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One would think that after you lost one child you would keep the other in front of your eyes and shower them with lots of love, she didn't instead she wallowed in her own pain and didn't care for Miles pain, he lost his daughter too, Zach lost his sister too but he is holding it together. Lexi lost her best friend, she has to carry the burden of being the driver, that girl had enough grief in life and she was blamed for her death. Ughh, I wanted to punch her in the face!
Can't you see that poor girl heart broken. Miles and Eve are the best. I loved them both, they were the pillars for Zach and Lexi. It's really hard to find such emotional books that are written so well and beautifully. This book made me think of so many things. We are human and we tend to make so many mistakes it takes a lot to own up to them and learn from them.
I think many times what if Lexi didn't plead guilty would her sentence have been shorten would she have gone to prison. Maybe because of the way it went it was because it would have been easier on Lexi to move on, for her to have her happy ending? View all 23 comments. I know I probably didn't give this enough of a chance. Maybe it would have gotten better. But the other audiobook I was waiting for came in, so it is without any regret whatsoever that I bid this one adieu. The first thing I noticed about this book was how overwritten it was.
Way, way too many adjectives. Kristin Hannah seems to have graduated the Babysitter's Club school of overdescription and ham-fisted characterization.
You know how in the Babysitter's Club books the author tells you what they were all wearing, because your sixth grade heart is fascinated by their outfits which, of course, offer deep insight into the characters' complex personalities? So of course, the two parents in this book are beautiful with a honeymoonesque marriage and live in a gorgeous house. Jude, the mother, loves tending her orderly garden because of the predictability -- gee, do you think she might be a control freak?
I dunno; maybe I need to be hit over the head just a little more with these obvious metaphors. Well, no problem -- conveniently, Jude and her husband get into a discussion right away about Jude's overparenting where Jude's husband decides to list off all the things Jude does for her children on a daily basis.
Yup, just like the kind of conversation my husband and I have all the time. Don't worry, readers, we characters don't know you're there -- we just feel this compelling need to recount our everyday behaviors in this spontaneous discussion. And then there's Lexie, the teenage foster child who's been traumatized repeatedly and just wants someone to love her. She's instantly lovable, of course, no limit-testing or risk-taking or attitude or other difficult behaviors foster children frequently present with perfectly understandable in the context of what they've been through, just not so easy to live with.
But lovable Lexie wouldn't do anything like that, because the reader is meant to have her heartstrings pulled and Lexie's acting difficult might add unwanted complexity. Lexie's aging great-aunt who recently learned of her existence is similarly lovable and loving -- oh, sure, she always wanted a child and is immediately prepared to sacrifice everything for Lexie's sake. No resentment or even ambivalence at this unexpected disruption of her old age and drain on her finances. This may be the fault of the audiobook reader, but the teenager -- Mia? I suppose it's not Kristin Hannah's fault that the audiobook reader decided to read all of Mia's lines in a squeaky, ditzy, Minnie Mouse voice but it just emphasized Mia's over-the-top neediness and insecurity.
I could go on. I did get further in the book, but I think I've pretty much given you a taste of why I'm stopping. This writing style is incredibly off-putting to me, and although it's possible the book gets better, I really don't have the patience if there's something with hopefully more potential for me to read.
Night Road has ratings and reviews. Aestas Book Blog said FULL REVIEW NOW POSTED 5 STARS!!!!!!!!!!! Holy wow, after finishing thi. Hannah follows up Winter Garden with a strained story of friendship, social pressures, love, and forgiveness. After a string of foster homes and.
Kristin Hannah and I are just not meant to be, it seems. View all 60 comments. Apr 20, Nancy rated it it was ok. It's an engaging premise: But Hannah piles on layers of irritating detail: How critical it is to get into the right college, and how your life is essentially over if you don't have the money to go to a good college a fact that is presented without context as just the way life is Ehnnn How critical it is to get into the right college, and how your life is essentially over if you don't have the money to go to a good college a fact that is presented without context as just the way life is.
Teen-age drinking as inevitable. Teenage sex as inevitable.
Quite obviously, the person readers are supposed to relate to, to feel sorry for, is Jude, the ever-hovering Helicopter Mom. But nobody in this story feels real, with the possible exception of poor Lexi, who gets punished, big-time, for trying to hang out with the advantaged kids. Her reward, which comes in the last 4 or 5 pages of the book defies reality. It's as if Hannah can't decide how to end a complex, layered plot, so pours on a bottle of emotional syrup. Is everybody happy now? Not the reader, who's been jerked around enough. The worst part of the book the place where I start skimming is when a friend visits Jude after a horrible funeral, wearing Juicy Couture sweats.
Perhaps this is what Hannah and her set does--notices who's wearing expensive designer brands, even in the midst of grief. View all 11 comments. Aug 23, Maureen rated it really liked it. I did not expect to love this as much as I did. Or become as addicted. The story was pretty predictable but so good. It made me cry, it made me smile, it did so many things in between. I really loved the characters and loved seeing their growth and change and heartbreak and AH it was just so good y'all. Feb 12, Regina rated it it was ok. I almost gave this book one star, but since I at least finished reading it, I figured it had a little merit.
Overall, I found the characters unrealistic, shallow, and almost caricatures. I'm not one to speak ill of the dead, but since it's a fictional character I will. Mia is an over-privileged, over indulged self-centered poor little rich girl with no coping skills. We find out out deeply into the book that someone called her "pizza face" in 8th grade so that's why she's frail and needy for the I almost gave this book one star, but since I at least finished reading it, I figured it had a little merit.
We find out out deeply into the book that someone called her "pizza face" in 8th grade so that's why she's frail and needy for the rest of her life. She's blond, beautiful and rich with an extremely handsome and popular twin brother, and she has enough acting chops to get into USC, but she's so fragile. She doesn't even consider that her twin brother might have different college aspirations, much less other life ambitions. She can't go alone. So too, the other characters are extremely exagerrated versions of good and evil.
Miles the father is always wise and good. The grandmother, Jude's mother, is always cold and harsh. As for the story itself, you know from the book jacket that there's going to be an accident and you're just waiting to find out who dies. Too much of the first half of the book is just very repetitive character portrayals of fragile Mia, strong Lexi, and handsome Zach.
The second half of the story, from the accident and forward, it moves on, but by then it's built on unbelievable characters, so it lacks the ability to evoke pathos from the reader. Curiousity to see how it all comes to closure brings the reader to the end, but not with empathy. Overall, this was a disappointment from Kristen Hannah. I have higher hopes for Home Front. View all 4 comments.
Nov 18, Brenda - Traveling Sister rated it it was amazing Shelves: Higher than a 5 from me. I couldn't put this down. Night road made me feel, think, ask myself questions and want to talk about it. Unforgettable and one I will think of often. This one started off a little slow. Plus, I really wanted to kill the mother. OK, we are all invested in our children's lives but, c'mon, she was just OTT!!! Even when they were older, Jude was just so much in their business.
You have to cut the apron strings at some stage. Saying that, I will be the one who will be a miserable wreck sending my youngest off to college next September. It was sort of obvious what was going to happen It did take a little turn that I did not really se This one started off a little slow. It did take a little turn that I did not really see coming. Even so, throughout most of the book, I did not like Jude at all. If I was Miles, I would have told her to get a grip or fuck off!!
Yeah, I can be a cruel bitch. Midnight upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost I really felt for Lexi. She had a shitty upbringing and then for THAT to happen. But she took it on the chin. I read the synopsis but not any reviews. I really did not want spoilers. It was no wonder that emotion ran so high in these first golden days of summer In the end, I still could not really warm to Jude.
And I thought it ended up a tad too quickly and nicely. Wrapped with a lovely pink bow It was quite an emotional read. I did shed a few tears. Actually when Himself saw me this morning, he said "You look absolutely wrecked! I had to explain that my book was a little emotional. Of course, I got the eye roll View all 21 comments. Dec 20, Erin rated it it was amazing.
This book is set in Washington State, like most of Kristin Hannah's books are. It starts with the story of Lexi Baill who is a perpetual foster child who has finally found her 'forever home' with an elderly aunt. Thanks to the help of her social worker she is enrolled in a prestigious and wealthy communities high school and befriends Mia who is a social outcast compared to her popular, jock brother. For several years everything is wonderful for them until a sudden tragedy changes the course of This book is set in Washington State, like most of Kristin Hannah's books are.
For several years everything is wonderful for them until a sudden tragedy changes the course of both families lives forever. This was a rare 5-star book for me. It also really made me think and become somewhat terrified of my kids growing up and all the challenges that come with parenting teenagers. When you have little ones you always think 'This will be easier when they have a life of their own'. But, this was a stark reminder that it never really gets easier when you have the unconditional love that a parent provides.
This book invoked tears, and that is something I very rarely find. Night Road follows a woman named Jude, who is a mother to two twins Zach and Mia and Lexi a former foster child with a dark past. Lexi quickly befriends Mia and the two become inseparable even when later, Zach and Lexi fall in love. Jude is helicopter mother. She does everything she can to keep her twins safe and she makes sure that they are both on track for college.
One night when the twins attend a high school party right before their graduation, Zach — who is suppose to be the DD ends up being Night Road follows a woman named Jude, who is a mother to two twins Zach and Mia and Lexi a former foster child with a dark past. When it came down to going home, they had to make a decision between calling their mother, or driving the one mile towards home. Last time the twins got drunk and called for their mother to pick them up, Jude reacted poorly and punished them, despite the fact that they did the right thing.
This was my first Kristin Hannah book and I honestly have no idea how to feel. I had a hard time putting it down, it was engrossing, the plot was super interesting, it was emotional. This is one of those books that really takes you for a ride. I got to see them as young kids heading towards a future and for some reason books like these can be way harder to read over books that start with the tragedy because of that attachment. But the problem for me ended up being that after the tragedy that occurs, I found that the emotion that was most prominent was anger.
I found myself angry for the rest of the book. Angry at the way Jude reacted towards Lexi when there was so many factors and people at fault for the accident. I felt like both Jude, Lexi, Zach and Mia were all at fault one way or another here, but the poor girl with the dark background is the one that gets the short end of the stick.
Lexi is unable to take what she had done and ends up pleading guilty and going to prison as MADD was already trying to make an example out of her and Jude had decided to press charges for Vehicular homicide. No that is not it, I do believe it is realistic. I spend a lot of the book being angry, and the book was a bit on the long side, so I spent a lot of time just trying to get through it. It just felt so emotionally draining that at times I just had a hard time with the book. It feels like one of those books where the author chooses one character who already has a short end of the stick and keeps throwing punches at that character through the book, to me that is just seriously exhausting.
Thought the book was well written and the story was interesting and compelling, I felt like it was also a little too long and it just felt like a little too much?
I just had a hard time with Jude at the end, her anger blended with my anger, but I felt like it was all just so unfair. He was 18 years old, he should have had a voice. But, the book did its job. The writing is emotionally driven, the storytelling was well done and I really enjoyed it. Feb 21, Arah-Lynda rated it it was ok Shelves: It would be easy to say this is a coming of age story but it really is much, more than that.
Yes we have our teenage angst but we also have their parents and all the possibilities of life and how, these things that are possible, these choices we make, how it can all affect us, each and every one. I found the first quarter of this story to be slow and I had a difficult time relating to The Farraday's as a family, really.
Lexi, however, did have my full attention from the beginning, she felt real to me, her circumstances more than possible. Overall though, I found the characters to be shallow, contrived somehow, and I never quite made the connection with anyone, as a reader, save Lexi. In the end I enjoyed the read and the journey this family took, each in their own way. Mar 16, Kerry rated it it was ok Shelves: The premise of this book is straightforward: There, she befriends Mia, the shy, socially awkward twin sister of Zach, the most popular boy in school.
Jude, Mia's and Zach's mother, is overjoyed that Mia has finally found a friend, and adopts Lexi as part of the family. The remainder of the book deals with the fallout and how the characters - primarily Lexi, Zach, and Jude, deal with the consequences. I am really conflicted about this book.
On the one hand, I really connected with Lexi and, to a lesser extent, Mia; that connection is what kept me reading the book right up to the end. On the other hand, the book is full of problems and flaws that kept making me want to metaphorically throw it against a wall. In no particular order, here are some of the biggest ones. First, and least excusably, the book is poorly edited. A handful of examples: Jude putting on two different pair of jeans within the same paragraph; Lexi not knowing that her "heart could take wing", when it did so twice within two paragraphs a few chapters earlier; two different people being responsible for driving Gracie to kindergarten again, within two consecutive paragraphs.
Much of the book is told through Jude's point of view, but I found her to be one of the most annoying characters I've encountered in a book in ages. Jude is a helicopter parent, but so over-the-top as to range from simply annoying to completely unbelievable even to someone who has dealt with many members of this species. The way she deals or fails to deal with the book's central tragedy is puzzling at best. A very understandable deep depression with no apparent attempt at therapy , followed by 5 years of dysfunction masked by superficial coping, followed by a one-day epiphany that makes everything better simply didn't ring true.
Finally, I became very tired of being hit over the head with the "teenage drinking is bad" message. At that point, every single student lives to party, in spite of parental efforts to prevent them. So heavy-handed is the treatment of the topic that teen drinking is practically its own character, one that stumbles in and out of scenes like the proverbial bull in a china shop. In general, Hannah's prose is serviceable, but falls into cliche and awkward metaphor upon occasion. Again, I think better editing would have fixed a lot of those problems. And, just for the record, glaciers only move forward when they accumulate ice, not when they start to thaw.
View all 6 comments. Lexi has been bounced around many foster homes throughout her childhood, and spent some sporadic years living with her drug-addict mother in between. But now Lexi has found a home and stability with her aunt Eva, living in a little yellow trailer in Port George, Washington. Jude Farraday is mother to twins Zach and Mia — polar opposites and partners in crime. Mia is shy and reclusive, while Zach is popular and outg Lexi Baill arrives in Washington State to live with her aunt, Eva Lange, in Mia is shy and reclusive, while Zach is popular and outgoing.
When Mia and Lexi strike up a powerful bond over a shared-love of classic literature, Jude is both relieved and nervous. Zach is left an only-child, Jude is cut adrift and Lexi takes on the burden of blame — and none of them will ever be the same again. This novel is just awful. I hated reading it — all the characters irked me, and some of them made me want to reach into the story and throttle them. But I kept reading because I wanted to know how it would end. We begin in , when Lexi arrives at Port George and strikes up a friendship with Mia and is welcomed into the Farraday bosom by Jude.
The first few pages introduce us to Lexi — a young girl who has had an unfair share of heartache in her short life. Meeting Jude and the Farraday family after having first met Lexi is rather jarring — even more so when Jude goes over the floor-plan of their massive manor-home the kids have the entire first floor to themselves — including a gaming room.
This girl just grated — though I think Hannah meant to portray her as a sweet, innocent soul who needed looking after. This section of story also concerns Lexi working round-the-clock at an ice-cream store to try and scrape enough money together to go to a small state school, while Mia and Zach are struggling to decide between USC, Yale, Stanford. Now, a huge let-down of this book is the supposed soul-mate romance of Zach and Lexi — which is meant to cover all manner of ills and explain a lot, later in the story.
How can you tell? The boy does not talk!
The men in this story feel depleted and sidelined, completely overpowered by the women despite them all going through the same losses and traumas. Her marriage, despite going through the biggest trauma any relationship can experience, is just back-burner to her being a mother and then a mother who loses a child. Now, if this had been a Jodi Picoult novel, you can bet this would have been the point that the story started. Part-two of the story, which starts at page of this page book, is where the whole thing should have started from with some backtracking of story origin. Here is where Hannah pulls out questions of morality, forgiving, guilt and redemption.
Jude just gets worse. Maybe I was meant to feel sympathy for her — but I have little sympathy for those determined to be victims and wallow in their own pain while blaming and punishing others for their state of being. They want me to make a map that they can follow to get them to a healthy future.
You simply just want to survive each day. Maybe you think I should be doing better by now, maybe you think six years is a long time. And I am doing better. I go out with girlfriends. I make love to my husband. But I think I was looking forward to the skip-ahead portion, when we get to the meat of the morality-story. And, honestly, I did race to read this last half though it left me utterly unsatisfied.
I know that popular-fiction writers get a bad rep. Their books are seen as nothing more substantial than fairy-floss. But, you know, I can only blame myself for this one — I knew it was bad after the first chapter, but I kept punishing myself and reading it. May 04, Jennifer rated it it was amazing Shelves: Night Road is the first book I have read by author Kristin Hannah.
This was an intense book! Up until the fifty percent mark, it appeared to be a coming of age story of sorts. But at that point, everything in these characters' lives went to hell. After one incident of poor judgment, the lives of all the characters involved are changed forever. This story is painfully real. All of the consequences portrayed in this book are heartbreakingly preventable and knowing this added to the tears I persona Night Road is the first book I have read by author Kristin Hannah. All of the consequences portrayed in this book are heartbreakingly preventable and knowing this added to the tears I personally shed while reading.
The grief shared by the characters is profound and has such an impact on the way they move forward with their lives. I loved this book and I just don't know where to start as I begin to praise the amount of talent gifted to Kristin Hannah. She wrote these characters in such detail; I felt I knew them. Their emotions, struggles, and choices are so understandable. The reader can't help but remain hopeful when all hope seems to be lost. In the end, I had so many possible conclusions flowing through my head. I honestly didn't expect it to end the way it did. I will definitely be reading more of Kristin Hannah.
I actually can't wait to read another one of her books! If you enjoy painfully-real contemporary fiction themed with life, loss, and how one choice can change your life, then read Night Road! The criminal case would be opened back up during a custody battle and it would be determined that Mia's death was caused by the untreated head injury she sustained while drunk at the party and not by the auto accident. Lexi would be exonerated. After Jude's epiphany that Lexi deserves forgiveness and after she decides to be a better grandmother to Grace, Jude is interacting with Grace during a car ride and while glancing back at Grace, Jude accidentally hits Lexi while she's driving and kills her.
Nobody believes that Jude had a change of heart and she is charged with homicide. Wouldn't that just be everybody's luck! I really didn't expect a happy ending but I'm glad it ended the way it did! A way to remember with a smile instead of a sob. View all 8 comments. Jan 06, Melissa rated it it was amazing Shelves: I am quickly becoming a huge Kristin Hannah fan.
This is the second book of hers that I've read and absolutely loved. The story gripped me from start to finish. View all 3 comments. Dec 16, Ashley rated it really liked it. When Lexi Baill moves to Washington to live with her aunt after the death of her mother, she doesn't have any unrealistic dreams of finding acceptance and a loving home. Lexi has lived her life in and out of foster homes based on the ability of her drug addict mother to properly care for her between prison sentences and stints in rehab facilities.
On her first day of school in Washington, Lexi meets Mia Farraday, a rich girl who is also a social outcast. Over the next four years, Lexi and Mia ar When Lexi Baill moves to Washington to live with her aunt after the death of her mother, she doesn't have any unrealistic dreams of finding acceptance and a loving home. Over the next four years, Lexi and Mia are inseparable, but when Lexi starts dating Mia's twin brother Zach, complications arise and one fatal decision will change the lives of all three forever.
I absolutely love Kristin Hannah! She knows how to create a story that keeps you interested and wanting to read more. The story is told in alternating perspectives between Lexi and Mia's mother, Jude. The majority of the book I did find myself wanting to hear more of Lexi's view, but the story would not have been nearly the same without an intimate look at Jude's thoughts and feelings. Nothing had meaning for her anymore. Not her son, not her husband, and most definitely not her grandchild from the girl who murdered her daughter.
I wanted to be mad a Jude. For a while, I was definitely extremely irritated with her. But, I've never lost a child. I'm not even a mother. So, I have absolutely no idea how much it would hurt to lose a child that suddenly and that tragically. Vehicular homicide is definitely a difficult situation for all involved.
I'm not sure if I agreed with the length of Lexi's sentence. Should there have been some sort of punishment? She made a horrible decision and someone lost their life. But Lexi didn't commit a crime in cold blood, and I felt her sentence was more for setting an example instead of serving justice. Definitely a great read. Nov 06, Dem rated it liked it. Night Road by Kristin Hannah is one of those books that just keeps coming up on book club reads. Having now read it I have to say you cannot read Night Road and not be emotionally affected by the story and the characters.
This is a novel which is without doubt a page turner and by the first 50 pages I was totally drawn in by the story and the characters and I was interest and connected to the story. Being a mother I could certainly identify with the worries a parent has when a child enters teenage Night Road by Kristin Hannah is one of those books that just keeps coming up on book club reads.
At the last second, before it turned embarrassing, she let go and stumbled free. She went to the battered car and wrenched the door open. It rattled and pinged and swung wide. Inside, the car had two brown vinyl bench seats, with cracked seams that burped up a gray padding. It smelled like a mixture of mint and smoke, as if a million menthol cigarettes had been smoked within. Lexi sat as close to the door as possible. Through the cracked window, she waved at Mrs. Watters, watching her caseworker disappear into the gray haze as they drove away.
She let her fingertips graze the cold glass, as if a little touch like that could connect her with a woman she could no longer see. That must be a comfort to you. Lexi had never known what to say to that. Poor Lexi, with her dead drug-addict mother. Or how terrible the end had been. Only Lexi knew all of that. She stared out the window at this new place of hers. It was bold and green and dark, even in the middle of the day. After a few miles, a sign welcomed them to the Port George reservation.
Here, there were Native American symbols everywhere. Carved orca whales marked the shopfronts. Manufactured homes sat on untended lots, many of them with rusting cars or appliances in the yard. On this late August afternoon, empty fireworks stands attested to the recent holiday, and a glittering casino was being built on a hillside overlooking the Sound.
Signs led the way to the Chief Sealth Mobile home park. Aunt Eva drove through the park and pulled up in front of a yellow and white double wide trailer. In the misty rain, it looked blurred somehow, rounded with disappointment. Plastic gray pots full of leggy, dying petunias guarded the front door, which was painted easter egg blue.
In the front window, a pair of plaid curtains hung like a pair of fabric hourglasses, cinched in the middle with strands of fuzzy yellow yarn. Lexi followed her aunt across a gravel path and up to the front door. Inside, the mobile home was neat as a pin.
A small, L-shaped kitchen sidled up to a dining area that held a yellow speckled Formica and chrome table with four metal chairs. In the living room, a plaid loveseat and two blue vinyl La-Z-boys faced a T. On the end table there were two pictures—one of an old woman with horn-rimmed glasses and one of Elvis. The air smelled like cigarette smoke and fake flowers.
There were purple air fresheners hanging from almost every knob in the kitchen. This woman, this aunt, had quit smoking for her. She looked at the woman, wanting to say something, but nothing came out. She was afraid she might jinx everything with the wrong word. Aunt Eva smiled, but it was sad, that smile, and it wounded Lexi, reminded her that she was a little broken. Life with Momma had left its mark. Lexi could hardly form the two small words; they felt like a pair of stones in her tight throat.
But she had to say them. Finally, just before dawn, she gave up even trying. Peeling back the summerweight comforter, taking care not to wake her sleeping husband, she got out of bed and left her bedroom. Opening the French doors quietly, she stepped outside and watched the sunrise. In the emergent light, her backyard glistened with dew; lush green grass sloped gently down to a sandy gray pebbled beach. Beyond it, the Sound was a series of charcoal colored waves that rolled and rolled, their peaks painted orange by the dawn.
On the opposite shore, the Olympic mountain range was a jagged line of pink and lavender. She stepped into the orange plastic gardening clogs that were always by this door and went into her garden. This patch of land was more than just her pride and joy. It was her sanctuary. Here, hunkered down in the rich black earth, she planted and replanted, divided and pruned. Within these low stone walls, she had created a world that was wholly defined by beauty and order.
The things she planted in this ground stayed where she put them; they sent out roots that ran deep into this land. No matter how cold and bitter the winter or how driving the rainstorms, her beloved plants came back to life, returning with the seasons. Over the years, as this garden bloomed and matured, so too had her children. Her husband stood on the stone patio, just outside their bedroom door. In a pair of black boxer shorts, with his too long, graying-blond hair still tangled from sleep, he looked like some sexy Classics professor or a just-past-his-prime rock star.
She kicked off the orange clogs and walked along the stone path from the garden to the patio. And there it was, the thing that had crept into her sleep like a burglar and ruined her peace. They were just in kindergarten a second ago. It was the sort of thing he said to her all the time. A lot of people gave her the same advice, actually, and had for years. She had suffered through three miscarriages before the twins. And there had been month after month when the arrival of her period had sent her into a gray and hazy depression.
You check their homework every day and chaperone every dance and organize every school function. You make them breakfast and drive them everywhere they need to go. You clean their rooms and wash their clothes. If they forget to do their chores, you make excuses and do it all yourself. Let them loose a little. If I stop checking homework, Mia will stop doing it. When I was in high school we had keggars every weekend and two of my girlfriends got pregnant. I need to keep better track of them now, trust me. So many things can go wrong in the next four years. I need to protect them.
The twins were freshmen in high school and Jude had already begun to research colleges. She looked up at him, wanting him to understand. I have a surgery at ten. She kissed him deeply, then followed him back into the house. After a quick shower, she dried her shoulder length blonde hair, put on a thin layer of makeup and dressed in jeans and an oversized lightweight cashmere sweater.
Opening her dresser drawer, she withdrew two small, wrapped packages; one for each of her children. Taking them with her, she walked out of her bedroom, down the wide slate hallway. With morning sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows, this house, constructed mostly of glass and stone and exotic woods, seemed almost to glow from within. On this main floor, every viewpoint boasted some decorating treasure. Jude had spent four years huddled with architects and designers to make this home spectacular, and her every dream for it had been realized.
Upstairs, it was a different story. Here, at the top of a floating stone and copper stairway, it was kidland.
A giant media room, complete with big screen TV and a pool table, dominated the east side of the house. Additionally there were two large bedrooms, each with their own en suite bathrooms. As expected, she found her fourteen year old daughter sprawled on top of the blankets in her four-postered bed, asleep. There were clothes everywhere, like shrapnel from some mythic explosion, heaped and piled and kicked aside.
Mia was actively engaged in a search for identity and each new attempt required a radical clothing change. From the very start, Zach had been the leader of this pair. Mia had uttered a real word until after her fourth birthday. Zach had bloomed in junior high; there was no other word for it. Mia instinctively hung back. Mia rolled over sleepily and opened her eyes, blinking slowly. Her pale, heart-shaped face, with its gorgeous bone structure—inherited from her father—was an acne battlefield that no amount of care had yet been able to clear.
Multi-colored rubberbands looped through her braces. Just from High School. I could lose a foot.