I realized this summer that I felt like that, too. I still feel like that. I want to pretend like none of it ever happened. I want to go back to my life before this all happened.
Genes don’t tell the whole story of family. I know you know that, too.
I hope you understand. I hope you’re happy.
I’m sorry if I made a mess of things for you.
Your (kind of) sister,
Eve
* * *
After reading the note, Hazel understood not only Eve, but also herself.
Genes didn’t tell the whole story of family. It would never be enough. It was true for her relationship with Eve and it was true for her relationship with Silas. Her family was not up in Grandor. It was back home where there were reels upon reels of memories and boxes upon boxes of photos that proved what family was. There was a home and thousands of meals and thousands of good-night kisses and thousands of welcome-home-from-school hugs that proved this to be true. There were bikes that wouldn’t have been ridden, kites that wouldn’t have been flown, raspberry jam that wouldn’t have been eaten, bath toys that wouldn’t have been played with, movies that wouldn’t have been watched, books that wouldn’t have been read and grass that wouldn’t have been run upon if this family had not been a family.
Hazel felt a fierce magnetic pull toward her mom and Cam and the twins. She understood them. She understood the life they had built with her. For her.
She couldn’t be mad or sad about her parents’ choices. Not at all. They had wanted this family so bad and they’d got it.
Family was the most important thing. Love was the most important thing.
And this family, this love, was the life that they worked for. This was what they wanted to wake up with. This was what they wanted to go to sleep to. This was the air they wanted to breathe. And who was Hazel to say that wanting this family and this love was wrong?
She could never say that. This family, this love, was perfect.
Hazel pressed her eyelids together and inhaled, trying to hold tears back. But they found their way out at the corners and streamed down her cheeks. She could taste the salt on her lips. Her purposeful breath turned choppy and her heart ached. Oh, her heart ached. But she knew that this was the feeling of it healing.
A flood of relief coursed through her. It was time to go home. And this, the people in this car, was home.
Hazel looked at her mom in the front seat, Cam’s hand on her thigh. She looked at the twins on either side of her, kicking and cooing. Hazel felt a new confidence, a self-assuredness, strength flow through her, and just placed the phone next to her without an answer.
The car ride was full of the best kind of quiet. Hours next to one another in silence without a single drop of tension. The world felt right again.
This was what it meant to be a sister, a daughter, a stepdaughter, a husband, a wife, Hazel thought to herself. It was the feeling of unexpected, boundless, soaring, unconditional tenderness for someone, when all circumstances might predict otherwise. The knot that had lived in her stomach for so many years untangled. She looked into the rearview mirror and caught her mother’s eye. Hazel couldn’t see her mouth in the mirror, but she could tell by the squint of Jane’s eyes that she was smiling. And then, her mother’s voice rang out through the car.
* * *
“Sleep little baby,” Jane said. And Hazel replied.
“Clean as a nut.”
“Your fingers uncurl,” Jane continued.
“And your eyes are shut,” Hazel continued some more.
And they recited the entire poem, leapfrogging each other’s words, re-intertwining their stories. Reminding themselves that they were connected in ways that could only be felt. She knew that Silas and Eve, and even Susie and Torrey, had found that, too. And she was grateful for it all. Mothers and daughters and fathers and sons and lovers were all home. They were all finally home.
* * *
That Summer
in Maine
BRIANNA WOLFSON
Reader’s Guide
Questions for Discussion
Which character do you identify with most? Why?
Does this book have an uplifting or tragic ending? Do some characters have a happier ending than others?
What do you think about Jane’s decision to let Hazel go visit Silas? Susie’s?
If the book were told from Silas’s perspective, what more do you think we would have learned? Eve’s?
In what ways are Hazel’s and Eve’s stories the same? Different?
How would this story look different if Hazel and Eve were five years younger?
Do you or anyone in your life have experience discovering a biological sibling they hadn’t known about? What was that like?
Hazel wants so badly to be more connected to those around her. Do you think she was running away from something or running toward something? How do you know?
Silas’s house is almost like another character in the book. How does the setting enhance the book?
Do you like or dislike Silas? Is he a good or bad father figure?
What role do you think the twins play in Hazel’s story?
How would you characterize Eve’s relationship to Silas? To Hazel? To her mother? How are Eve’s relationships different than Hazel’s relationships?
What is the significance of the notebook for Jane and Susie?
What does this book suggest about the nature and trajectory of motherhood? Daughterhood? Fatherhood?
If there were a sequel to this book, what would the plot be?
Hazel finds herself at one of her lowest points while at the market. What do you think was really going on there?
What are the important symbols in the book? What do they represent?