The Beginning of After

paws, kept swishing back into my head.
    When I felt the tears starting to come, I knew I had to pull over somewhere. Before I even knew what I was doing I was making a right turn into the train station parking lot, which was practically deserted. I stopped the car diagonally across the two best parking spaces—the ones my father had been ecstatic about getting on a few rare occasions—and put my forehead on the steering wheel, and cried.
    After a few minutes, the car felt hot and the windows fogged up, so I climbed out to lean on the hood and get some fresh air. It was getting even colder and darker now, harder to see my breath. I peered down onto the train platform, where a handful of people stood waiting for the train into the city. Most of them were huddled in the cold-weather shelter that burned heat lamps, but one girl was waiting by herself with a backpack, near the steps.
    Meg.
    I opened my mouth to call to her, but stopped myself. Instead I walked over to the steps and walked down them as quietly as I could, hoping she would turn around and see me without me having to say her name. Finally I was about five steps above her and whispered, “Meg?”
    She turned to look at me, her eyes red and swollen. “Laurel, oh my God. What happened?”
    I was confused for a second and then realized that my eyes, too, were red and swollen. What a pair we made.
    “Nothing. Long story. What happened to you ? What are you doing here?”
    Megan looked away, across the train tracks to a billboard for vodka, her chin trembling. “My parents are splitting up.”
    “What?”
    She nodded her head yes and lowered herself down onto the next-to-last step, which I knew was ice-cold, but I walked down to sit next to her anyway.
    “They’ve been fighting all night and sometime this morning, my dad told my mom that he’s leaving.”
    “Oh, Meg. For real?”
    “Total sayonara , au revoir, and all that jazz. Apparently he was going to wait until next fall when I went to college, but he can’t make it that long. Isn’t that charming? He can’t make it that long , like it’s a living hell to be in our house.”
    I put my arm around Meg, and she leaned her head on my shoulder, sniffling.
    “Are you, like, running away?” I asked.
    “Just a little. I was going to go stay with my sister. I can’t be near my dad until he packs up and goes to some hotel. I’ll vomit if I see him.”
    We were quiet for a few moments. The northbound train pulled into the station and let some passengers off.
    “I’m sorry about that day,” I said. It was like pouring water into a curved vase. The empty space between us was there, waiting, the perfect shape and size for those exact words. “I should have been there for you the way you’ve been there for me.”
    Meg nodded, her head still on my shoulder. “I was so mad, but then I felt so bad about being mad. Then I felt mad about feeling bad.”
    “Isn’t that from a Dr. Seuss book?” I said, and that made Meg giggle. “No. That makes perfect sense to me. I just . . . I was just somewhere else. But now I’m here.”
    “I really missed you.”
    “Me too.” I paused. “I kissed Joe, like, a lot. And I got into Yale.”
    Meg lifted her head and stared me square in the face, straight and serious. “Really?” I wasn’t sure which piece of news was more amazing to her.
    I opened my mouth to elaborate, thinking how strange it was that I could tell her about Joe but not David Kaufman. Suddenly we heard the familiar faint rumble that meant the train was rounding the soft bend toward the station. Meg stood up and grabbed her backpack.
    “Are you sure you want to go to Mary’s?” I asked. “Because you could come back to my house and stay with me as long as you need to. That way you wouldn’t have to miss school. Or put up with your sister.”
    Meg glanced at the train, all noise and slick metal, as it chugged up to the platform. Then she smiled at me and threw her backpack over her shoulder, leading the way back up the stairs to my car.

Chapter Thirty-four

    T wo days later, Meg and I had just gotten home from school when Mr. Mita knocked on our door, holding a four-foot-tall Christmas tree in a pot.
    “I remember your mother always got these live ones,” he said, and we all glanced out the window toward the edge of the front lawn, rimmed with Christmas Trees Past in various stages of survival.
    Christmas was my mother’s holiday. Although she was half-Jewish, it was what they’d