But then I'd look out in the stands and see my mother beaming up at me, waving and wearing the same proud smile my father had the night Cass kicked the winning goal, bowed her head to accept her Homecoming Queen crown, or stood up for human rights on local TV. In all my life, going for the bronze, I'd never gotten a look like that before, and I knew if I quit, it would break her heart. It was like I'd somehow thrown her a lifeline, without even meaning to, and to let go right now meant she'd fall back into missing Cass and just drown. But I was not my mother's only new hobby. “What is this?” Rina whispered to me one afternoon when we stopped by my house after school en route to a game. I'd forgotten my cheerleading sweater again, just as I was always forgetting something crucialregulation socks, matching ponytail holders, pom-​poms. I was learning this sport had too many accessories for my taste: It was like being Barbie. The this Rina was referring to was my mother's new Victorian decorating scheme, which consisted mostly of wreaths, sprigs of dried flowers hanging from the walls, and various knicknacksthimbles, tiny tea sets, families of glass swanscluttered on every flat surface. The worst, however, were the Victorian-​era dolls she kept ordering from QVC, all of them with porcelain white skin and spooky eyes. They came with their own stands and were suddenly just everywhere: in the living room by the magazine rack, on the credenza, with a pack of swans, and even in the guest room, where they were lined up across the bureau, staring blankly at the closet. Sometimes when I couldn't sleep Fd think of them there, just staring in the dark, and shudder all the way down to my toes. “I told you,” I said to Rina, “my mother's going through some kind of weird adapting phase.” She was out, for once, probably buying more ceramic plaques shaped like apples and houses to hang on the walls. “What?” Rina said. I shook my head. “I don't know.” I opened my bedroom door to see a Victorian-​style teddy bear sitting on my bed. He was wearing spectacles, a bow tie, and a period vest. Another QVC special. “Man,” Rina said in a low voice, walking over and picking it up. “Get out the Prozac.”

“Shut up,” I said, grabbing my sweater off the chair. “Let's just go.” There really was no stopping my mother. Boo had tried, convincing her to take that pottery class at the Community Arts Center on Tuesday nights. The teacher was a woman artist with dreadlocks and a tattoo, and my mother reported to us in a worried tone that she did not shave her legs or underarms. This did not, however, seem to hinder her ability to teach my mother how to make lopsided bowls, ashtrays glazed with smeared reds and greens, and a ribbed tall vase for me that leaned like the Tower of Pisa. I truly believed that my mother thought she could replace Cass if she filled the house with enough clutter. But no matter what she brought in there was still something missing, which led to more swans, dolls, sprigs, tea sets, ashtrays. My father sighed when he saw the UPS truck pulling away, frowned over the credit card bill, and when my mother was out or not looking, turned the dolls in the living room to face the wall. “There's something unsettling about all this staring,” he explained sheepishly when I caught him one night, crouched by the magazine basket, furtively rearranging the dolls. He looked embarrassed to be even holding one in his arms, the School Marm, her book and slate stuck to her hands with heavy-​duty wire. “I know,” I said. But by breakfast the next morning she, the mother with two children, and the baby in the christening dress were all turned back the right way, as if they'd done it themselves during the night. My father missed Cass, too, but his loss was more subtle. Things kept coming from Yale: Obviously we were still on the mailing list, so the parents' newsletter and fund-​raising requests arrived with regularity. My mother left them on the table by the door without comment and I'd figured my father was throwing them away, until I went into his office one day to look for a pencil sharpener and found them all neatly stacked in a drawer, envelopes not even opened. The truth was, I was trying not to look too hard at anything. Not at myself, the swans, my mother mouthing the cheers along with me, the crooked ashtrays, the tired look on my father's face when another Yale bulletin came in the mail. It was easier to just float along as if sleeping that whole first part of the year, going through the motions and staring like one of those ghostly dolls, waiting for something to wake me up.

It was a game night in October, right around Halloween. We were playing our biggest rival, Central High, at home, and the crowd was huge. We'd been working on a big halftime number for a couple of weeks that involved not only a pyramid but some heavy-​duty dancing, a can-​can line, and a row of subsequent backflips. This was a Very Big Deal, at least for everyone else. We were up at the half, and the squad had gone back to the dressing rooms to change into our purple-​sequined tops, which my mother, of course, had helped to design and sew. Everyone was nervous as we stood waiting to run out onto the field from the opening under the bleachers. I was cold and convinced that I would blow my backflip as I'd done in practice just the day before, when I landed with a resounding whump on my back, knocking the wind out of myself. I just lay there, feeling oozy and strange as I stared up at the rows of retired basketball jerseys, fluttering from the ceiling overhead. “You'll be fine,” Rina said to me now, grasping my hand and squeezing it. Rina, of course, loved cheerleading. She was a natural. We had still been in pre-​season when she started dating the quarterback, and she was the clear crowd favorite, eliciting cheersmostly malejust for walking out onto the field. Eliza Drake hated her, too. The band started playing “My Girl,” the squad theme song, and I knew Boo was in the stands, her face twisting, disgusted. The girls in front of me began psyching up, jumping up and down and shaking their pom-​poms, as we all started running down the slope to pop out onto the field to the cheers of the crowd. There was a pack of people that was especially into the cheerleadersmostly guys, girls who hadn't made the squad, and parentswho were sitting right at the overhang where we came out, and as we ran forward they chanted each of our names. “Eliza!” they yelled, and Eliza Drake did an impromptu handspring, showing off. “Meredith!”