out to the reception area, where Marco Baez was talking with Ella and flipping through his mail, making Ella laugh. Sydney had joined the practice eight years ago after earning her doctorate in educational psychology; her specialty was assessing school performance problems and evaluating children for learning disabilities. Marco was the clinical psychologist in the group. He had joined the practice last year; she had already referred several of her most troubled clients to him with positive results.She had also seen the effect he had on women. Marco—with his soccer player’s wiry build and curly black hair—turned heads whenever mothers were in the waiting room. Even the older teachers sat up straighter to adjust their sweaters during school meetings he attended.Sydney was amused by him, but nothing more. Marco was fun to have around and good eye candy, but he was a player socially as well as on the soccer field, judging by the various attractive women she saw accompanying him to office parties. She’d been there and done that. She didn’t need any more players in her life.“Hey, Ella, I’ve got to run home,” she said, “but I should be back before my two o’clock.”“Okay,” Ella said. “Want an umbrella? It’s nasty out there.”“No, I’m fine. The car’s close.”“All right. See you later.”Annoyingly, Marco dogged her out of the office and into the hallway, where he stood too close as she waited for the elevator. “You okay?” he asked.Sydney sighed. It was often a drag working with other mental health professionals. Nothing went unnoticed and they were always checking in with one another. It was like being screened at an airport, only this was an empathy check; she’d prefer a quick X-ray anytime. She’d gone into educational testing precisely because it was the most analytical field of psychology.“I’m fine,” she said. “It’s just Gary’s son, Dylan. He left school and we don’t know where he is. I’m going home to see if he’s there.”“I’m sure he is,” Marco said.“You don’t know one thing about him.”He surprised her with a grin. “You’re right. I apologize. I only said that because I want it to be true for your sake.”“Me, too.”“Nobody could be a better friend to him than you are, Sydney.”“I’m not trying to be his friend. I’m trying to be his stepmother.”“To a teenager grieving his mom like Dylan is, a good friend might be more important.”Sydney jabbed at the elevator button. “Gary says I baby him.” She hadn’t meant to confide this to Marco, or to anyone, but the hallway was empty and here he was, Dr. Sympathy with his spaniel eyes. “He says Dylan needs to man up and play sports, get off the computer.”“Depends on what he’s doing on the computer,” Marco suggested. “For some kids, that’s a social lifeline. Or a future career. I’m sure Bill Gates spent plenty of time on the computer in high school.”Interesting. Sydney would have pegged Marco as one of those ban-the-computer types, with all of his big talk around the office about building good family communication skills. But there was no time to get into that now. The elevator arrived and Sydney stepped into it, ready to face whatever waited for her at home.· · ·He hadn’t expected it to be such a freakin’ drag to hitchhike. Dylan had caught a ride with one of the seniors from his school in Hamilton to the center of Newburyport. From there he’d walked up Route 1 to Route 110 in Amesbury, where he’d stood for two hours in the rain by the on-ramp to Route 495 with his cardboard sign reading “Seattle” in dripping Magic Marker. Finally a guy in a battered pickup truck pulled over.Dylan hesitated before getting into the truck. He’d seen plenty of those movies where the idiot kids get sliced and diced by some masked guy with a chain saw. But the driver of this truck wasn’t evil looking. Just some old dude with paint-spattered work boots.“Don’t see many hitchhikers these days,” the guy said as they rattled up the highway ramp.“Yeah, well, school’s out for summer and I’m headed out west to see my girlfriend.”Lies and more lies today. But Dylan liked the vague sound of “out west” and the old guy didn’t seem to care. He just nodded like of course that’s what a sixteen-year-old kid would be doing on a Wednesday morning in May, then merged onto the highway without bothering to glance at the oncoming traffic.The truck lurched as the old man shifted the clutch, but Dylan wouldn’t let himself cling to the dashboard like some pussy as they took the corner on two wheels. He wouldn’t let himself worry about the stink of booze on the guy’s breath, either. How drunk could somebody be at eleven in the morning?“So what about you?” Dylan asked. He’d read somewhere that you should make conversation with potential sociopaths so they’d bond with you and not want to slit your throat. “What are you doing with all that stuff in the back?”“Selling shit for scrap.”Dylan glanced over his shoulder at the truck bed. It was piled high with enough metal parts to build a submarine. Maybe this was a line of work he could check out once he got to Seattle, if Typhoon Entertainment wouldn’t hire him as a beta tester. That was his dream: to test video games for a living and design them himself one day. He had a coup... Revue de presse : “Robinson handles numerous plot threads deftly, alternating between her characters with finesse. Fans of Barbara Delinsky and Diane Chamberlain will enjoy this moving family drama.” —Booklist “A thoughtful, well-written novel that examines the bonds of family and loyalty in the midst of tragedy. . .The relationships in this story are multifaceted and deep, and readers are continually engaged as the layers are revealed. This is a poignant novel that leaves readers thinking. Four Stars.”—RT Book Reviews Praise for Holly Robinson’s Novels “Who and what make us who we really are? In Robinson’s luminous novel of buried secrets, she explores how the past can jump-start the future, how motherhood can be more than genetics, and why finding yourself sometimes depends on discovering the truth in others.”—Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Is This Tomorrow “Holly Robinson is a natural-born storyteller and her tale of three mismatched sisters and the lost brother they search for will keep you turning those pages as she quietly but deftly breaks your heart. I loved every single one of her characters and you will too; here is a novel to savor and share.”—Yona Zeldis McDonough, author of You Were Meant for Me “A story about love, loss, secrets, and finding out where we’re really supposed to be in our lives.”—Maddie Dawson, Author of The Stuff That Never Happened “[An] absorbing, big-hearted novel.”—Elizabeth Graver, author of The End of the Point “Robinson masterfully paints the portrait of a damaged family in the quake of a tragedy...This novel is a thoughtful exploration of the fragility, and the tenacity, of the ties that bind.”—T. Greenwood, author of Bodies of Water Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce ti